classical music and "elitism"

[chadfeldheimer]

I guess some people will call everyone "elitist" who insist that there is some sense (and a set of plausible criteria) according to which, say, Mozart's last symphony is (obviously and clearly) superior to everything by Britney Spears. Actually, it's also superior to more sophisticated Rock music like e.g. "The Wall" or whatever.

Well, in terms of dancability Britney Spears might be superior. 

The idea that there could be such a thing as objective aesthetic criteria is rather foreign to our time and age. Many people implicitly use such criteria, but when challenged they will say that it is only their personal taste.

I think sometimes such criteria are quite useful and for science they are even a must.

[NorthNYMark]

I guess some people will call everyone "elitist" who insist that there is some sense (and a set of plausible criteria) according to which, say, Mozart's last symphony is (obviously and clearly) superior to everything by Britney Spears. Actually, it's also superior to more sophisticated Rock music like e.g. "The Wall" or whatever.

The idea that there could be such a thing as objective aesthetic criteria is rather foreign to our time and age. Many people implicitly use such criteria, but when challenged they will say that it is only their personal taste.

For an interesting discussion of something like "objective aesthetic criteria," Kant's Critique of Judgment is a good (and traditional) place to begin.  He believed that a judgment of aesthetic taste, by definition, could not be based on objective criteria, because it would then belong to the realm pure or practical reason (i.e., logic or ethics)--in other words, what would distinguish such a judgment as "aesthetic" in the first place?  On the other hand, he also said that such a judgment could not be completely subjective to the extent that it would depend on each person's idiosyncratic preferences (for example, disliking a painting of a cow because you just happen to dislike cows, or the shade of brown with which they are painted), since that would be completely different for everyone and unworthy of serious discussion.  Rather, he argued, aesthetic judgment is a kind of "disinterested" response (in that you try to bracket out your own individual preferences, as well as any objective knowledge or sense of moral purpose) that you experience as if it were objective, though you know it's really not.

Whether his conception makes sense to us or not, it is an interesting starting point (and is very helpful in understanding Bourdieu's argument that I mentioned above).  Just out of curiosity--what do you think objective criteria for aesthetic judgments should be based on?

[NorthNYMark]

I agree, assuming a particular set of (unspoken) criteria can really be a distinctive mark for snobbery, but I think it does not have to be, at least in the case that everone knows the criteria and hence no one is excluded. Then it would perhaps only serve to ease the communication.

BTW: The book from Bourdieu you mentioned in a prior post seems very interesting to me - I think about purchasing it.

I agree, except that the "unspoken" aspect is normally what anchors the snobbery and makes it possible in the first place.  The reason that we are loathe to explicitly state the reasons why Mozart is supposedly "superior" to Britney Spears or Pink Floyd is that doing so (for example, "Mozart is superior because his work contains more harmonic and/or contrapuntal complexity, and such complexity is superior because ...") takes the judgment out of the realm of taste and the aesthetic and into something more open to objective debate (and more like politics, perhaps).  As I understand it, snobbery depends on having a sense of superior taste that really isn't open to being proven true or false, but something one "just has."  Making the criteria explicit makes it all too democratic for an elitist.

[Jo498]

I think nowadays most people without knowledge of Kant or similar philosophical discussions take "subjective" to mean "idiosyncratic personal preferences" which is, as you point out, not at all what Kant's quasi-objective disinterested delight (how is this rendered in translation "interesseloses Wohlgefallen") is supposed to be. As I understand it, Kant's point is that the aesthetic qualities are not in a strong sense objective truths about a thing as shape/weight etc (on the one hand and instrumental goodness for an end or moral goodness on the other). They arise in a particular interaction of the faculties of sense and knowledge with the object, but because of the disinterestedness they are strongly intersubjective and do not depend on personal preferences (I think Kant says something like "general, but not (logically/demonstrably) universal" judgments)

Admittedly, I find this more interesting (and it is a brilliant fitting of aesthetics into Kant's system) than plausible. E.g., often we seem to care too passionately about art to be really disinterested. In any case, Kant is tackling the problem in a highly abstract manner (he is as much concerned with beauty and sublimity in nature as in art, e.g.), so it might be hard to get criteria for actual aesthetic judgments out of it. Of course there are a few hints. When we describe e.g. some passages of Beethoven or Bruckner as "sublime" we can connect this with the feeling of immeasurable power, vastness, the infinite as Kant does in his discussion of the sublime. And beautiful things evoke a sense of the fitting of parts seamlessly, of an organic/functional unity, but without serving an actual function etc. which could also be connected to Kant.

But to get more concrete, I think one has to be more modest. The criteria are often not so general, but stem from a cultural background, more or less from the complete historical development of Western Art Music (WAM, also Mozart's initials ) And it is not so easy to get anything clear cut, because during the development often the most original or even revolutionary music departs from the "rules" governing the average music of the age. Most of the criteria we usually cite: part-whole-cohesion, "logical" development, complexity have to be balanced with each other and with contradicting ones, e.g. spontaneity, surprising or original features, getting to the point without meandering etc. There is comparably "simple" music, e.g., Schubert Lieder, that is deemed more convincing and relevant than highly complex music (say Reger's string quartets).

And of course, if an external criterion like "music you can dance to" is used, the evaluation will be different.

In any case, nowadays it seems almost provocative to claim anything beyond idiosyncratic taste could be said about aesthetic experiences. So it's not just a specific set of criteria that might be contested, but the very idea that there could be more than personal preferences or sociological causes, like snobbism etc.

[jochanaan]

...Funny story: a friend of mine once tagged along with me to a concert in Edinburgh, and was a bit embarassed at how underdressed we were compared to most of the audience. When she mentioned this to me, I was able to point to a guy in shabby jeans and a leather jacket and say "nah, we're dressed about the same as the guy who wrote the next piece on the program."

[jochanaan]

...People looking for more out of music than factory pop.

...which describes most of us here.   Does that indeed make us elitists?

[chadfeldheimer]

I agree, except that the "unspoken" aspect is normally what anchors the snobbery and makes it possible in the first place.  The reason that we are loathe to explicitly state the reasons why Mozart is supposedly "superior" to Britney Spears or Pink Floyd is that doing so (for example, "Mozart is superior because his work contains more harmonic and/or contrapuntal complexity, and such complexity is superior because ...") takes the judgment out of the realm of taste and the aesthetic and into something more open to objective debate (and more like politics, perhaps).  As I understand it, snobbery depends on having a sense of superior taste that really isn't open to being proven true or false, but something one "just has."  Making the criteria explicit makes it all too democratic for an elitist.

Yes - in that regard the snob's reason for not speaking about criteria for judging e.g. Mozart's music would be not to disenchant his superior taste, right? In my post the reason was rather to hold an advantage of knowledge, that should not be revealed to people who don't have it, in order to be able to continue feeling superior to them.

[chadfeldheimer]

@Jo498
Agreed - not everything in music can be judged on basis of specific criteria. I think this is one of the reasons, why music is still so attractive. 

In any case, nowadays it seems almost provocative to claim anything beyond idiosyncratic taste could be said about aesthetic experiences. So it's not just a specific set of criteria that might be contested, but the very idea that there could be more than personal preferences or sociological causes, like snobbism etc.

Why do you think it to be almost provocative to claim anything beyond idiosyncratic taste? Because the suspicion of being a snob is lurking? Did the society get hypersensitive against snobism?

[Ken B]

...which describes most of us here.   Does that indeed make us elitistse?

Better question

[Jo498]

Yes, society may be hypersensitive against certain kinds of snobism. It also became anti-intellectual in many ways (the latter is much more obvious in the US). Classical Music and Opera fare worst, maybe because they were most obviously associated with upper-class snobism or because they seem particularly old-fashioned, artificial and irrelevant. And dead white males dominate the field even more than other art forms... Opera and symphonic concerts are also the most expensive, because you often need a LOT of qualified people to perform it, some of them very well paid.
Just look at the comments someone quoted in another thread with the former rock critic turning to classical.

Another, more philosophical reason may be that many people think only stuff that can be quasi-scientifically measured can be objective at all. This is a viable position, but one usually gets rather vulgarized versions of it.

[NorthNYMark]

Yes - in that regard the snob's reason for not speaking about criteria for judging e.g. Mozart's music would be not to disenchant his superior taste, right? In my post the reason was rather to hold an advantage of knowledge, that should not be revealed to people who don't have it, in order to be able to continue feeling superior to them.

Yes, I think it is something very different from keeping knowledge from the masses in order to maintain superiority.  What I think is more central to what I see as elitism is the notion that what is "superior" about Mozart is something that cannot be explained concretely without trivializing it--from such a perspective, simply to ask the question of what makes Mozart superior is to demonstrate an inherent lack of taste.  True snobs, as I see it, do not believe themselves to be superior due to education or circumstances, but due simply to having been born with that "special something."  They don't believe taste can be taught, or its criteria explained concretely.  To use a very visible example, art world elites tend to reject audio-tours when they visit museums, often viewing them as distasteful, because they believe the idea of explaining art is in some fundamental way to miss the point of the aesthetic experience (and as an art historian, I struggle with this tendency myself, despite knowing that additional background information need not interfere with any aesthetic experience I may wish to have in front of the work).

[NorthNYMark]

I think nowadays most people without knowledge of Kant or similar philosophical discussions take "subjective" to mean "idiosyncratic personal preferences" which is, as you point out, not at all what Kant's quasi-objective disinterested delight (how is this rendered in translation "interesseloses Wohlgefallen") is supposed to be. As I understand it, Kant's point is that the aesthetic qualities are not in a strong sense objective truths about a thing as shape/weight etc (on the one hand and instrumental goodness for an end or moral goodness on the other). They arise in a particular interaction of the faculties of sense and knowledge with the object, but because of the disinterestedness they are strongly intersubjective and do not depend on personal preferences (I think Kant says something like "general, but not (logically/demonstrably) universal" judgments)

Admittedly, I find this more interesting (and it is a brilliant fitting of aesthetics into Kant's system) than plausible. E.g., often we seem to care too passionately about art to be really disinterested. In any case, Kant is tackling the problem in a highly abstract manner (he is as much concerned with beauty and sublimity in nature as in art, e.g.), so it might be hard to get criteria for actual aesthetic judgments out of it. Of course there are a few hints. When we describe e.g. some passages of Beethoven or Bruckner as "sublime" we can connect this with the feeling of immeasurable power, vastness, the infinite as Kant does in his discussion of the sublime. And beautiful things evoke a sense of the fitting of parts seamlessly, of an organic/functional unity, but without serving an actual function etc. which could also be connected to Kant.

But to get more concrete, I think one has to be more modest. The criteria are often not so general, but stem from a cultural background, more or less from the complete historical development of Western Art Music (WAM, also Mozart's initials ) And it is not so easy to get anything clear cut, because during the development often the most original or even revolutionary music departs from the "rules" governing the average music of the age. Most of the criteria we usually cite: part-whole-cohesion, "logical" development, complexity have to be balanced with each other and with contradicting ones, e.g. spontaneity, surprising or original features, getting to the point without meandering etc. There is comparably "simple" music, e.g., Schubert Lieder, that is deemed more convincing and relevant than highly complex music (say Reger's string quartets).

And of course, if an external criterion like "music you can dance to" is used, the evaluation will be different.

In any case, nowadays it seems almost provocative to claim anything beyond idiosyncratic taste could be said about aesthetic experiences. So it's not just a specific set of criteria that might be contested, but the very idea that there could be more than personal preferences or sociological causes, like snobbism etc.

What a thoughtful and provocative post!  It seems to me that we are interpreting Kant in pretty much the same way.  I also agree that his criteria for purely aesthetic judgments may not actually be practicable (i.e., is it really possible for us to bracket out both our individual gratifications and any utilitarian or ethical concerns from our judgments?  What is left in that in-between space?). I also agree on how you interpret both beauty and the sublime.

Where I'm a bit uncertain as to whether we agree is on the question of the relationship between objectivity and aesthetics in general.  To me, one either agrees with Kant that aesthetic judgment is neither fully objective nor fully subjective, but "quasi-objective" as you put it--and would therefore be open to Bourdieu's critique of Kantian disinterest (i.e., if a hungry man makes a bad food critic, then food criticism (and, by extension, any sort of aesthetic criticism) is by definition restricted (or at least more accessible) to those free of material need. 

On the other hand, if one thinks Kant is wrong, and that truly objective factors can play a role in aesthetic judgment, then one should have no trouble identifying the objective factors at play. In the case of Mozart's supposed superiority to Britney Spears and Pink Floyd, for example, one could say that Mozart is objectively superior to either of them if the criteria for "superiority" involve thematic development or use of counterpoint.  However, I rarely hear people making such claims about Mozart's superiority, and I think it is because they feel that to reduce it to such objective criteria diminishes the simple force of a statement like,"Surely you cannot deny the obvious [universal?] superiority of Mozart!" (which is essentially how I read the original instance of the example). They may also realize that any such criteria are themselves open to charges of arbitrariness (why, for example, would we presume that lengthy thematic development or elaborate counterpoint make music superior to music that doesn't feature those characteristics)? It's far easier (and more socially effective, from an elitist's point of view) just to make Kantian pronouncements of taste than to try to defend claims of objective superiority.  Hence, Bourdieu's argument that Kantian aesthetics are a remarkably effective weapon in the process of social distinction.

(For me, I guess I just refuse to make claims about what is and isn't aesthetically "superior" or "better" unless I am willing to be open about my specific criteria, even if I may personally experience something that feels like a Kantian response to some works now and then).

[jochanaan]

... In the case of Mozart's supposed superiority to Britney Spears and Pink Floyd, for example, one could say that Mozart is objectively superior to either of them if the criteria for "superiority" involve thematic development or use of counterpoint.  However, I rarely hear people making such claims about Mozart's superiority...

We might come a little closer to the multicolored, multifaceted truth if we say that Mozart's work, or Bach's or Beethoven's or any of the other Great Masters for that matter, has thematic development, contrapuntal virtuosity, and the like, and STILL manages to draw a positive sensual, emotional and spiritual response from many folks.

[jochanaan]

Quote from: jochanaan on Today at 08:34:29 AM: "...which describes most of us here.   Does that indeed make us elitistse?

Better question

Well, I certainly don't get PAID like a member of the elite!

[Ken B]

Quote from: jochanaan on Today at 08:34:29 AM: "...which describes most of us here.   Does that indeed make us elitistse? ???Well, I certainly don't get PAID like a member of the elite!

You need to be part of the Met Opera Chorus.

[NorthNYMark]

We might come a little closer to the multicolored, multifaceted truth if we say that Mozart's work, or Bach's or Beethoven's or any of the other Great Masters for that matter, has thematic development, contrapuntal virtuosity, and the like, and STILL manages to draw a positive sensual, emotional and spiritual response from many folks.

Good point! 

[Jo498]

Where I'm a bit uncertain as to whether we agree is on the question of the relationship between objectivity and aesthetics in general.  To me, one either agrees with Kant that aesthetic judgment is neither fully objective nor fully subjective, but "quasi-objective" as you put it--and would therefore be open to Bourdieu's critique of Kantian disinterest (i.e., if a hungry man makes a bad food critic, then food criticism (and, by extension, any sort of aesthetic criticism) is by definition restricted (or at least more accessible) to those free of material need. 

I do not have a theory of aesthetics. I think Kant is right in identifying aesthetic judgment as a particular mode of cognition. It is simply a different way of judging if I state: "That's a cadence in D major" or "That's beautiful". Still I think there are objective properties of beautiful things that are possible causes for such judgments. And I think Kant is somewhat to general or incomplete, because he does not say much of the cultural background which is important for works of art and the actual criteria implicitly used for judging them.

On the other hand, if one thinks Kant is wrong, and that truly objective factors can play a role in aesthetic judgment, then one should have no trouble identifying the objective factors at play. In the case of Mozart's supposed superiority to Britney Spears and Pink Floyd, for example, one could say that Mozart is objectively superior to either of them if the criteria for "superiority" involve thematic development or use of counterpoint.  However, I rarely hear people making such claims about Mozart's superiority, and I think it is because they feel that to reduce it to such objective criteria diminishes the simple force of a statement like,"Surely you cannot deny the obvious [universal?] superiority of Mozart!" (which is essentially how I read the original instance of the example). They may also realize that any such criteria are themselves open to charges of arbitrariness (why, for example, would we presume that lengthy thematic development or elaborate counterpoint make music superior to music that doesn't feature those characteristics)? It's far easier (and more socially effective, from an elitist's point of view) just to make Kantian pronouncements of taste than to try to defend claims of objective superiority.  Hence, Bourdieu's argument that Kantian aesthetics are a remarkably effective weapon in the process of social distinction.

I do not doubt that elitists act or argue in such a way but think this would be an abuse (to some extent) of the Kantian aesthetics. Kant may not be an egalitarian in the modern sense and he would probably agree that one has to learn to become a tasteful person (one with a good faculty of aesthetic judgment) by being exposed to beautiful things and forming habits (another big Bourdieuan point I guess). And I think he explicitly says somewhere that there are no "rules" for beauty, otherwise we would not need creative genius to produce great art, so there is always something "unanalysable" about beauty. Which agrees with his idea that the cognitive faculties are engaged in such a way in the aesthetic mode that the do not come to an end as opposed to scientific/everyday factual judgments (like "this statue is made of copper"). But the "disinterestedness" seems to imply that everybody can enter the mode of aesthetic judgment. I am not sure if the example with the hungry person who will not be a gourmet should be generalized. One could be hungry and appreciate the beauty of a building. But a civil engineer will regard a bridge differently whether he looks at it in "professional mode" or in "aesthetic mode"; I understand the hungry person example similarly.
Because of the quasi-objectivity I think Kant would say that everybody can learn to have good taste and while one can not demonstrate rigorously that something is beautiful one can point out features and give other hints.

I agree that it seems somehow evasive if one points out that e.g. the Mozart symphony is complex and has lots of other features like counterpoint, is emotionally varied etc. and therefore aesthetically more rewarding. These may be necessary (I am not even sure about that), but certainly not sufficient features. Arbitrary they are not, if one takes, as I suggested above, the position of Mozart in the history of music. Of course this should maybe used only as a point of departure from which one then would try to reach more universal features. It makes comparisons of Mozart with not only Britney Spears but also with Cage or Machaut difficult (as they probably should be, because they are from such different historical backgrounds).

Without a doubt this is difficult and there is a lot of handwaving involved. But being difficult is not a good reason not to try

[chadfeldheimer]

Yes, society may be hypersensitive against certain kinds of snobism. It also became anti-intellectual in many ways (the latter is much more obvious in the US). Classical Music and Opera fare worst, maybe because they were most obviously associated with upper-class snobism or because they seem particularly old-fashioned, artificial and irrelevant. And dead white males dominate the field even more than other art forms... Opera and symphonic concerts are also the most expensive, because you often need a LOT of qualified people to perform it, some of them very well paid.
Just look at the comments someone quoted in another thread with the former rock critic turning to classical.

Yes - I also notice some hypersensitivity against snobism and anti-intellectualism, especially in certain parts of the society. For example I think it is relatively wide-spread among people from the "working-class", which could be a reason, why this group of people is underrepresented at classical concerts.

Another, more philosophical reason may be that many people think only stuff that can be quasi-scientifically measured can be objective at all. This is a viable position, but one usually gets rather vulgarized versions of it.

Do you mean another reason why classical music does not get the respect it deserves?

[chadfeldheimer]

Yes, I think it is something very different from keeping knowledge from the masses in order to maintain superiority.  What I think is more central to what I see as elitism is the notion that what is "superior" about Mozart is something that cannot be explained concretely without trivializing it--from such a perspective, simply to ask the question of what makes Mozart superior is to demonstrate an inherent lack of taste.  True snobs, as I see it, do not believe themselves to be superior due to education or circumstances, but due simply to having been born with that "special something."  They don't believe taste can be taught, or its criteria explained concretely.  To use a very visible example, art world elites tend to reject audio-tours when they visit museums, often viewing them as distasteful, because they believe the idea of explaining art is in some fundamental way to miss the point of the aesthetic experience (and as an art historian, I struggle with this tendency myself, despite knowing that additional background information need not interfere with any aesthetic experience I may wish to have in front of the work).

Yes - people that consider themselves as superior by birth are also in my opinion the worst kind of snobs. Thereby those IQ-tests come to my mind, that should allegedly be able to measure your inborn intelligence. There is also a club called Mensa of people that passed such tests with 130+ or so points (average is defined to be 100) and therefore feel intellectually superior to most others. A former collegue of mine was member in that club and he was spending much of his free time solving exercises from intelligence tests. Maybe he was afraid that his next test could have been below 130. But if really the inborn intelligence was measured, practicising would have no effect, or?

[Karl Henning]

Yes - I also notice some hypersensitivity against snobism and anti-intellectualism, especially in certain parts of the society.

Yes, and there is a kind of "reverse snobbery" . . . of people who are "proud" that they don't know that "high-falutin'" stuff . . . .