Tuesday, October 12—2:57pm

Adam—

I finally found the Saint-Saens recording I was referring to. This is it. I also own this one, but I don’t like it as much, for reasons I mentioned earlier.

I’m somewhat pressed for time these next few days, so it’ll be a while before I respond to Peter’s monumentally anti-inductive response to his critics (or at any rate the part relevant to what I said). For now, let me simply say that I await his “rage, pain, anger, and hurt”–laden interpretation of AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long”—something conspicuously absent from his comment, despite snide remarks directed at those who made the obvious point that there is no “rage, pain, anger or hurt” to be found in that song. If Peter’s generalizations have an inductive basis this weak—the supposed paradigm instance of “rage” etc. contains not an iota of it—I think we can fairly ask him to do some “homework.” Or at least admit it when his homework contains a flagrant error at the level of “2 + 2 = 5.”

To avoid any confusion, a quick response to Michael Newberry (who was quoted within Peter’s note, and who paraphrased me within that):

An Objectivist stance on art and one that I agree with is that the experience of art is a profoundly personal experience. I would call that experience sacred. I agree completely with Irfan’s comment on the similarity of experience of music and sex (what about love Irfan?). The point being your personal loves are not debatable. Truly, there are all kinds of art works I love passionately and I don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks about it, i.e. from a personal, private perspective … [However] personal favorites has nothing to do with art appreciation. I am using “art appreciation” here in its technical sense: art criticism, art history, and the science of aesthetics.

I agree with the first three sentences up there, but not with what comes after it. My point in comparing music and sex was only to say that people will defend their music and sexual “tastes” because both are highly personal and meaningful. I didn’t mean to imply that they are not debateable (after all, my whole point was to explain why people were debating with such intensity). It’s one thing not “to give a fuck” what others think—and quite another to concede that one has nothing to say in defense of what one values. The first is rationally defensible (not caring what people think, or not wanting to take the time to say it), but the second isn’t (thinking that one’s aesthetic or sexual preferences can’t in fact be defended). Also, I don’t really see why “personal favorites” and “art appreciation” ought to be dichotomized in the way that Michael does. As to love, I wasn’t conceptualizing sex apart from it—I never do.

Finally, I have to respond to Lindsay’s post 51, which I found amusing, but is by any standard an example of untrammeled ranting rather than argument (e.g., to whom are Linz’s references to “apoplexy” and “swine” being made? I am perhaps not generally known at SOLO for my … uh, geniality, but in this discussion I do believe I have been a better model of decorum than our illustrious leader).

When one strips the apoplexy from Lindsay’s post, this is what he is saying:

   1.   “It is not a defense of a form of music that it incorporates some other form of music.” True. But this is not the only defense of “headbanging caterwauling” we have seen here.

   2.   “Maria Callas is a ‘better’ singer than Geddy Lee.” Uh—by what standard? Can “the swine” ask that this standard be stated in the form of a proposition? She is certainly better at singing opera than Geddy Lee. But having never heard her sing “Limelight,” or “The Witch Hunt,” how do we make a relevant comparison? Lindsay admits that there are different musical genres with different standards, then insists on violating this obvious insight by comparing Callas with Lee. What is the basis of the comparison?

Anyhow, suppose that Callas is better than Lee (I’d have no trouble admitting this were someone to produce the right argument). Would this prove that Lee can’t sing or sings badly? It wouldn’t—except in Linz’s mind, where this ludicrous inference is treated with the mark of self-evidence. This is about as cogent as arguing that because Linz isn’t Julia Child, he has, contrary to all testimony, never made an edible or “decent” steak. (You see how vicious my arguments get when the stakes are high?)

   3.   As for SOLO’s standards, they surely don’t countenance begging the question in the blatantly obvious form in which Linz indulges at the end of his post. Linz thinks that heavy metal is nihilism, but its defenders don’t. Since its defenders don’t, they aren’t asking that SOLO abandon its credo. Linz writes here as though his and Peter’s arguments were so overwhelmingly powerful that they would command the rational assent of any functioning mind—hence any disagreement is ipso facto evidence of aesthetic corruption. I note in passing the Peikovian flavor of this argument and simply say: Au contraire. But more on that later.

Tuesday, October 12—8:04pm

Peter,

Before discussing whole genres, let’s try to get clear on the application of your “argument” to a single four-minute song:

Apparently you find my points (all of them?) inductively weak (and “monumentally anti-inductive” no less) because (I have to presume) you don’t find my examples compelling. Or is it that you want more? (Galt forbid!) Please explain. I find your “untrammeled ranting” confusing. :-)

I mean simply that despite the size of your claims, the evidence you’ve offered is quite sparse (it may have taken a lot of space, but as evidence it is sparse), and this is nowhere clearer than in your “analysis” of “You Shook Me All Night Long.” You took this song originally as a paradigm of “rage, anger” etc., and despite comments by Jonathan and myself asking for like clarification—where is the rage, anger, or pain in this song?—you’ve said nothing of relevance there.

I take it as a general principle of discussion that if a person misses a simple point, there is no purpose in moving on to complexities until the simple point has been clarified; and if a person doesn’t recognize the obvious, there is no point in pursuing the less-than-obvious with him until the obvious has been recognized as such. Hence the emphasis on this one hapless song.

And quite apart from our obvious disagreement about your “obvious point,” which obviously I find far from obvious, I just don’t see any “snide remarks” from me at least “directed at those who made the obvious point that there is no ‘rage, pain, anger or hurt’ to be found in that song [‘All Night Long’]”—I just don’t see the “arithmetical error” you seem to think is so obvious. I said I thought the song offered a wonderful catharsis for a juvenile sort of helpless fury, and you think this is snide and saying that 2 + 2 = 5? Really? I think perhaps you’ve either misread what I said, or perhaps you have a different version of this song in your jukebox?

Well, ask yourself what precisely is the argument you have offered for your “catharsis for juvenile sort of helpless fury” interpretation of the song. The argument, as it happens, consists of one idiosyncratic episode from your personal life, where you heard the song on a jukebox and it performed “the catharsis of helpless fury” on you. But that is not an argument. It is a story. And it is a story of incredibly limited application, because I cannot think of a single human being on earth besides you who has had anything like that reaction to that song.

Incidentally, that comment above was not the one I was referring to as snide. The snide comment was this:

(Now, to “Mr Jonathan,” who suggested phenomenologically that my “tortured hermeneutics” led to my “ridiculous claim” that the predominant emotions conveyed by rock music are those listed above, I can only say that I prefer the method of induction to the one he recommends, and while I’m happy to quibble over many details I stand in general by the evaluations I made using this method. What I’ve said here and in the posts above might perhaps help him better understand why I say what I say, though?)

This is snide. Jonathan’s “tortured hermeneutic” accusation was about the same AC/DC song, “You Shook Me … .” As I’ve said, the sum total of the “inductive” evidence you’ve offered in support of your (idiosyncratic) interpretation of that song is a single encounter with a jukebox. Nothing about that encounter tells us that the song is about rage, anger, etc. What it tells us is that you were full of something like rage and you projected it (and are still projecting it) onto on the song. Well, to this the only appropriate response is that the issue is not about you but about the song. And yet you write here as though Jonathan had said something dreadfully silly—that is what the adverb “phenomenologically” marks. The irony is that whatever the infelicities of his use of the word “hermeneutics,” Jonathan’s claim about the song is closer to reality than yours.

Your claims about this song lead one—on inductive grounds—to wonder whether you aren’t projecting your own moods of anger, rage, etc. onto songs that simply do not have the content you are ascribing to them. “You Shook Me All Night Long” is a somewhat silly paean to a sexy girl with great legs, who is great in bed. It has a light-hearted, juvenile tone, and is appropriate for those times in one’s life when one is in a light-hearted, juvenile mood—not all that often, but not never.

That is just about all it is. The song does not merit the sort of defense one would mount for high art, but neither does it deserve to be described as an expression of rage, pain and anger merely because Peter Cressell desperately wants to defend a thesis about the nature of heavy metal, and wants to use the song as Exhibit A in his demonstration.

I wouldn’t have made such a big deal about this song if I hadn’t sensed that you really think the song is about pain, hurt and anger. I honestly thought at first that your reference to the song must be a typo or a slip. But if you can be this far off about such a simple song—and any induction is as strong as the instances that make it up—it is fair to ask how inductive your method really is.

Saturday, October 9—1:41pm

Adam—

Responding to your post 16 on Saint-Saens, I have to qualify this by saying that I don’t have a very good stereo, so I can’t claim “audiophile” standards, but I have two recordings of Saint-Saens’ Third Symphony plus assorted works—the Denon and the Sony Classics (Eugene Ormandy). I prefer the latter, not so much because of the rendition of the Third Symphony (the two are roughly at the same level) but because the Sony Classics’ version of “Danse Macabre” is better, and it includes “Carnival of the Animals” which Denon doesn’t. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find the Sony Classics CD I have anywhere on Amazon, but I think this Telarc CD is a recording of the same version of the Organ Symphony that’s on my CD (I’m not positive about that; mine is Eugene Ormandy conducting the Phil. Orchestra in a 1978 recording, and as far as I can tell, this is the same). When I go home tonight, I’ll look at the CD and send more exact information your way.

As for the Third Symphony, I hesitate to put in words what I feel for it. Suffice it to say: one of my favorite things in the universe.

(Edited by Irfan Khawaja on 10/09, 1:45pm)

Saturday, October 9—2:29pm

Hong wrote:

I’ve been wondering, what could a 7 year old boy feel in the musics of the Masters of the Baroque, Classical, or Romantic eras? (Yes, my son knows who belongs to which “era” very well). What in those musics resonant so strongly with his inner emotions? And what kind of emotions does he have? I’ve seen him happy, compassionate, hurt, in pain, scared or even terrified (by the thunderstorms), but curiously I’ve never ever seen him angry or in a rage. I had thought this might be his defect. Or are those feeling (anger and rage) something people acquire later in life?

I can’t answer your first group of questions, which are about as profound as they are difficult to answer. But as to your last question (about rage), anger and rage are (in my view) responses to value judgments about injustice—anger to run-of-the-mill injustice, rage to extreme injustice. I find it remarkable that a child would not have thrown a temper tantrum at age 7, but I wouldn’t take his not throwing one to indicate a defect. He may not be facing any injustice, in which case his reaction would be normal. I think 7 is far too young for a child to feel rage, and anyway, that is not typically what they feel even if the situation is outrageous, if only because they can’t form the judgments that would produce rage.

Linz said that someone ought to write an article or treatise on Saint-Saens. There is an article by R. J. Stove on Saint-Saens in The New Criterion, the conservative art magazine, called “The Saint-Saens Enigma.” It’s been ages since I read it, so I can’t vouch for its quality, but there it is.

I want to take one last parting jab at Peter before I get carried away with praise for Saint-Saens and lose my title as the Leader of the Caterwaulers (given me by Joe Maurone). Peter cites Holst’s “Mars, the Bringer of War” as superior in its handling of rage to heavy metal. Since I like that piece, and I haven’t tried to argue that metal is aesthetically superior to classical music, let me offer a counter-challenge: Find me one classical piece that celebrates the Royal Air Force’s victory in the Battle of Britain half as convincingly as Iron Maiden do in their song “Aces High.” Yes, please note the “unfair” formulation of that challenge. Not a celebration of a military victory, but a celebration of that one. I don’t think there’s a single post-war composer who could offer a non-ironic, non-bullshit-laden composition that would do the trick. It took a bunch of long-haired English lads to do it, and when Iron Maiden burst on stage with that gigantic Union Jack behind them and play “Aces High,” I forget that I’m supposed to hate Britain’s imperial past, I put my bloody fist in the air, and I remember, vividly, that “never have so many owed so much to so few.” It’s not an accident that I’ve listened to that song over and over since 9/11. Nothing about “Mars” brings home the moral imperative of victory in the way that “Aces High” does.

If you could find me a contemporary composer that did the same thing, I’d stop listening to Iron Maiden. But you won’t. Yes, “Mars” is a great piece. But Gustav Holst could not, in 1915, have imagined anything like the Blitz (much less Al Qaida), and his piece simply does not respond to what we know about war. I have no problem admitting what is obvious: that heavy metal doesn’t compare to the best of the classical repertory. But there are legitimate aesthetic purposes for which it beats good swatches of the rest.

Saturday, October 9—7:08pm

Hong,

Reading your post, I suddenly remembered that I had read a book on that subject many years ago. Here is a link to Amazon. If I remember, she discusses the relationship between classical music and childrens’ cognitive and emotional development. This book is more complex, and I don’t think it discusses children, but I found it enjoyable.

Saturday, October 9—7:28pm

My last thought on this, as I’ve already said way too much, but I couldn’t resist responding to Matthew:

Good faith criticism is fine of course but to be perfectly blunt, taking it to the level that’s happened here strikes me as just plain malevolent. To me it simply isn’t what Objectivism is about, in fact it conveys the precise opposite. That said, I know both Linz and Peter to generally be good respectable chaps (which is precisely why I’m so stunned at this kind of behaviour).

I don’t disagree, but I wouldn’t be so stunned. Re-read the beginning of The Romantic Manifesto, and you’ll see why discussions about music are deaf to considerations of “respectability.” Music is like sexuality: to attack someone’s musical choices is like attacking their choice in sexual partner. The responses come accordingly. (I’m explaining, not justifying.)

The difference is this: we have some semblance of an objective way of talking about sexuality (ethics and science), but practically none when it comes to music. That explains why while discussions of sexuality and music are both intense and heated, discussions of music are more so.

It’s not an accident that Nietzsche wrote a book called The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music. He knew what he was talking about.

Thursday, October 14—10:00am

Peter,

I have said many times that I do not think that heavy metal is the aesthetic equivalent of classical music. It is inferior. But its being inferior doesn’t make it nihilistic, nor does its being aesthetically inferior make “You Shook Me” a song about rage, pain, anger, and hurt on the basis of the so-far non-existent arguments you’ve offered. What is curious about what you’ve said about the song is that it is a nearly-pure distillation of subjectivism. And what is yet more curious is that despite the indulgence in subjectivism, you’ve now skated from “The song is about rage” to “The song is about juvenile catharsis for repressed people,” so that the original evidence-less reference to “rage” is now being carried by a new evidence-less reference to the supposed mental state of the people getting a supposed catharsis from the song which catharsis is supposedly an expurgation of supposed rage. But no evidence + no evidence = no evidence.

I have not said a single thing to suggest that AC/DC is great art, that we should listen to it constantly, that we should listen to it in preference to Wagner, that we should listen to headbanging music in preference to classical, that we should be attached to it because it is nihilistic, that there are no aesthetic standards, etc. etc. These are all strawmen of your (and Linz’s) devising to ignore the fact that what you have said about metal has essentially zero basis. Nor have I even denied that the AC/DC song has a narrow emotional range. It does. What I have simply said is that regardless of all of that, it is certainly not about rage, pain, anger or hurt, whether directly or indirectly, whether musically or lyrically—in any way, shape, or form. And I would insist that you have (a) neither shown that it is nor (b) admitted that it is not.

Nor does anything here show anything to the contrary:

I listened to the damn thing on a pub jukebox a number of times on my own coin, and far too many times on the coins of others. D’you want affidavits ? I direct you to The Black Horse in Chorleywood, Hertfordshire (a fine pub as it happens, especially on a chill winter evening with snow on the ground outside); ask for a barmaid we called Helen “Melons”—and not because of her great thighs. :-)

I don’t need an affidavit, and for now I’ll even skip an introduction to Helen, delightful as she sounds. I don’t doubt you’ve heard the song. But does that show that it’s about rage, anger, etc.? No.

Irfan: “‘You Shook Me All Night Long’ is a somewhat silly paean to a sexy girl with great legs, who is great in bed.” Lyrically. As music it’s about as erotic as a fried-egg sandwich. As I’ve already said it’s rare that music and lyrics are integrated: most of the time in rock they’re just placeholders for vocal screaming. In this case and at the right time and place I’m suggesting essentially that the screaming, banging and spikey chords can be emotinally cathartic for a narrow range of repressed juvenile emotions (but that as catharsis as ‘intellectual clarification’ they’re hopeless). You quibble about exactly what those emotions are if you want to—in my view the Lou Reed litany offers a convenient summary of that narrow range—but I’m happy to agree for the sake of argument that the song, and indeed most of the rock genre, has a narrow emotional range … .

Yes—it’s a silly paean in a major key with a narrow emotional range. The range is a certain kind of happiness consequent on a certain kind of sexual satisfaction. (It is not about lust, by the way. Lust is expressed in the present tense; the song is in the past tense. It is about lust requited—a quite different thing.) Put another way, it is about good sex viewed after the fact, from a somewhat humorous but happy perspective.

As I’ve said, the particular emotion it invokes is not a bad or corrupt one—there is nothing wrong with feeling that way after good sex—but is not the heights of passion, either. That piece of commonsense is no more controversial than saying that chocolate chip cookies are nice for dessert occasionally, but they are not a full course meal and not even the best dessert ever devised. Such a claim would not bear defending unless someone went to the extreme of claiming that chocolate chip cookie-eating was a sign of rage, anger, hurt, pain, nihilism and juvenile catharsis from repression—and said this because this was their (fairly eccentric) reaction to a bag of cookies.

You tell me that the screamy, banging and spikey chords are only good for juvenile catharsis. I agree: you have “suggested” it. But don’t mistake a random suggestion for an argument. You haven’t given one. Having played the guitar, I don’t know what a “screamy, banging or spikey” chord is, and I wouldn’t say that any of the chords in that song meet that description, at least to the extent to which I can give any content to it. Just notice that what you are calling a “quibble” was once something you asserted with great confidence. Now we have reached the point where it is a “quibble,” and my point is that it has become one because you cannot sustain your claims about the song.

When you say this, you are in my case taking coals to Newcastle:

I’m asking readers to open themselves up to music performed on a higher level and with a dramatically increased emotional range. Now that doesn’t mean, as Matthew still takes it to mean, that my whole point is a plea to listen to classical music. Galt help us if the tuneful but bland wallpaper of Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” was to replace people’s AC/DC enthusiasms (at least they’re enthusiams!). The point is that we owe it to ourselves to experience and be touched by the intelligent performances, enormous themes, broad emotional abstractions, rich dramatic melodies and stunning tone colours of Wagner … ahem … of great music. :-)

I’ve been listening to classical music nearly as long as I’ve been listening to metal, and I played in a classical ensemble about as long as I ever played in a metal band. I never took you to mean “replace metal with classical.” It is you who are arguing with me as though I had said “replace classical with metal.” But not only would I never say that, I would go so far as to say that if I had to choose between them, I would choose classical. Luckily, I don’t have to choose between them.

As for this,

Now, as “a general principle of discussion” I always found it odd that one would want to gnaw into a detail while ignoring a clear field of inquiry that has been opened up. How about looking at that field now, Irfan (or can we call you Malcolm)? :-) I’d love to see you answers to the questions at the end of my Post #56 for example.

Details matter. If I had advanced an interpretation of Wagner’s “Magic Fire Music” according to which it was really a hymn to arson—or Berlioz’s Fantastic Symphony according to which it is a celebration of the primacy of consciousness—or Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony as a musical defense of deep ecology—you would naturally be asking where on earth I had gotten such bizarre ideas. Likewise if I had said, “Well Bach’s ‘St Matthew Passion’ is about suffering—therefore all Baroque, indeed all pre-20th century music, is about suffering, pain, anger, and altruism!” we’d be discussing details, believe me. And I would insist that a discussion of particular pieces of music is a necessary condition of a discussion of genres of music. (One of the problems with The Romantic Manifesto is how little it has to say about any particular work of art, so that there is an air of floating abstraction about every principle advanced in the book, even when the principles are true, and even when they are true of the works being discussed.)

I have answers to your more general questions from post 56, but not the sort of answers I can dash off between classes (which is what I’m doing now). But as for writing a “defense of heavy metal,” I think I prefer shooting down your attacks on it. :-) I like heavy metal, but the idea of writing a defense of it is pretty low on my hierarchy of priorities. I have a republic to defend. When I’m convinced we’ve won the war, I’ll sit down and pen a defense of heavy metal. Anyway, I was planning on writing an appreciation of painting later on this month (maybe) that was going to be my contribution to aesthetics for a time. It will discuss some problems and agreements I have with RM, and some of that may well end up applying to metal (I don’t know because I haven’t written it yet).

Thursday, October 14—3:53pm

However, and on your last point, I have asked whether or not you do agree that there are objective aesthetic standards—in response to which so far you’ve been silent. So it looks like at least that last shoe might be tried on for size?—or at least until we can see your answers. :-)

Are there are objective aesthetic standards? Of course. Actually, anyone who had given a fair reading of what I had so far written would not only know the answer to that question, but know that I have not at all been “silent” about it. But to repeat: yes, there are objective aesthetic standards.

Christ on a bike, talk about interminable defensiveness over a simple, loud and juvenile song.

Loud and simple, yes. Rage-filled, pain-ridden, angry and hurt-obsessed? No. I don’t really know what “juvenile” means. Like “defensive,” I regard it as vacuous term of abuse, as in the following notorious and oft-repeated argument: “Ayn Rand’s novels are so juvenile, but you needn’t be defensive about it.” As I’ll suggest below, I actually think an issue of great consequence is buried in your discussion of this “simple, loud and juvenile song.”

I said in my article: “Shaking to AC/DC ‘All Night Long’ can help us feel our anger and rage … “ to which you’ve objected (a lot). You’ll notice that I was intentionally talking about feelings the song may help us with—analysing the stupid thing was not something I was or am interested in doing. You’ve now said: “ … it’s a silly paean in a major key with a narrow emotional range.” I agree. Let’s move on, since that’s the essential point AFAIC.

I’ve objected a lot because what you’ve said is just that objectionable. I flatly deny that the song has anything to do with anger or rage or can “help us feel our anger or rage.” A song that has nothing to do with X will not help us deal with our X-feelings.

Your passage expresses a false dichotomy that would bedevil a discussion of any piece of music, be it from AC/DC or anyone else. There is no intelligible way to talk about “the feelings a song may help someone with” without analyzing the song. And if someone misdescribes a song, he will of necessity misdescribe “the feelings the song helps one with”—as you’ve done.

Irfan: “I don’t know what a “screamy, banging or spikey” chord is.” Me either, which is why I didn’t say that.

I see. Precision is at a premium here, so let me rephrase: I don’t know what a “screaming, banging, or spikey” chord is, either.

Irfan: “You tell me that the screamy, banging and spikey chords [sic] are only good for juvenile catharsis [sic]. I agree: you have “suggested” it. But don’t mistake a random [sic] suggestion for an argument.”

I don’t and didn’t; I’ve been intentionally suggesting all along since as I said you need to do your own listening in the living room of your own soul, and allow yourself to be touched. Until the reader has been moved by a moment of musical magic, no argument on its own is going to move him.

But what if I have done the relevant listening, and I am still unmoved by your argument—as I have, and I am?

Tuneless screaming, rhythmic banging and spikey chords played loud can be emotionally cathartic for a narrow range of repressed juvenile emotions (as I said and still say) but as catharsis as “intellectual clarification” they’re hopeless, and as real musical meat to touch the great-souled people we’d like to become they’re just so much dust in the wind.

Well, the song doesn’t have “tuneless screaming” in it; I’ve seen the sheet music for it and the vocals can be played on any piano. Insofar as “rhythmic banging and spikey chords” means anything at all (which I doubt), I hear no such thing in the song. Further, I don’t think the song’s purpose is cathartic, much less cathartic of repressed emotions; nor do I think (as you seem to be implying) that only repressed people of juvenile inclinations can enjoy it. Perfectly normal and healthy people can and do like it quite a lot.

The last two lines of your passage suggest that liking the song is incompatible with being “great-souled.” This claim suggests that our discussion of this one “loud, simple, juvenile, cathartic” song is far from trivial. Insofar as the last couple of lines mean anything, they mean that to like music of the AC/DC-variety is to violate the moral virtue of pride—hardly a trivial assertion. So while the song itself may be relatively trivial, your use of it is not. You are using the song (while claiming not to analyze it) as the basis of a rather large claim about the connection between aesthetics and moral psychology. But there is quite a discrepancy between the size of your claim about that and the quality of your evidence for it. And the discrepancy remains in place. You can move on if you want, but I see no reason to budge from what I’ve said.

(Edited by Irfan Khawaja on 10/14, 3:57pm)

This will be my last reposting of deleted material.

—Rodney Rawlings