Eclecticism as an American aesthetic: A lion's preliminary throat-clearing
I don't have time to develop this just now, but between now and when I do, I'd like to encourage my reader(s) to comment on something, either here or elsewhere.
Gawain of Heaven Tree frequently posts on aesthetics and the notion of taste. A central assumption of his on these issues is that the values and standards giving shape to these matters are not, in the end, culturally- or historically-determined but are both discoverable and universal. He has clearly done more--and more careful--thinking and writing about these matters than I have, and I greatly respect that fact about his work, even as I wonder sometimes whether he's right. Sometimes, as in a passage from this post on the implications of evolutionary psychology for aesthetics, he can write so eloquently that, even if I'm not sure he's right, I find myself wanting him to be right:my primitive intuition (and that of most of us) that when I (we) find something beautiful, there really is something there, something beyond the social ambiance of the work, something unrelated to power structures and religious meaning and media manipulation, role of education and museums, something unquestionable and immovable and immutable. Something which makes us completely powerless, something which rules and overcomes us. That there is something not arbitrary but, on the contrary, ultimately indisputably really beautiful about some works of art. Some element, however miniscule, of beauty pure and simple, unalloyed and independent of its religio-politico-sioco-econo-moral associations.
It's been some time ago that I first read his provocatively-titled post, "Why I hate pop music, or the mystery of eclectic tastes", but the passage below has recently come back to mind:My third observation is that all the eclectics I have ever known have all been Americans. I have never heard a Chinese, a Japanese, or a European argue for the equality of pop and classical (or interchangeability of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Claudio Monteverdi). What is it about Americans which makes it possible for them to believe such things? Indeed, to experience them? Is their ideological commitment to imagined equality of everything so strong as to make them blind to obvious emotional stimuli? Or do they have congenitally different brains? I don’t know. I really do not know. It is one of those ways in which my American friends (of whom many I love dearly) will remain to me inscrutable ciphers. A human mystery.
Now: I'll just say here by way of marking out some territory that I'll build on later that a) I think there is some truth embedded in this paragraph but needs some teasing out; and b) while Gawain's tone here smacks a bit of that old joke, "The natives are revolting."/"Yes--they certainly are," I'd argue that eclecticism (of a sort other than Gawain's characterization here) is not some congenital condition that causes my countrymen to fail their Art Appreciation classes but, instead, is nothing to be ashamed of--if, that is, we want to call ourselves "Americans."
Wittgenstein once said: If a lion could speak, we would not understand him.
Well, yes.
What think y'all? I hope those of you who are so inclined, whether or not you're from the States, will comment here or initiate a discussion at your own places. If you choose the latter option, I hope you'll link to this post so that I won't miss your posts.
Thanks in advance.
UPDATE: Another nugget to chew on regarding this topic: Sorry to be vague as to the sourcing, but I was only half-listening to the radio when the announcer said this by way of quoting someone else: "Duke Ellington is of the belief that that there are two kinds of music: "Good," and "The other kind."
