<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#000000"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 8:04 PM, Dan TheBookMan <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:danust2012@gmail.com" target="_blank">danust2012@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><span class="">On Tue, Sep 29, 2015 at 3:38 PM, William Flynn Wallace <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:foozler83@gmail.com" target="_blank">foozler83@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">Dan - Probably an issue of exposure and guidance and maybe self-control. But
if it's all a matter of tastes, why care so much about it?</div><br><div style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">Because I am a teacher - to the bone! Teachers are sharers and if I love something I want to share it. That's what psych 101 does, isn't it? Present a large number of areas in a rather shallow way to see if some are drawn to one or another and want to follow it up somehow.<br><br></div><div style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">As for music, it's not presented in school in most places, and so most people don't even have the chance to see what they might like, and I think that's sad. Also sad is the fact that they might use it as sonic wallpaper, just for background and never hear that there is anything more to it because they don't just sit and listen, and because if they did they'd still not get all of it because of their untrained ears.<br><br></div><div style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">Now - I went to concerts with a chemistry teacher and he knew nothing about music but he knew he liked some classical. I argue that his enjoyment might equal mine, and that he really doesn't need any more knowledge than he has. But if he did, he would enjoy it on a more complex level and on more levels, just as good English teachers can do with books. No, I did not try to teach him. I thought it might be perceived as patronizing.<br><br></div><div style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">I have pointed out the donkey imitation in Midsummer Night's Dream, and that's not essential to the enjoyment, but it's interesting, eh?<br><br></div><div style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">Take Huckleberry Finn - the symbolism taught is that the river is a good place and the shores are bad places etc. Interesting even if not what Twain had in mind. True, as Terry Pratchett said, for a given value of true.<br></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div></span><div>Doesn't much of this seem to answer your question about literary and art analysis and criticism?<br><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">And what was my question?</div><div>Also, if it all comes down to pure tastes and also tastes are irreducible <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline">did I say this? </div>and have no other significance, then it still seems to be pointless. In fact, one might argue this distracts from more important things. So, having music only as decoration would be good so that people don't focus too much on it, no? Of course, if there's more to it than tastes or if tastes are not irreducible and do matter (as in one can have bad or the wrong tastes), then it might matter a whole lot. One person might be better off than another simply because she or he has better, more informed, wider, or more refined tastes, for example. Or art (including literature and music) might have a bigger, more important role to play in life than just tastes.<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline"> why 'just' tastes? Most of my day is concerned with taste: what to read, to listen to, to eat, to talk about even- I love these discussions and so it suits my taste to have them - when I make a post and no one is interested I try again to stir thing up -and sometimes I play devil's advocate....<br></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">Ask most people what/who they are. Maybe they will start with their town or state, country, religion, occupation, marital and child status, race, sex, level of education, social status, income. I'd rather talk about my tastes - they are more who I am than my degrees of cash on hand.<br><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">Do I think of my tastes as refined? Somewhat. Am I an elitist? Of course.<br><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">I do believe in objective standards, but those are highly debatable, as we are finding out. I'd even talk about Ravel versus Debussy as to whom was better, though it doesn't make a hill of beans. And at the end our tastes are probably unchanged, but what comes out often is that one needs to explore others' choices to see if they are a fit for one's own universe. I am extremely picky and so most don't, but often I am pleasantly surprised. I have bought a lot of classical CDs, music written after 1950, and the vast majority of them are money wasted, but then the few diamonds (Ligeti's piano etudes for one) I find are worth it. I wish I had the money to do that with fiction, but as Dan says, there are just so many coming out, as Dogbert says, like a fire hose aimed at a teacup.<br><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">Maybe we should start another chat group devoted entirely to posting favorite new books and music and what not.<br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(0,0,0)">bill w<br></div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Regards,<br></div><div><br></div><div>Dan <br></div></div></div></div>
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