The subjectivity of taste
I've seen it yet again: someone on public transit laughing to themselves, and when I take a peek to see what the fuss is, they have a copy of a David Sedaris book (usually Naked). One time on the MAX train a guy was practically in tears, and had to keep setting the book down. In the course of scouting books I've bought/sold Sedaris books many times, but only once did I sit down to read some of the essays, including the famous one where he dresses up as an elf. Not once did I laugh. I didn't hate the essays or Sedaris, but it made me think of some co-worker or classmate who isn't exactly funny but "humorish." You know, they have a rather wry take on things and like to be jokey, and you smile a lot around them and appreciate that they take things lightly, etc. But they don't make you bust a gut laughing. Perhaps I'm just too much of a self-controlled Protestant, and yet the first time I sat down and read a bunch of articles on The Onion, I was sitting at a computer in a public library and had a hard time not laughing out loud. So I have to assume I'm vulnerable to public displays of mirth, given the right material.
I'm not going to argue that Sedaris isn't funny since many many people obviously laugh when reading his stuff, but it is strange to feel that divide from how other people experience things. I mean, it doesn't surprise me that I don't find raunchy teen-oriented comedies funny, but Sedaris is supposed to be aiming for the New York Times-reading, NPR-listening smart set. Still, with books, and even with movies there seems a fair amount of leeway in dealing with varying responses. For instance, if I met someone whose all-time favorite movie is The Shawshank Redemption, well I can see that. I do like that movie quite a bit, and can see why it might be even higher up on someone else's personal list than on mine. Same goes for lots of authors and their books. Even with Sedaris, I can see that he is aiming to be funny and that the things he talks about are amusing, it's just that they are mildly amusing to me.
But with music, a line seems to be drawn. One of the oddest feelings you can ever get is when someone in your presence starts grooving-and I mean really grooving-on a song that leaves you completely untouched. To your ear the music is bland, the lyrics banal, yet this other person is singing along, their eyes half-closed, their head tilted back, as if in some religious state worthy of Teresa of Avila. They're doing this with, say, a Garth Brooks song. What are we to make of aesthetic judgments in light of such an experience? We can be snobby and just say "there are always stupid people with bad taste," but this is in flat denial of the obvious pleasure they are getting out of it. Why should they abandon something that affects them so powerfully? Should they dutifully listen to "tasteful" music that strikes them as coldly as their favorites strike me? Music does seem to short-circuit the rational mind, and the reality is that for most people music (by which is meant popular music-this being the only kind anymore) is part of a ritual of social bonding with peer groups. To have a shared favorite band with friends and to have the songs of that band be something that goes straight for visceral and emotional responses...well, it's no wonder that rapturous ecstasy can be a result.
So why the odd feeling when in the midst of unshared responses to music? I suspect that much of the snarkiness that both young and old dish out upon what they deem bad taste in others comes not from a disinterested claim to be policing art of shabby products, but is a working off of the strange disconnect: "How can people like this stuff!?" This is remarkable because so often the person saying this (like most modern people, including me) holds individualism and personal autonomy so highly. Yet what we are saying is that it bothers us that aesthetic responses are not plainly universal. If someone insists that it isn't raining while in the midst of a downpour, we assume that person is crazy or is trying to be clever. We count on there being things (in the material world anyway) that all reasonable people will agree exist and have the same qualities. I suppose we deep down wish to think that our favorites in the art world have some Platonic quality that transcends tastes, trends, whims, etc. and which should be evident to everyone else. And this is why, despite the claims of certain popular culture experts who advocate the abolition of "Arnoldian" hierarchy in judging art/entertainment, hierarchical snobbery probably cannot be eliminated. The pop culture folks want to drive the high culture standard-bearers from the scene, only to turn around and create a new hierarchy, but one within popular forms. All that "bad taste" we see in others bugs the hell out of us and we must at the very least toss up ways of explaining how people can be blind to the "genius of Bob Dylan" and listen to New Country music instead.
I'm not going to argue that Sedaris isn't funny since many many people obviously laugh when reading his stuff, but it is strange to feel that divide from how other people experience things. I mean, it doesn't surprise me that I don't find raunchy teen-oriented comedies funny, but Sedaris is supposed to be aiming for the New York Times-reading, NPR-listening smart set. Still, with books, and even with movies there seems a fair amount of leeway in dealing with varying responses. For instance, if I met someone whose all-time favorite movie is The Shawshank Redemption, well I can see that. I do like that movie quite a bit, and can see why it might be even higher up on someone else's personal list than on mine. Same goes for lots of authors and their books. Even with Sedaris, I can see that he is aiming to be funny and that the things he talks about are amusing, it's just that they are mildly amusing to me.
But with music, a line seems to be drawn. One of the oddest feelings you can ever get is when someone in your presence starts grooving-and I mean really grooving-on a song that leaves you completely untouched. To your ear the music is bland, the lyrics banal, yet this other person is singing along, their eyes half-closed, their head tilted back, as if in some religious state worthy of Teresa of Avila. They're doing this with, say, a Garth Brooks song. What are we to make of aesthetic judgments in light of such an experience? We can be snobby and just say "there are always stupid people with bad taste," but this is in flat denial of the obvious pleasure they are getting out of it. Why should they abandon something that affects them so powerfully? Should they dutifully listen to "tasteful" music that strikes them as coldly as their favorites strike me? Music does seem to short-circuit the rational mind, and the reality is that for most people music (by which is meant popular music-this being the only kind anymore) is part of a ritual of social bonding with peer groups. To have a shared favorite band with friends and to have the songs of that band be something that goes straight for visceral and emotional responses...well, it's no wonder that rapturous ecstasy can be a result.
So why the odd feeling when in the midst of unshared responses to music? I suspect that much of the snarkiness that both young and old dish out upon what they deem bad taste in others comes not from a disinterested claim to be policing art of shabby products, but is a working off of the strange disconnect: "How can people like this stuff!?" This is remarkable because so often the person saying this (like most modern people, including me) holds individualism and personal autonomy so highly. Yet what we are saying is that it bothers us that aesthetic responses are not plainly universal. If someone insists that it isn't raining while in the midst of a downpour, we assume that person is crazy or is trying to be clever. We count on there being things (in the material world anyway) that all reasonable people will agree exist and have the same qualities. I suppose we deep down wish to think that our favorites in the art world have some Platonic quality that transcends tastes, trends, whims, etc. and which should be evident to everyone else. And this is why, despite the claims of certain popular culture experts who advocate the abolition of "Arnoldian" hierarchy in judging art/entertainment, hierarchical snobbery probably cannot be eliminated. The pop culture folks want to drive the high culture standard-bearers from the scene, only to turn around and create a new hierarchy, but one within popular forms. All that "bad taste" we see in others bugs the hell out of us and we must at the very least toss up ways of explaining how people can be blind to the "genius of Bob Dylan" and listen to New Country music instead.