> Mezzoid@a... wrote: > > > And BTW, I'm not a classical snob. Some of my favorite singers include Renee > > Fleming, Dawn Upshaw, early Barbra Streisand, Julie Andrews, k.d. Lang, Bob > > Dylan, Thomas Hampson, Annie Lennox, Cher (!!!), Tom Jones, Bette Midler ... > > basically anyone who can interpret a song to my liking has a sound that > > attracts me.
and Linda added: > Chris: yes, yes, yes! You are one of the few people I have heard say > something like that. Most of your favourites are favourites of mine too, > and for the same reason. We're singing a song at school[1] right now > that starts "Communication is the name of the game" and oh, it's so > true! I don't include Dylan in my list, but that's just a personal whim > (I had a clutch of young male pupils when I started who all idolised > Dylan and who all came to me exhibiting his worse characteristics - > flat, droning, sliding, parlando) which I couldn't shake out of them) > Love the message, though, but I preferred Joan Baez
I think all those topics above ( mostly 'whatever else' ) are connected, so here they are in a pocket version. What Linda posted is another version of what Tako said before: "Communication is the name of the game". I understand that and agree, as far as personal taste is concerned. If I were a teenage girl, I might 'communicate' with N'Sync, Five, etc. If I were a 50-something-year-old man, I might communicate with Frank Sinatra. If I were like most gays I know, I'd love Barbra Streisand, Julie Andrews and MOSTLY Cher. I'd even dress like them some times :-)
But that's not what determines 'value'. As I said on Mother Teresa vs My mother :-), something's value is determined by what it means as compared to the acquisitions that civilization has. Comparing to good writers, Sidney Sheldon is BAD, regardless of one's liking him or not.
I'll go back to what I said commenting on Tako's msg, but I'll be more specific: American left ( I'm a leftist myself ) in the universities started applying sociological and anthropological lack of values ( due attitude in the scientific area ) to the societies they study, and decided that we shouldn't rate them according to our values. It means that we MUST acknowledge cultural differences but not judge them ( and not judging other cultures has become a value in itself, which is a self-contradiction ). Humans have values, and that self-contradiction just confirms that. What's worse, we're not supposed to analyze OUR own culture with OUR OWN perspective. That's a semi-illiterate version of what science is. Although psychiatry may explain criminal behavior, it doesn't mean killers are only 'different' and, therefore, should express their subjectivity in a free way. That's much what Carl Rogers did to psychology.
As we apply scientific concepts mistakenly we end up adopting personal satisfaction as the basis to determine what's GOOD or BAD, not only what's satisfying or not ( and then the American government wants to fight drugs not in American drug-addicts' minds, but in Colombia...hehehe)
And to get things even more complicated, as the communist revolution hasn't taken place worldwide, we have found a new way to 'eat the rich': popular culture is good, elite culture is bad. And adopting sociological analysis and a twisted interpretation of what democracy means, we ( since American culture has become international ) tend to take consensus for good-quality. That is, if many people like it, it means it 'communicates', therefore, it's good. As pop music comes from regular people, with regular musicianship and regular ideas, and pleases MORE REGULAR PEOPLE, we have decided it's REGULARLY ? ) BETTER.
As I said before, pop music pleases me more than classical ( elite ) music, but that has nothing to do with the music I like being good or not. You can decide whether certain music is good by analyzing how it relates with what has been achieved ( to your knowledge, that is, by the culture you belong to) already. But only sickly-elitIST people would really ENJOY something just because it's objectively good. We enjoy things with our subjectivity feelings and reason mixed up ). We SHOULD analyze them with our reason only, since feeling varies from person to person, though it may coincide within social groups ( teenage girls, 50-something-year-old men, gays, etc )
That's what I think ( in a nutshell :-) )
Bye,
Caio Rossi
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