Comment on Helpless Individuals

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 00:33:33 GMT

Okay, this clarifies our dispute greatly. Let me say, then, that my position here is not based on disliking "small groups that get large amounts of enjoyment". What distinguishes music as an academic field is this purported enjoyment plus the cultural capture -- the belief, which you keep repeating, that not enjoying the elite-designated music is a failing of the listener, and academia is the one that gets to make this call.

If there were a real accomplishment here, rather than a mere agreement to applaud other members of the clique, academic-produced music should outperform in blind tests, but it does not, and this is (mistakenly) dismissed as a failing on the listeners' part. But if you're going to permit yourself that standard, you can call absolutely anything great, and rook society into respecting it, as I have shown with the theology comparisons.

If you can hype up me the way Joshua Bell gets hyped up for his performances, then sure, I could command big fees for apparances. But this would say very little about what I have to offer.

So this has nothing to do with a stigma against small groups that have found a way to amuse themselves. No other group gets the academic respectability in the absence of objective results that art does -- except perhaps other lost academic fields. And all the answers you've given me could work just as well to "prove" anything good and excuse why it can't pass any objective test.

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