John Proffitt wrote:

>I fail to understand why elitism garners so much criticism on this List.

I can't speak for others, but I can try to make my position clearer.

>If you need a surgeon to remove a cancerous tumor, do you go to a resident
>fresh out of medical school, or do you look for the most highly trained,
>experienced specialist in the field? This is an elitist choice most of us
>would make without a moment's hesitation.

Doctoring is a profession in which certain standards of competence can be
established because its purpose, health, is comparatively easy to define,
the means for accomplishing it can also be defined comparatively precisely,
and the values of health, longevity, etc., are fairly non-controversial.
But even here there are "unconventional" forms of medicine (Chinese,
Indian, herbal, chiropractic, etc.) which have their adherents who swear
by them, even though they break all the rules of "scientific" Western
medicine.  And even within the Western category, there are still major
controversies in the areas of diet, alternative surgical tretments, etc.
So my use of the word "comparatively" above needs to be emphasized.

Lawyering is another example of a profession in which universal standards
are *comparatively* easy to establish, but here also, and even more so than
in medicine, there are many styles of practicing law, and one client may
legitimately prefer a type of lawyer who would be shunned by another
client.

>If a friend gives you a substantial amount of money to purchase a painting
>for his living room, are you more likely to go out and by the friend a
>"velvet Elvis" or a work of a master?

It depends on the kind of art my friend likes.  Some people, believe it or
not, actually enjoy putting velvet Elvises on their walls, and would be
disgusted by a Monet or Manet.

>If that friend wishes to reward you with an invitation to dinner at your
>choice of eating establishment, are you more likely to choose McDonald's or
>a 5-star Continental (whoops--there go those dead white Europeans again!)
>restaurant.

I might well choose McDonald's, if those two were the only choices.  More
likely, I would go for Japanese.  Others would no doubt head for a Chinese,
Thai, Mexican, Italian, ...  restaurant.  The range of choices where food
is concerned is so vast that I would have thought it absurd to argue that
only one of the world's cuisines is "the best."

>Choices like these can be looked at as common sense.  Skill, training,
>experience, craftmanship and, yes, artistic inspiration all are factors
>that we weigh in our thought and reason to come to a value judgment.

The term "common sense," as philosophers have long recognized, is usually
an honorific applied to one's own ideas.  In other words, nothing is less
common, more individual, than "common sense."

Such things as skill and training are always relative to what you are
trying to do.  The skills of a brain surgeon are different from those of an
acupuncturist, but in a given situation, the acupuncturist's skills may be
what the patient needs.  The skills of a hard rocker are different from
those of a classical musician, but if hard rock is what you want, the
classical musician would be a very poor choice to hire.

The basic question is, is it "better" to want CM or hard rock? Lieder or
country songs? Beethoven or Beck? The contention of anti-elitists such as
I is that it makes literally no sense to say that one kind of music is
absolutely, in all situations and for all purposes and reasons, better than
another, or that people who like one kind are better (absolutely, etc.)
than those who like another.  I shun rock and country like the plague, but
I recognize that that is merely a matter of my own taste in music.

All of the arguments which people try to give to prove that CM is
absolutely better than other kinds are fallacious.  It would be too tedious
to try to deal with all of them here, but if anyone thinks they have a
non-fallacious argument, I challenge them to present it here, and I will
refute it.  Basically, the situation with music is the same as with velvet
Elvises vs.  Monet and Manet, or French gourmet cuisine vs.  McDonald's,
which I discussed above.

Nor is it the case that CM lovers, performers, or composers are necessarily
better people than pop music lovers (see the case of Wagner currently being
discussed on another thread).  There was a time when the consumers of CM
were primarily the aristocrats in a semi-feudal society, and the faint
traces of this early history are still with us, I think, in the assumption
that is sometimes made that CM folks are somehow "a better class of people"
than the ruffians.  But I don't think I need to spend much time arguing
against that view.  By the way, in the recently concluded fund-raiser of
the Temple University half-classical station it was revealed that Jerry
Springer, of all people, is a big classical fan, and has contributed to
the station.

One of the main reasons some of us are so strongly "anti-elitist" about CM
is that the notion that you have to be especially intelligent, especially
"perceptive," "civilized," etc., to like CM is, we believe, a major
impediment, at least in countries such as the U.S., to garnering at least
a few more people into the pitifully small group of classical audiences.
None of the things we want--more classical radio, a healthier recording
situation, more influence from CM on the culture--will happen without a
broader base in the population.  Besides, if you really believe that CM is
the best music, why would you not want to share it with as many people as
possible (without, of course, trying to push it down their throats, or into
their ears)?

Jon Johanning // [log in to unmask]