Taking Sides: Objective vs. Subjective

so you have allegedly defined a closed system for music analysis? do you have a little dissection kit too? i hope you practice good antisepsis techniques with your stereo.

Closed system? Please. Simply drawn the distinctions which make meaningless the abtruse, frequent, and meaningless debate about intentionality in art.

OK, responding to Phil in the other thread. The main thing you say you're defending, Phil, is that "we have to recognize that the work exists as a bounded entity with specific content, and that that content precludes, or fails to establish grounds for, certain conclusions and critical interpretations." What I'm against is the idea you seem to be expressing that the work stands alone, as far as its meaning is concerned - that it's all contained in the work. I hope you'll agree that it's a fairly uncontroversial point that this is not the case - the stuff (musical, lyrical, etc.) that makes up a piece of music gets its meaning from all kinds of places, candidates for which include: the formal structure of the work, the meanings of words, phrases, and speech inflections, societal standards, biographical information about the performers, personal context the listener brings to the song... all of it. Maybe you'll say that I include too much in there - that there's some smaller subset of those factors that can give us the "objective" base from which all the more personal criticism must flow. But from where, for example, do the cadences in tonal music derive their effectiveness? In part, from the fact that they're well-established as cadences (there's some this-sounds-resolved-to-humans stuff in there as well, but a lot of it has to do with the contingent cultural facts, which one may be more or less aware of). The upshot is that whatever it is you're calling the "objective existence of the work" isn't just pits on a cd, or notes on paper, or whatever. We can't analyze that and say what it means WITHOUT the other stuff you seem to be (? not sure since I don't know what the 'obj existence of the work' is) wanting to demote in importance.

This is NOT the same thing as "believing that anything can mean anything." (But yes - maybe it is. But it takes a LOTTA WORK to change something's meaning like that, the way you seem to be meaning.) All of this other stuff must be negotiated well in order for people to think a criticism of the work comes off OK or not.

The example Phil used of a student defending their own trivial reading of Dante as an example of the evil of absolute relativsm struck me as a bit meaningless actually - of course the student can do this, but even in more gung-ho subjectivist classes if their reading isn't clever and relevant they're not gonna pass the course. People's interpretations usually have to be believable before they become accepted.

That student -- if that's what Dante means to him, if that's how the work impacted him, well, then, you can't tell him how he's supposed to FEEL about something. If I was his prof -- I'd ask him to find those things in the text which led to his reading, then find how the enviornment in which Dante worked and Dante's own authorial existance led to the creation of those things in the text. Then you can read how the *differing* enviornments of production and reception led to this. If we study texts only as they were created, we kill their vitality. If we study texts only as they are read, we kill their independant existence.

Isn't insisting on the validity of your subjective reading of something self-limiting though? Take that leap of faith to build new connections!

Aha! Tarden (now dave p?) raises an excellent point. Does reading = response, or is a "reading" more complex than simply the immediate and visceral response? I think we should differentiate between the two, and use reading to mean the broader, deeper understanding reached when seeking causality for not only YOUR response, but the responses of others as well.

Jesus Christ. Insufferable cunts. Are you not missing the point slightly? Not just the point of music, but the point of, you know, being alive and functioning as a happy, healthy, balanced human being?

Or at least trying to get as near to that state as possible in this fucked-up world.

The 'author' provides the ingredients of meaning, and the 'reader' moulds those ingredients into a form that only they can create, based upon their own individual, unique life experiences and tools of interpretation which arise from those life experiences - ie; subjective interpretation of objective phenomena, or something.

Music, art, film, philosophy, Coronation Street, whatever - these things only have worth if they help you live you life more happily. The is no objectivity in the human consciousness, because it is just that - a consciousness. We are not omniscient, and so objectivity is a crock. All we have to work with is shared territory of emotional responses to things, and our ability to supercede emotional reactions with intellectual thought, and therebye drag ourselves out of savagery.

I'm babbling shit. But so are you lot.

I thought this forum was meant to be about music, not pseudo- intellectual attempts at self-aggrandisement, which is what this looks like to a casual observer.

This is sick.

The Super Furry Animals LP is good, but the Spiritualized LP is much better.

Fuckers.

Heh.

i have a feeling i'm going to be experiencing deja vu soon

'We are not omniscient' - what a fantastic paradox!

I know what you mean.

Sterling:

Not sure if this came from you, but I think two very different things are being conflated on the "subjectivity" side. In the literary world -- (because I hope everyone here realizes that they're having the same debate that's fueled 90% of literary academia for the past fifty years) -- they're differentiated as "Reader-Response Theory" and flat-out "Poststructuralism." They can't both go on the "subjectivity" side as interchangable, and here's why:

"Reader-Response" theory is closer to the kid throwing out the ridiculous interpretation of Dante. It doesn't, as a theory, attempt to validate the kid's interpretation -- it simply posits that the end result or utility of a piece of art is that it provokes a response in an observer, and therefore that response should be the subject of study. It's sort of conducting an objective analysis of a film by watching the audience more than the film. If they, say, gasp, then surprise has been achieved. This cadre would probably argue that the author's intent to create the gasp is somewhat irrelevant to them -- what is important is that here is a piece of art which makes people gasp. You can argue that this isn't a good basis for the study of art, but you can't really argue that it doesn't make sense in and of itself.

The other school -- more along the lines of what Josh was saying -- is probably best summed up by Foucault's (I think) statement that it's impossible to develop a coherent and stable interpretation of any text. This is another one that's sort of self-evident, if you feel like following its logic. Take, for example, Ivanhoe, a straightforward Medieval romance whose imagery somehow became the model for the Klan in the American south. Or Gone With the Wind, which was taken very much at face value upon its publication, but now can't be interpreted without taking into account its depiction of slavery, or would read quite differently in Moscow as compared to Savannah. Or take the fact that while Dickens once read as somewhat lowbrow, he now reads as quite highbrow. Take anything -- the point is that context changes, signification changes, the semiotics of a thing are as bound to change as our culture is. Foucault would say that the interpretation we favor at any given time is simply a function of power and the interpretations of those who weild it. Which is again somewhat self-evident: Gone With the Wind wasn't viewed as potentially offensive until that point at which the mainstream of America became sensitized to such issues, based on a slow process of sociopolitical action introducing that particular "discourse."

When you spend all of your time working through these things in the literary sense -- the amounts of tenure-grabbing writing devoted to these issues are absolutely mind-boggling -- you grow suspicious of anyone who advances a particular critical discourse as the proper one. I prefer to think of each of them -- the two above and the many, many others -- as potential tools for examining a text, all of which can safely be used in congress with one another. It's not as if one of them has to be right.

Oh, and Southall: if you don't like the thread, push off.

But don't be surprised to learn that the vast majority of the decisions that shape the world are predicated on discussions such as this one. Your attitude -- "stop thinking and just do" -- is what makes the world safe for fascism.

I'm with Nitsuh. In this, as in the Breadth v Depth question, it seems like you really want lots of both. But you should try to understand the difference. The "girls with guitars" discussion is particularly plagued, in my opinion, by people claiming that music they don't like (subjectively) is bad (objectively).

I'm a bit concerned that this thread is going to take up far too much of my day off...between that, and the fact that I just woke up, I'm going to try to be concise (ha!).

Josh: Let me try rephrasing my stance in a different way:

The thing that's absolutely indispensable to a critical evaluation (no matter how incomplete) of a work is...the work itself.

If we found a manuscript in the basement of some obscure monastery, written in Latin, of unknown authorship and date, and with no clues as to its origins, we could conceivably engage in worthwhile critical examination of said manuscript. We'd certainly be the poorer for not knowing anything about it beyond what little we could infer, but we've got the work itself. Whereas there are numerous Greek and Latin texts about which we have scads of information -- contemporary criticism, plenty of information about their authors and the times of their composition and the historical context in which they were created and received -- but the works themselves are lost, so no criticism is possible. Unethical writers aside, you can't criticize an album you haven't heard.

Having said that, do I think "the work stand[s] alone"? No. Like the printed word, music is written in a language which must be shared by its audience in order to be fully comprehensible. To use the literary analogy, if you can't read Sumerian, you can't understand Gilgamesh without a translation -- and if you don't know Sumerian idiom, a literal translation won't make much sense. These factors are prerequisites -- things you need to know for the work to be intelligible, and which are implicitly carried with the work (though not, I think, a part of it as such).

The line between what makes a prerequisite, though, and what could be called "helpful/illuminating additional information", is very blurry. It's certainly blurry in literary criticism -- for one, the question of how much you need to know about a work's allusions (or references, etc.) to really understand it has never really been put to rest. Though, of course, it never will be put to rest, because the question implies a false binary -- "really understanding" versus its opposite, "not really understanding". Just because Conductor X doesn't know that the third movement of Composer Z's trombone concerto was meant to be a musical representation of the Holocaust doesn't necessarily mean that X's rendition can't be superior to the more-informed Conductor Y's rendition. On the other hand, if you're reading Renaissance love poetry and you don't know that "to die" often means something rather more pleasant, you're missing an aspect of the reading that's fully intentional and arguably rather crucial -- and any interpretation you're going to make is likely to be largely incorrect. The point is that it's not wholly binary, and that the definition of what constitutes a prerequisite is certainly arguable for any given work.

In music, it's even more difficult to work out, because many of the relationships can be intuitively understood. Musical sound is not inherently representational -- in other words, the pitch sequence A-flat - D - F-sharp does not have a specific representational meaning in the same way that "to die" does -- and the assimilation of a musical vocabulary can be largely, or even (conceivably) entirely, non-linguistic. On top of that, there are certain acoustic relationships which do objectively exist. The role of the fifth in Western music (and many other kinds of music) has its basis in an acoustical phenomenon -- it's not a purely arbitrary thing that it's a normative sonority. The corollary, then, is that there are, in fact, certain things that are extrapolatable from an "alien" piece of music that will never be derived in the same way from an "alien" vocabulary. To put it differently, if we're ever visited by extra-terrestrials, I would be willing to bet a few dollars that, while their spoken communication might be wildly different from that of humankind, their native instrumental folk music would make (or would have, at one time in their history, made) heavy use of fifths and other relationships based on the harmonic series.

I don't think cadences are, in fact, quite as arbitrary or purely contextual as you might think, because I do think they reflect a fundamental acoustical relationship that is implicit in the very act of making sound, and the choice to use them or not to use them tells us something significant about the priorities of a type of music (and arguably its access to techniques of contrapuntal sophistication). Of course the way in which they're used is wholly a product of historical events and the influence of individual composers, etc. -- to claim otherwise (in other words that it's all been teleological and inevitable) smacks of the musical version of Deutschland über alles. But I do think that there is some truth -- though it's a VERY limited perspective -- to the argument that the developments in Western music over the last millennium could be to some extent characterized as an exploration of the higher partials of the harmonic series, and of the normalization of more and more remote relationships therein.

So it's both things, really, set in a permanent dialectical opposition (am I using that phrase correctly?) that is forever irreconcilable, and happily so. The work exists both as a discrete, self-contained entity, AND as a nexus in a vast set of relationships, cultural and otherwise, to its origins and intended audience. (And I use the word "intended" very deliberately: an audience with a certain degree of understanding of the musical signifiers employed in the work. An audience who understands the "language" of the work, if you will, to a greater or lesser extent.)

What do you think?

Nitsuh:

To my mind, what both approaches are missing is the "intended audience" factor. As literary critics, our analysis should be a synthesis of a historical reading, where we interpret the signs and signifiers as we believe them to have been understood by an educated audience of the period, and a contemporary reading, in which we examine the relationship of those signs and signifiers to current mores/views/whatever. It's a dialectical opposition (jeez, I'm going to feel silly if I'm misusing that phrase), out of whose irresolvability comes an understanding that benefits from both readings (and avoids nose-in-the-air foolishness like, for instance, excoriating Shakespeare for racism or sexism).

Or I think so, anyway.

Oh for goodness sake: at work I printed out everything up to "insufferable cunts" in order to catch up with it on the bus home, then actually *spent* the bus-ride home gazing slack-jawed out at the pwitty houses, and now you've all gone and done MORE thinking! (well, more talking anyway, heh...)

Didn't that Southall fellow say that Embrace were GRATE on another thread? That explains a great many things.

Phil,

Sure -- that sort of "context of intended audience" thinking can't be left out of the equation, and at this juncture, I doubt you'd be able to find an undergraduate professor of literature whose work wasn't almost entirely comprised of that sort of New Criticism, close- reading school of analysis. Even de Man or Barthes or Foucault, if placed in a classroom with a bunch of 18 year old potential English majors from Ohio, would start there and work up to the poststructuralism.

But I'd take issue with your statement re: Shakespeare, because it's an attempt to impose your values on another person's analysis. If a person is heavily invested in issues of race and gender and sees Shakespeare's treatment of those issues as worthy of criticism, that isn't, in and of itself, foolish -- it's simply a different reading of the text based on attention to values you're not necessarily interested in. What you seem to be implying is not that such conclusions are indefensible, but that to you, said issues are secondary to Shakespeare's use of language or narrative or et cetera. Which is another perfectly fine argument. But if treatment of race and gender happen to be deal-breakers for someone who's particularly concerned with treatment of race and gender -- and if that person isn't necessarily saying that Shakespeare wasn't a fine poet in other, more linguistic senses -- then they're not necessarily being any more foolish than you. They just happen to care about an aspect of the text that you don't attach as much importance to.

And note that we all have similar deal-breakers. Is anyone on this board going to say, "Sure, Skrewdriver was a Nazi band, but I love their first album for the music?" The "foolish nose-in-the-air" types just happen to have set the deal-breaking bar at a different point than the rest of us.

(addendum)

Again, really, an example of the fact that different readings can co- exist with one another and typically complement one another well. In your dialectical sense, Phil, we get:

(a) Shakespeare's texts are amazing.

(b) Shakespeare's texts are sexist/racist/imperialist/whatever.

(synthesis) Shakespeare lived in a sexist/racist/imperialist culture. Therefore those elements are present and should be noted and disdained in what are otherwise amazing texts.

"Even de Man or Barthes or Foucault":
De Man = not a post-structuralist
Barthes = not a post-structuralist (except insofar as he flourished structuralism for a while then dropped it)
Foucault = not really a post-structuralist, though I suppose sold as one in the early days (which just goes to prove that academic genre-tag fashions are possibly even more specious that techno genre-tag fashions)

(I know this was a shortcut to saying something else, and that PS = a shorthand for the "anything goes/reader trumps writer" mob. But the shorthand is actually a lie, when you get in there and read what any of em done and went and DID.)

As usual, I've read abt a quarter of one post, and that was by me.

Nitsuh,

I basically agree with you. My main objection is to the tendency, in certain critical spheres, to "judge" the moral character of past authors based on things in their work that don't jive with contemporary mores. Every generation has a tendency to believe itself the moral superior of all those that came before -- and history often shows such judgments as smacking of hubris, and the height of arrogance. I guess I'm thinking of, for instance, the first-year lit student who refuses to even read author X because of such factors (let alone being able to read author X historically, and with the abovementioned synthesis!).

If a Shakespearean critic of a high order suggests that certain plays are marred by elements of bigotry or sexism, then that's something that needs to be taken seriously, in part because it's coming from someone who presumably approaches Shakespeare's work with considerable understanding and an at least somewhat sympathetic eye. But as for soapboxing freshmen, I don't particularly care how the work makes them feel (at least in the context of their "judging" said work) until they have taken the time to understand the work on its own terms. I like the axiom that, when it comes to criticism (literary and otherwise), understanding needs to precede judgment: we should come to the great works expecting to learn, not to pass sentence. (Humility, baby!)

I also think that most "deal-breakers" can be expressed in terms of the success or failure of the work itself, without necessarily needing to invoke contemporary (i.e. current) mores. For instance, the Nazism that you cited is not just evil, but also intellectually bankrupt, which tends to make works based on its premises flawed from the start. A book written by a virulent racist or sexist will tend to describe certain characters in terms that destroy the verisimiltude of the book, and thus damage the interest of the narrative -- partly because, unlike prior generations, we do have the direct experience to know that group A does not, in fact, conform to stereotype B, and that (for instance) women don't generally swoon if you don't deprive them of oxygen with ridiculously tight corsets, so any plot which would depend on one's metaphysical certainty that women are "like that" is probably not going to age well. (If those references don't show up, it probably won't be much of a problem. Happily, not every Hemingway book is full of anti-homosexual polemics.)

I think that's technological progress and social change, though, and not necessarily moral improvement. Not that I'm saying that we haven't made progress -- I think we have. But I suspect it's best for future generations to decide how well we hold up against our predecessors.

So I agree with your addendum, though I might not use the word "disdained". I guess it depends on the egregiousness of the passages in question. My own preference is to see it, acknowledge it, recognize that it's incompatible with my own moral outlook and doesn't correlate with the world-as-I-know-it, try to understand why Shakespeare (for instance) wrote it and where he was coming from, evaluate the extent to which it undermines his credibility and why I feel that way -- and then, move on.

Phil,

That's a pretty good model for appreciating literature as an individual. Those other considerations, however, become important when people attempt to build a canon, and I think that's why these debates rage among academics and no one else: those who teach literature have to make important distinctions about what is worth teaching and what is not, and the "approach it on its own terms" begins to fail here. (You can't approach everything on its own terms, as you don't have time; you have to select that which is most "valuable.") And if you're reading from a canon-building viewpoint that is invested in certain moral issues, they become a perfectly valid basis for selection.

The other thing to remember -- the most important thing, really -- is that those sorts of critiques of literature aren't about literature in the sense that we normally think of it. Someone approaching Shakespeare from a feminist perspective, for example, shouldn't be seen as simply opposed to traditional readings of Shakespeare, because what he/she is doing is completely different: it is a very specific reading of how Shakespeare's texts fit into the intellectual history of sex and gender. If you go to an optometrist, you don't expect him to complement your cardiovascular condition or anything, do you? He's looking at your eyes.

Mark: I'm sure my tagging's completely off; I'm not particularly well-read in these areas. I was thinking of specific slogans, really: Barthes' "author is dead" and Foucault's "impossible to develop a coherent and stable interpretation." De Man, I think, just followed on all of the Nazi talk above. :)

Oh, plus, Phil: I'm not convinced that any artist working within an "intellectually bankrupt" worldview will necessarily create art that is bad in other respects, particularly with respect to things other than novels. In fact, I see absolutely no evidence of that. Elements of that "intellectually bankrupt" worldview may well be visible within their work, but as per your previous arguments, those elements may well be subordinate to their accomplishments in other areas.

My best example of this: Yukio Mishima. An excellent writer / a crazed nationalist. I wince when I read certain passages, but I cannot deny that however bankrupt his worldview, it is expressed with unparalelled precision and grace.

And I was just being an !|\|z|_|ff3r4bl3 z£1f- 466r4|\|d!z!|\|6 cu|\|+, cuz I'm too lazy to argue with/about the "big" stuff on a nice hot day like today, w. big brother only 20 mins off, so I pick teeny tiny holes in the non-relevant stuff instead. Yay me!!

Is anyone on this board going to say, "Sure, Skrewdriver was a Nazi band, but I love their first album for the music?"

Didn't I say this, in the Skrewdriver thread? If not, I meant to.

Anyone who holds the opinion that Embrace are great obviously has a finely tuned radar to all things passionate and true, as well as a having a discerning ear. Whereas anyone who holds the opinion that to "stop thinking and just do" -- is what makes the world safe for fascism might wonder whether that might be a tad oxymoronic? For these after all, *are* opinions.

If logic were the only weapon against fascism, then yes, Mr Southall would indeed be little help. But it's not. Nitsuh was snippy towards NS because NS shot his mouth off v. extremely rudely w/o actually reading (let alone understanding) any of what he was denouncing.

"Whereas anyone who holds the opinion that to 'stop thinking and just do' -- is what makes the world safe for fascism might wonder whether that might be a tad oxymoronic?" Elegant irony works better when it goes hand-in-hand with semi- adequate grammar: a sad reflection of a class-bound world.

My apologies for being illiterate and stupid. But I try me bestest.

I didn't say you were stupid. I thought you were over-ambitious.

Mo,

I realized that sounded a bit ambitious as soon as I posted it, but I decided not to correct because I honestly believe it's true. You say they're just "opinions," but that's not the case -- what Mr. Southall was criticizing was the fact that some of us even have opinions on certain matters, matters he deems to "pretentious" or "pseudo-intellectual" to merit any thought whatsoever. If that's qualifies as an opinion -- that whole "you shouldn't even talk about such things" argument -- it's not by more than a few millimeters.

It's essentially asking people to just react to things (e.g., "the new Spiritualized is good") as opposed to putting any critical thought into why they have the reactions they do. I'm not arguing that people should approach every since moment of their lives critically, but it certainly seems ridiculous to tell people not to, especially with regard to something as far-reaching and influential as the way we develop artistic canons.

As for fascism: isn't that lack of critical thought essential to the emergence of fascism, or totalitarianism in any form?

In any case, if Mr. Southall drops by again, here is the consequence of his logic:

Something has to be taught in literature courses. People are paying for them, after all. Please tell us, Mr. Southall, without recourse to any of the modes of speech you found so offensive here, how those decisions should be made? And please tell us how you'd defend your system against the inevitable objections of others?

Just noticed Southall's comment about "our ability to supercede emotional reactions with intellectual thought, and therebye drag ourselves out of savagery."

Which makes me think the post that started this whole argument was the oxymoronic one . . .

Granted, Mr Southall has a confrontational style. However, on something as ephemeral as the internet, it's all grist to the mill isn't it? It is for this reason that I put it down to opinion as opposed to orthodoxy.

Fascism: I have always been led to believe that fascism/totalitarianism was down to bigotry and intolerance. Unless all fascistic leaders have no critical faculty? In which case I am not qualified to comment.

Something has to be taught in literature courses. People are paying for them, after all. : This is hard for me to comprehend. I graduated in 1988 and I hope that most if not all that I was taught was intended to further my understanding of the physical world. In 1988, the UK had no student loans system nor tuition fees.

Nitsuh's distinction early on up there is a good one, and as he says, I'm shooting for the "impossible to develop a coherent and stable interpretation of any text" one. Because of that, I'm also suspicious of what Glenn hints at - that the distinction is merely one of "subjectivity" (raw "I do [not] like this") vs. "objectivity" ("it's good despite what anyone things"). Subjectivity in Glenn's sense is one of the things that infects, if you will, "objectivity" - which is additionally suspect because of the "coherent and stable" objection above.

What Phil goes on to say about parts of a work that are prerequisites for intelligibility seems solid to me, if hard to apply in practice. The talk that follows makes me think that I've couched my objection in the wrong terms, because what Phil is really peeved about is people "overinterpreting," offering criticisms that are not warranted somehow by the "work itself." I'm sympathetic to this; as someone who does philosophy of mathematics, I'm especially annoyed by people who use Godel's Incompleteness theorem to draw rash conclusions about things, because the matter of what exactly the theorem says or warrants us to say, beyond statements about sufficiently complex formal systems, is totally unclear - and most people overlook or deliberately obscure that lack of clarity. But my objections there are ones that carry different weight because of the fields involved: many of the arguments are, loosely, part of the domain of science, where the goals of argument include truth, accuracy of prediction, increased knowledge, etc. I'm not wholly convinced that the same holds for criticism of art.

Whether or not it does or not, it's important to recognize that a lot of criticism functions under the assumption that its goal is to somehow illuminate the work - not simply so that it can be appreciated more "correctly," but so that it can be better appreciated, in some way. This is a feature of both the extreme slash-and-burn kind of criticism Phil disapproves of, and of apparently more traditional criticism that tells us about the emotional effectiveness of a work, tells us why it's good, etc. A lot of criticism doesn't just talk about the formal content of a work, or what's on the lyrics sheet: it functions on the affective and metaphorical level. The main reason Phil seems to disapprove is that, as already mentioned, he doesn't think that the "work itself" warrants appreciation in these "other" ways. But as Nitsuh has pointed out, whether or not you think so depends on what things you value. Your values may be relatively neutral or standard in the greater cultural context, so it may not seem that you're doing so. Perhaps there's an important difference of degree, or kind; but I think you're doing the same thing as a feminist who "reads" the Ninth as a rape - she's just approaching it with a completely different set of values. I'm also sympathetic to Phil's objection, because it's this sort of criticism, especially in literature, that really bothers me. But I think Phil's argument is misguided, because I think it should probably be directed at the values the critic brings to the table: argue which ones he or she should be bringing, whether or not they're appropriate to the art form, etc. Phil already does something of this, when he talks about how intellectually bankrupt worldviews will "poison" a work (that's more complex, though, because it seems to allow Phil to avoid having to decide whether or not to value the art work "proper" over its moral aspects, by holding to a metaphysical/aesthetic principle that makes sure the bad moral aspects will always lead to bad - or at least worse - art). Hopefully it's not too obscure to say that the aforementioned feminist is doing much the same thing. Becuase of the lack of text (words proper this time, not a postmodern "text"), though, her criticism may seem a bit more far fetched because the moral and social principles behind it may be a lot more abstractly metaphysical - harder to pin down than just a song whose lyrics condone killing Jews, which we already believe to be wrong (the metaphysical baggage is sort of deemphasized).

Nitsuh has already said a lot of this I suppose but I just wanted to come at it from a slightly different angle. I think one key distinction that may need to be opened up is "what is criticism for?" - I suspect Phil wants it to be something sort of different from what I want.

Where to start...

Fascism. OK, while you lot sit around on your arses all day pontificating meaningless shit that is at best tangential to real life and at worst an excuse for avoiding it, I'll be outside campaigning against the BNP. Don't criticise my attitude when you don't know what it is. Fascism... Hmmm. Lovely word. Brings out the reactionary in people. Intellectual bigotry is closer than you think to it.

As for critical faculties and functions, I'm somewhere between Nietzsche and Heidegger on this one. A society is a rabble until it has a table of values, and one must make one's own table of values in order to balance oneself, to make oneself something other than an internal rabble. And I'm also rather fond of the idea of realising the nature of one's existential reality and self, the existence of Dasein, and the critical engagement with all aspects of one's existence. Because I think, in a roundabout way, that Neitzsche and Heidegger are heading towards the same thing, which is some kind of profound awareness of oneself and one's capabilities as an individual.

What would I like to see on literature courses? Keats and Blake, maybe. I don't care at the moment. I've just acquired £8,000 worth of debt getting a degree in Culture and Philosophy, so education is not one of my priorities at the moment. I'd try and slip back into that academic mind-set just to write something condescending and pious back, but I can't be arsed. I really can't. I keep seeing car crashes on a stretch of road I use every day, I keep reading obituaries of people I went to school with, I keep getting phone calls from african friends of mine in Stoke, worried about their safety because of rioting. And you're talking about 'objectivity versus subjectivity' like it matters?

Fuck.

Right.

Off.

I don't see how this is unimportant. I don't see why contributing to this thread would make person X unable to do anything you consider 'important', like campaigning against the BNP. I do see how Embrace are unimportant though.

I think you'll find that a lot more is important to, as far as I know, all of the people involved in this discussion, than you seem to think. What do you do in your spare time? Are you always out waving signs on protest lines? I doubt it. This is what I like to do with my spare time, because it's important to me. If that doesn't sit well with you, then may I respectfully say, don't read the thread if it irks you that much. Go protest; you're obviously wasting your time sitting at your computer, when you could be out gaining profound awareness of your self.

And you're talking about 'objectivity versus subjectivity' like it matters?

Ah, yes. So: car crashes matter, and are Real Life. But trying to understand music, and the way we think about it, doesn't and isn't.

I'm sure the three close friends from high school I've lost to auto accidents would agree with you. Especially since all of them were musicians, and certainly agreed that car crashes, and oh-so-charming-and-hip nihilism like your own, were More Important, and More Real Life, than the music they loved, and loved to talk about, and loved to try to understand.

If you really believe that philosophy and music don't matter, and rioting and car crashes are What's Important, then you'll no doubt get exactly the kind of life you deserve.

Not much more to add to what Josh and Phil have said, except that it truly *is* terribly interesting seeing how somebody who has only encountered the rest of us via a computer screen knows exactly what we are all about, is content to stereotype everyone, and in general replicates the attitude of all he claims to hate while pleading special dispensation because he thinks he is unique in feeling anger and angst. How quaint! How remarkable!

The forum was designed for discussion of the title topic -- attempts to complain that the forum was not designed for another topic in mind are by default laughable. Either participate on those grounds or, as Josh said, participate in other activities that would appear not to offend your sensibilities. I should idly note that there's no doubt a chat room off somewhere currently discussing N'Sync or something which would benefit from your going in there and lecturing to them about why they're not paying attention to what you're currently suffering.

Maybe N. Southall is re-framing the objective v. subjective debate in terms of important v. non-important. Interesting area to explore, if anyone here believes art is informed by artist's politics (and how said politics are expressed), which most people seem to.

i can't really add much more to what josh et al have already said, but, on a personal level, i think discussions like this, and discussions about music, and books etc etc are very important. its part of who i am, part of my life. the personal, and the specific, is always important.

as to objectivity vs subjectivity, i've always come down heavily on the side of subjectivity, and believed objectivity to be a minefield best avoided. i'm not sure how strongly i hold this view though, there's a wealth of fascinating stuff above, that i'm going to have to print off and read on the tube on the way home (too much to digest while at work!)

I'm still intrigued by Phil's mentioning of feminist readings of Shakespeare - I'd never assumed that an analysis of the text using the tools of patriachy was the motivation here; rather, vice versa, being the analysis of patriachy using the tools of the text. Shakespeare and the chosen work are not the subject so much as the device, so the end result (Shakespeare = sexist) is not as damning as it might initially seem.

Not to spend too much time on this:
i. Nick S: if you arrive all tooled up, and yell, "You are all insufferable pseudo- intellectual cunts for even daring to contribute an opinion to this topic and by the way here is MY OPINION which is self- evidently intellectually superior to anything you totalitarian bigots could possibly say," then you are going to encounter disrespectful response. Some places you would get dealt with quite roughly. It is silly and rude to accuse foax of faults that you then go on to demonstrate in identical or greater measure. ("self- aggrandising": yeah, right, ALL of us, but absolutely never ever you, Mr Somewhere Between Heidegger and Nietzsche...)
ii. Nitsuh is correct: use of the word "pseudo-intellectual" is at root a fascist spasm. It says "You [i.e. 'us', in this case] are absolutely not entitled even to attempt to participate in this activity. It is beyond your reach." Well, we ARE entitled, and you are not going to bully us into shutting up. You are also entitled, naturally. But if you simply pepper your contributions with whiny insults, then people will ignore you.

I think Mr Southall, in his own rather vitriolic and semi-incoherant way, is merely using this forum to vent spleen at the world in general, and has probably had his obvious anger and disillusion with the world compounded by the gross intellectual onanism that pervades this forum like a fart in a crowded lift.

Coming from the standpoint of a (largely) objective observer, I have to concede that it does seem rather sad for people to become so obsessed with dry and intellectual dissections of cultural phenomena, which seemingly manage to hoover (or Dyson, if you're posh) up all the passion, wonderment, and excitement out of the object of your discourse.

I quite like hazlenut chocolate. Analysing the chemical reactions of hazlenut chocolate on my tastebuds in an attempt to understand why I like it seems to me to be rather odd and futile, in much the same way as Baudrillard attempting to utilise mathematical formulae to explain cultural phenomena strikes me as being rather pointless and irrelevent. Isn't half the joy of these things derived from the mystery, from the lack of reason or logic that governs our idiosyncratic tastes?

And to accuse Mr Southall of being a 'nihilist' when he so clearly cares very passionately about something (though I'm not sure even he knows what) would appear to be simply erroneous.

As for fascism, well... I don't think that's something many, or probably any, people here are really qualified to talk about, unless one of us actually is a fascist, and cares to reveal their reasoning behind this, shall we say, 'lifestyle choice'.

I don't imagine we'll be hearing from Mr Southall again anyway. He obviously doesn't 'fit in' here, and to allow someone different from ourselves into the I Love Music clique would be unthinkable. I for one hate people who are different and passionate. They're so awkward to deal with.

Objective observer, hmm? I guess it's lucky for you that you're coming in from a dynamic IP address, so I can't really tell if you and Nick are both posting from AOL in the UK.

This forum encompasses, thanks to its varied and excellent posters of all sorts, a very disparate bunch of tastes in music and ways of talking about music. There are plenty of people around here who don't like (whatever) about other people around here - but they get along well. Of course most of us tend not to come raging into a thread calling everyone on it an insufferable cunt. And usually when people get out of hand they post some kind of apology, under their own e-mail address. And resisting the urge to slip in more snide remarks.

Apology?

OK, I'm sorry for barging in and calling everyone cunts.

But to suggest that I am a nascent fascist, or that my attitude is one that allows fascism to grow, is well out of order.

And you are all dull bastards. Insufferably dull.

And probably crap at sexing.

I wonder if astronomy forums ever get posters saying, "Who gives a shit how far away Proxima Centauri is! Stars look nice in the night sky! Quit jerking off with telescopes, you cunts!"

Crap analogy.

I think it's always a good idea to thrash ideas around, even if they're bad ones.

Phil, I think we're at the end of the line here, for the time being, and we won't work anything out this week, and it won't do you any good for me to keep probing you (I say as I prepare one final probe). I agree with Tom: the dog vomit might be relevant, but the passage doesn't make a compelling case for it. And Phil, I think you already have the tools to make good judgments about what's relevant or not, and if you want better tools all you need to do is extend the range of the ones you've got, or learn those of the writers you admire. You think you need principles to bolster you, whereas I think you're fine without them. And you think that your principles need a connection to what is irrefutably contained within the work, and I don't see how you make this jump.

I think we've all been the kid with the black eye in one way or another. And I know I'm being presumptuous, but I think the black eye has more to do with what's driving you in this discussion than anything having to do with the words "contain" or "objective." Isn't there the fear that if we don't have "objective" criteria then we're just throwing opinions at each other - or throwing fists - with no hope of resolution?

>>> I think you already have the tools to make good judgments about what's relevant or not, and if you want better tools all you need to do is extend the range of the ones you've got, or learn those of the writers you admire. You think you need principles to bolster you, whereas I think you're fine without them. And you think that your principles need a connection to what is irrefutably contained within the work, and I don't see how you make this jump.

Hey! - it's Frank Rorty!!

Are principles tools?

DQ, perhaps I mistyped, and meant to put "toes." I really can't tell anymore. Perhaps I'm being presumptuous again, since I don't really know the guy, but Phil probably has all the toes he needs. I'm no longer convinced, however, that it would be a good idea for Phil to learn the toes of people he admires. In fact, such a process might prove uncomfortable, not to mention embarrassing.

But anyway, "tools" is what I wrote, and maybe that means tools is what we're stuck with. So I checked the ultimate authority on the subject - the Microsoft Internet Explorer toolbar - to see what was comprised in "tool," and what I found were: "mail and news," "synchronize," "windows update," "show related links," and "internet options." No "principles," I'm sad to say; perhaps we can write Bill and petition for their inclusion.

Pinefox: You've pointed out another flaw in Mark S's claim that he'd "far rather discuss eg Nitsuh's or Phil's or Josh's or pinefox's or Frank K's theory than Derrida's." This assumes that there's such a thing as Frank K's theory.

Principles are tools and only tools but not all tools are prinicples

I was immensely pleased to discover Boston supermarkets still house HO JO fried clams. BUt they dont make shrimp.

I tend to think that analogies are better than generalizations, both aesthetically and intellectually, but here I've just made a generalization.

Frank, aren't analogies dependent on some degree of generalization (or the ability to perceive generalization) for their success? I.e., for something X' to be a good analogy for something X, there has to be something that both X and X' have in common so the analogy will be understood.

why does that involve a generalization? (are you going to take the route that goes like: noticing the similarity between x and x' involves coming up with the idea of a thing which is y, y having the same property that x and x' both have but none of the ones they don't share?)

ah, so this was the infamous 'insufferable cunts' thread!

Comparing aspects possessed by x and x' isn't in itself generalisation but the 'things' whose aspects are compared are more likely to be generalisations than specifics, e.g.: "x is just like riding a bike" as opposed to "x is just like that one time you rode a bike"

Sorry to revive this, looked interesting though - not read it all yet, it's a behemoth. Just wanted to take issue with mark s - where he has been wrong. Well, incorrect, or a shade of incorrect, or just not otm for once. He saidified:

[U]se of the word "pseudo-intellectual" is at root a fascist spasm. It says "You [i.e. 'us', in this case] are absolutely not entitled even to attempt to participate in this activity. It is beyond your reach."

Of course he is right, but that wasn't the way NS was using it (from my reading, based on his "don't think, do" outlook) - he was rather saying that "we [NS, mark s, Nitsuh, Ile, Ilm, Ilx] aren't capable of the dizzy heights to which this thread aspires - shut it, don't think, do!" It wasn't really a self-aggrandizer but rather a show- stopper. Of course this is irrelevant and the discussion moved on (miles on) but I thought I'd mention it. (cue: "self-aggrandizing git!")

Ignore that, I'm a fuckah, mark s said 'us' - he was entirely correct. I think.

haha in the buffy repeat last night giles was haunted by the demon eygoth, that he had raised as a wild teen in company with the evil ethan padgett, i mean ethan rayn: anyway this thread = eygoth and WHERE IS BUFFY?

Not here. Err, there! *Shimmys down the ILFireEscape*

Subjunctive!

josh = willow btw
mark s = cordelia
frank kogan = the first slayer

nevah seen that episode but I'm quite pleased

Is Josh Angry Lesbian Rock?

tho technically impossible for me to be the second at the moment I am more offended at the suggestion that I am the third; willing to assent to the first

Impossible for me to be the first slayer, as I am already the first guns n' roses.

Here is a weasel out of it nonanswer to Clarke (maybe to be followed someday by a potentially actual answer): think of "analogy" and "generalization" as comparative terms rather than super-duper- independent nothing-to-do-with-each-other mutually exclusive categories. So "generalization" means "a lot of things are very much like this" and "analogy" means "some things are somewhat like this," and you can push and pull "a lot" and "somewhat" into whatever shapes you need, depending on the conversation. The difference - Teena Marie once pointed this out - would be that with generalizations you believe that you're following rules ("it is a duck if it has six feathers and swims") whereas with analogies you're noticing similarities that you can never altogether specify ("if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck," which means that a duck is something that is similar enough to something else called a duck so that you call it a duck). Oh yeah, and think of "rule" and "similarity" as comparative terms rather than super-duper- independent nothing-to-do-with-each-other mutually exclusive categories.

Teena's idea, by the way, was aimed out our understanding of science, which she thinks of as an analogical activity rather than a methodical one: she believes that scientists in a particular field model what they do on previous scientific problems and solutions rather than follow a method universal to all of science. For instance, she argues that Aretha Franklin's concept of motion, in which "motion" meant "change in quality" or "change in state," worked via analogy, so a rock falling towards its place in the center of the universe was analogous to fire reaching towards its place at the periphery and to an acorn growing into an oak tree and a person recovering from an illness. That is, it was asymmetric change towards a particular final state. But "assymetric change" is a vague summary of a bunch of analogies rather than a rule that you can follow. Teena argues that revolutions in a science are changes in models/analogies, and that the old models are fundamentally incomensurable with the new. For instance, she argues that Stacey Q's concept of motion ("motion" meaning "change of place") did not preserve Aretha Franklin's but rather replaced it. For Stacey Q, a body in motion will stay in motion unless acted on by an outside force. This idea would have been unintelligible to Franklin, since it gives a radically different sense of motion, one that doesn't require change. And what makes the two models incommensurable (but not incomparable) is that there's no third thing - call it "what's really there" or whatever you want - to compare the two different models to. That is, you can either see a rock moving towards its place in the center of the universe, or a rock being pulled by the force of gravity, but there's no third thing (what would it be?) to measure these two models against.

Teena Marie draws on ideas of Mariah Carey. Mariah, using analogies very well herself, once wrote: "Imagine someone's saying: 'All tools serve to modify something. Thus the hammer modifies the position of the nail, the saw the shape of the board, and so on.' And what is modified by the rule, the glue-pot, the nails? - 'Our knowledge of a thing's length, the temperature of the glue, and the solidity of the box.' - Would anything be gained by this assimilation of expressions?-"

aimed out = aimed at

models measured against ability to account for phenomina and which they account for surely? this is why even Debbie Deb stands by Stacey Q in special circumstances, no?

"Measured against" may not be the best term, but what Teena was driving at was that the "ability to account for phenomena" doesn't really mean anything - certainly can't provide a common measure - when the phenomena that each model gives are different. Stacey Q's account of motion doesn't account for any of the phenomena that Franklin's does, because motion means different things to the two of them. Stacey can account for a body in motion staying in motion, but for Franklin that's not motion. And Stacey's laws of motion say nothing about how a sick man can return to health and an acorn can grow into a tree. Nonetheless, Stacey's laws triumphed over Franklin's (though were eventually superseded themselves).

So "incommensurable" might not have been the best term for Teena to use. But her basic point is dead on (and I think irrefutable). She's attacking what's called in philosophy "the correspondence theory of truth." I'll make an analogy here. You can say that Stacey Q is more beautiful than Aretha Franklin - so their looks surely can be compared - but they're not being compared to some third thing: we're not asking whose face and body correspond more to a third thing called beauty, as if there were a statue, "Beauty," which we could pull out of the closet and then check Stacey and Aretha against to see which resembles it more closely. And what can't check Aretha's and Stacey's differing ideas of "motion" against some third thing - call it "what motion really is" to see which it resembles more closely. You just have to choose one or the other. (But your choice may have to do with which one is more internally consistent, internally accurate, useful, simple, etc.; e.g., the fact that Stacey's concept can be used to calculate the trajectory of cannon balls, whereas Aretha's can't.)

...and then check Stacey and Aretha against to see who resembles it more closely. And we can't check Aretha's and Stacey's differing ideas of "motion"...

And put a dash after "call it 'what motion really is.'" (And put me to bed.)

Can someone else admit that they're totally stumped by what Frank is talking about, so I don't feel so alone?

I might take a stab at it this weekend.

This has become a thread to be studied, no longer to be just read and enjoyed. Its a DUD.

I like the concept of modification of knowledge because then we can argue that revolutions in understanding (e.g. the concept of techno as punk as one such) are actions as much as items, which is where Teena falls down, no?

that's why emerald city is only at #9

Wow.

There is no such thing is "Objective", which is subjectivity fooling itself into transcendence.

It surprises me to realize how long Nick's been here! For some reason I thought he only joined last year sometime?

It's sad -- I don't often post on threads like this, but not because I don't have anything to say, but because I have too much to say, and it's hard to sort it all out.

I've been here a long time, I just wasn't that regular a contributor until about a year ago (all day net access when i started workign at the university!).

God, I was fucking angry wasn't I?

There is no such thing as "Objective"

Yes there is .

you think

i put it into my computer and then it started to overheat and then there were sparks coming out of it, and as it got confused we were able to make our escape onto the barren surface of the planet

lock up your daughters
http://www.rockcritics.com/popped/frankkogan/accordion.jpg

'objective' is bullshit. It's a tool for control freaks to use.

(no offense meant to anyone, of course)

'objective' is bullshit.

I disagree

^^^ you should listen to this guy nicky. he knows the facts, you have, shall we say...an opinion

Objective has a meaning, which isn't necessarily the meaning that people who use it want to think it has. So it's not bullshit. But people generally use it when they're bullshitting.

the problem is, things that are objective...become subjective the minute they exit the vacuum and are actually used.

hi dere heisenberg

Russian gentleman: So who is to say what is moral?
Sonja: Morality is subjective.
Russian gentleman: Subjectivity is objective.
Sonja: Moral notions imply attributes to substances which exist only in relational duality.
Russian gentleman: Not as an essential extension of ontological existence.
Sonja: Can we not talk about sex so much?