Quoting Ben Golden <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > I briefly used this forum about a year ago, but eventually left for reasons > I'm not going to go into here. > > I recently came across an interesting piece in the Washington Post, where > they had renowned violin soloist Joshua Bell play in a subway station in DC > and observed people's reactions. With a couple exceptions, no one paid him > any attention. The piece is at > http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html > > As I read the article I couldn't help but run some MOQ analysis. What's > interesting is that Pirsig seemed highly non-elitist with regard to > observations of quality. He relied upon individuals, rather than experts, > to determine what had high quality. Thus there seems a clear contradiction; > Bell is considered a top-notch performer, yet individuals don't detect the > high quality of his performance. I'd offer the following questions: > > 1) Does the high quality of Bell's performance come from the social value of > his celebrity? That is, are his listeners enjoying his performance not > because it sounds any different from a worse performer, but because experts > have given him social credibility? > > 2) Does the quality of classical music come from a dated social value, which > says that it's high art? Did people at some point decide that classical > music was high quality without reference, for various reasons, to other > types of music, such as jazz, techno, or Cuban folk music?
I attribute the lack of reaction to a lack of educated taste. The arts are given short shrift in most schools. It takes some effort to learn the difference between good and bad art and artists. ------------------------------------------------- This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/ moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
