Steve Schwartz writes:

>Think of all the condescension Rachmaninoff and Mahler used to get.  The
>names change, but the attitude persists.

It can work that way.  But Rachmaninoff and Mahler for some time now have
not generally been treated with condescension--so that names can remain the
same while it's the attitudes that change.  Tastes change because tastes
are values and values change.  Indeed, the ways in which values are valued
change.  Richard Rorty, possibly America's foremost living philosopher,
claims he has little use for the concept of "objective truth." Another
great American philosopher C.S Peirce, the man who invented pragmatism,
said that truth reposed in the judgement that "something is SO...whether
you, or I, or anybody, thinks it is so or not."

Values are set by paradigm.  If you, as an individual don't accept the
paradigm, then you oppose the paradigm.  But the paradigm stands until
it is replaced by a new paradigm in the "marketplace" of, in the case
of music, aesthetics.

Elites no doubt have something to do with the creation of paradigms.
That's because they are, by definition, the choice of that part of society
that exercises leadership in the "marketplace." Egalitarians tend to be
disdainful of elites, but they so are in disregard of the fact that there
is no such thing as equality among hummans and their society.  We all
differ from one another, and not in respect of our fingerprints alone.

Denis Fodor                     Internet:[log in to unmask]