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There is an argument to be made, though, that there is an upper limit in terms of complexity and quality of the kind of music that can be made in an audience-participatory fashion, and that ultimately music made by a single extraordinarily-talented and specially-trained musician has the potential to be more complex and more compelling. An analogous statement could be made about visual arts as well.
Specialization does allow for greater complexity, but theres no correlation between complexity and cultural merit. The trend in the Western visual art canon, for example, is for less complexity: from realism, through impressionism to abstract expressionism.
Uh... if you think Western visual art has gotten less complex in meaning over the last, say, 100 years, you're very much mistaken.
Besides, you can just replace "complexity" with "cultural merit" and the point is still valid.
Uh... if you think Western visual art has gotten less complex in meaning over the last, say, 100 years, you're very much mistaken.
Besides, you can just replace "complexity" with "cultural merit" and the point is still valid.
Obviously the meaning behind most post-modern art is complex, but in terms of the elements of composition its often quite simple: think Rothko and Duchamp. Nobody would claim their art is unsophisticated, but neither did it require any specialized training.
In other words, technical skill is not a barometer of cultural value.
Thing is, each culture's values are going to be different. On average, a culture will automatically judge its own culture as best, though occasionally cultures get "grass is greener" syndromes or the ever-popular "golden age" syndromes.
Uh... if you think Western visual art has gotten less complex in meaning over the last, say, 100 years, you're very much mistaken.
Besides, you can just replace "complexity" with "cultural merit" and the point is still valid.
Obviously the meaning behind most post-modern art is complex, but in terms of the elements of composition its often quite simple: think Rothko and Duchamp. Nobody would claim their art is unsophisticated, but neither did it require any specialized training.
In other words, technical skill is not a barometer of cultural value.
I agree, but I don't see how what you're saying contradicts what Feral said. It's not as if just because a kind of art doesn't require a lot of technical skill, anybody can do it. Either way, really good art requires really talented people, and not everyone has an incredible amount of artistic talent.
Incenj, I'm not really sure what you're trying to say. If someone comes up with an idea, is that not a cultural product? What do you mean by "actions" and "behaviors?"
There is an argument to be made, though, that there is an upper limit in terms of complexity and quality of the kind of music that can be made in an audience-participatory fashion, and that ultimately music made by a single extraordinarily-talented and specially-trained musician has the potential to be more complex and more compelling. An analogous statement could be made about visual arts as well.
Specialization does allow for greater complexity, but theres no correlation between complexity and cultural merit. The trend in the Western visual art canon, for example, is for less complexity: from realism, through impressionism to abstract expressionism.
Uh... if you think Western visual art has gotten less complex in meaning over the last, say, 100 years, you're very much mistaken.
Besides, you can just replace "complexity" with "cultural merit" and the point is still valid.
I think he's looking more in terms of the last 500 years, in which case, he'd be right. Artists have been learning to do more with less over the last few centuries.
In any case, I think the two paradigms (art produced and consumed by a community versus art produced by a specialized talent and consumed by the community) both have merits. Ultimately I think the specialized-artist paradigm is overall superior, but that's not say that the other paradigm is better in some ways. Particularly I think the way music is annotated and taught in the US is unnecessarily complex (and, paradoxically, limiting) and is something of a deliberate barrier to entry perpetuated by each generation of aging musicians as a way of protecting their authority from each wave of young upstarts. Ultimately this leads to the notion that "music" is a specialized and arduous technical endeavor, along the lines of higher mathematics or computer programming, rather than a natural product of the human mind. (This is a false dichotomy, BTW - it can be both.) Consequently, the vast majority of music produced in the "west" sucks. For every Radiohead there are a bazillion shitty garage bands struggling to to produce a chord progression that doesn't sound like cats mating.
I bring this up because I think ultimately discussions of cultural "superiority" are basically intellectual masturbation - most cultures are very bad at one thing and very good at another. West African cultures are good at teaching their kids music but aren't so good at producing compelling new musical forms from one generation to the next. American/European culture is good at making revolutionary advances in musical theory but we suck ass at passing that theory down in an intuitive manner to the next generation of musicians. We shouldn't be talking about how one culture stacks up against another overall, we should be talking about how we can help our culture improve the ways in which it sucks. A "culture" is not an all-or-nothing thing. We can adapt notions from other cultures in order to shore up the weak points of our own.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
American/European culture is good at making revolutionary advances in musical theory but we suck ass at passing that theory down in an intuitive manner to the next generation of musicians.
I don't know what you're talking about here. Yes, the music that is taught in schools is taught in an academic way, because they're teaching academic music forms (classical and jazz) chiefly. Forms like rock are passed down informally because they're informal genres. It's not as if rock, classical, or jazz aren't all progressing. Yes, there are shitty artists in all of these genres that are stuck in the past, but there are still plenty of artists in all of these genres that push it forward.
Although, on second thought, I don't know whether or not classical music has advanced significantly in the last 40 years, but I kind of think it has.
American/European culture is good at making revolutionary advances in musical theory but we suck ass at passing that theory down in an intuitive manner to the next generation of musicians.
I don't know what you're talking about here.
I kept struggling to find a way to describe it concisely and I'm failing. So I'm just going to quote a book.
To nonmusicians, terms such as diatonic, cadence, or even pitch can throw up an unnecessary barrier. Musicians and critics sometimes appear to live behind a veil of technical terms terms that can sound pretentious. How many times have you read a concert review in the newspaper and found that you have idea what the reviewer is saying? 'Her sustained appoggiatura was flawed by an inability to complete the roulade. What we really want to know is whether the music was performed in a way that moved the audience. Whether the signer seemed to inhabit the character she was singing about. You might want the reviewer to compare tonight's performance to that of a previous night or a different ensemble. We're usually interested in the music, not the technical devices that were used. We wouldn't stand for it if a restaurant reviewer started to speculate about the precise temperature at which the chef introduced the lemon juice in a hollandaise sauce, or if a film critic talked about the aperture of the lens that cinematographer used; we shouldn't stand for it in music either.
I acknowledge that this might be my own personal bias talking. My early attempt at learning music theory was a little like banging my head against a brick wall made of sheet music with technical vocabulary as mortar. It was impressed upon me (as far as I could tell, somewhat deliberately) that music is hard. I quit taking music classes out of frustration and I was left pretty hopelessly confused. I'm diving back in again, as an adult, and discovering that is actually really quite simple, it was just that none of my early teachers had any interest in making it seem simple. They seemed more interested in weeding out people who weren't serious about it.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
With the possible exception of jazz that doesn't really apply to most popular music. Most popular muscians are not formally trained, and therefore pretty much just pick that stuff up instinctively. Once you've got basic rhythym and chord structures down the rest really is just pretentious window dressing that you can easily derive yourself once you've been exposed to the end product.
Also, the easier it is for someone to become an artist, the more likely it is that really talented people will dedicate themselves to art and produce really great art. So it is fair to assume that cultures that produce more art will tend to produce better art.
"Great art" and "better art" sound very poetic, but what are they supposed to mean? While increased interaction can diversify the form, I question whether you can necessarily judge a piece of art to be either better or worse in the way that you would judge a piece of technology to be more or less advanced.
Also, the easier it is for someone to become an artist, the more likely it is that really talented people will dedicate themselves to art and produce really great art. So it is fair to assume that cultures that produce more art will tend to produce better art.
"Great art" and "better art" sound very poetic, but what are they supposed to mean? While increased interaction can diversify the form, I question whether you can necessarily judge a piece of art to be either better or worse in the way that you would judge a piece of technology to be more or less advanced.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that quality of art is actually pretty objective as long as you have a large enough group of qualified people judging the art. In most forms of art, among well-informed critics there's a pretty strong consensus on what the best examples of that art form are. Not everyone will agree with every part of that consensus, but it's a consensus nonetheless. For example, I have never met, talked to, or heard of anyone who knows a respectable amount about jazz and doesn't think that Kind of Blue is, if not the greatest, one of the greatest jazz albums ever made.
I think the reason why quality of art is somewhat objective is because if you really understand a form of art, how it came about and how it has developed, then you'll almost certainly understand what makes specific examples of that form of art good or bad. Not to mention, anyone who bothers to educate themselves on a particular form of art probably likes that form of art, which minimizes differences in taste. Sure, that same jazz critic probably wouldn't be able to pick out the best metal album in a group of three, but that's why you don't ask a jazz critic about metal albums.
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Feral, in my experience I haven't really noticed that. In fact, I'm surprised at how little knowledge of music theory most music reviewers demonstrate, although this is my view as someone who knows a decent amount of theory. Again, discussions of pretty much all music that isn't jazz or classical tend to talk about theory very little, and everything besides jazz and classical tends to have pretty simple theory compared to jazz or classical. Serious discussions of jazz or classical music are academic by necessity. You really just can't say anything intelligent about John Coltrane if you haven't taken any theory classes, and that's all there is to it.
You could argue that schools don't do a good job of teaching simple theory to people who aren't interested in jazz or classical. Which is true, but rock musicians don't usually learn theory from schools, they learn it informally.
I think one could narrow down the debate to the perceived "individualism" of western cultures versus the "collectivism" of pretty much everywhere else from Mexico to India to Japan. Never mind that Japan could be considered the very definition of individuality compared to India. I've seen nationalist and ignorant TA's tout individualism as the be all end all reason for both America's difference from the rest of the world, as well as its "superiority". One even went so far as to cite it as the reason why the country thumbs its nose at multilateral conventions and treaties and the Iraq war, sorry I mean "War on Terror" :roll:
I think one could narrow down the debate to the perceived "individualism" of western cultures versus the "collectivism" of pretty much everywhere else from Mexico to India to Japan. Never mind that Japan could be considered the very definition of individuality compared to India. I've seen nationalist and ignorant TA's tout individualism as the be all end all reason for both America's difference from the rest of the world, as well as its "superiority". One even went so far as to cite it as the reason why the country thumbs its nose at multilateral conventions and treaties and the Iraq war, sorry I mean "War on Terror" :roll:
Are you saying that India is collectivist? Because I can say from personal experience that it is extremely individualist, more than any other country I can think of.
You really just can't say anything intelligent about John Coltrane if you haven't taken any theory classes, and that's all there is to it.
Elitist bullshit. You may not be able to get people wet in some musicology departments, or rather some musicology classes, but Jazz is about a lot more than theory.
Case in point- Jazz-in-literature classes, music criticism by Robert Christgau, who you really can't call a layman despite his lack of backgroudn in theory.
I think one could narrow down the debate to the perceived "individualism" of western cultures versus the "collectivism" of pretty much everywhere else from Mexico to India to Japan. Never mind that Japan could be considered the very definition of individuality compared to India. I've seen nationalist and ignorant TA's tout individualism as the be all end all reason for both America's difference from the rest of the world, as well as its "superiority". One even went so far as to cite it as the reason why the country thumbs its nose at multilateral conventions and treaties and the Iraq war, sorry I mean "War on Terror" :roll:
Are you saying that India is collectivist? Because I can say from personal experience that it is extremely individualist, more than any other country I can think of.
India is sickeningly collectivist, at least the dominant culture of the current generation. the vast majority of marriages are arranged, inter-caste marriages lead to disownment by families for that reason alone, discussion of homosexuality leads to violent mass protests, it's considered extremely odd/shameful if someone majors in a field other than engineering or medicine, independent art outside of either classical (traditional) or commercial context isn't generally respected by society at large, and various other shit.
I think one could narrow down the debate to the perceived "individualism" of western cultures versus the "collectivism" of pretty much everywhere else from Mexico to India to Japan. Never mind that Japan could be considered the very definition of individuality compared to India. I've seen nationalist and ignorant TA's tout individualism as the be all end all reason for both America's difference from the rest of the world, as well as its "superiority". One even went so far as to cite it as the reason why the country thumbs its nose at multilateral conventions and treaties and the Iraq war, sorry I mean "War on Terror" :roll:
Are you saying that India is collectivist? Because I can say from personal experience that it is extremely individualist, more than any other country I can think of.
India is sickeningly collectivist, at least the dominant culture of the current generation. the vast majority of marriages are arranged, inter-caste marriages lead to disownment by families for that reason alone, discussion of homosexuality leads to violent mass protests, it's considered extremely odd/shameful if someone majors in a field other than engineering or medicine, independent art outside of either classical (traditional) or commercial context isn't generally respected by society at large, and various other shit.
Most of the shit you said has nothing to do with collectivism and sounds like something somebody would get from a book on Indian stereotypes.
There are over 200 languages spoken in India and over 20 official languages. There are also several major religions in India. This generally does not lead to a collectivist culture.
I think one could narrow down the debate to the perceived "individualism" of western cultures versus the "collectivism" of pretty much everywhere else from Mexico to India to Japan. Never mind that Japan could be considered the very definition of individuality compared to India. I've seen nationalist and ignorant TA's tout individualism as the be all end all reason for both America's difference from the rest of the world, as well as its "superiority". One even went so far as to cite it as the reason why the country thumbs its nose at multilateral conventions and treaties and the Iraq war, sorry I mean "War on Terror" :roll:
Are you saying that India is collectivist? Because I can say from personal experience that it is extremely individualist, more than any other country I can think of.
India is sickeningly collectivist, at least the dominant culture of the current generation. the vast majority of marriages are arranged, inter-caste marriages lead to disownment by families for that reason alone, discussion of homosexuality leads to violent mass protests, it's considered extremely odd/shameful if someone majors in a field other than engineering or medicine, independent art outside of either classical (traditional) or commercial context isn't generally respected by society at large, and various other shit.
Most of the shit you said has nothing to do with collectivism and sounds like something somebody would get from a book on Indian stereotypes.
There are over 200 languages spoken in India and over 20 official languages. There are also several major religions in India. This generally does not lead to a collectivist culture.
No it comes from being Indian and being extensively exposed to Indian society on the inside.
Yes, the country is ethnically diverse and there are differences in things like regional art, cuisine, etc. This doesn't mean they aren't homogenous on a very fundamental level though.
I think one could narrow down the debate to the perceived "individualism" of western cultures versus the "collectivism" of pretty much everywhere else from Mexico to India to Japan. Never mind that Japan could be considered the very definition of individuality compared to India. I've seen nationalist and ignorant TA's tout individualism as the be all end all reason for both America's difference from the rest of the world, as well as its "superiority". One even went so far as to cite it as the reason why the country thumbs its nose at multilateral conventions and treaties and the Iraq war, sorry I mean "War on Terror" :roll:
Are you saying that India is collectivist? Because I can say from personal experience that it is extremely individualist, more than any other country I can think of.
India is sickeningly collectivist, at least the dominant culture of the current generation. the vast majority of marriages are arranged, inter-caste marriages lead to disownment by families for that reason alone, discussion of homosexuality leads to violent mass protests, it's considered extremely odd/shameful if someone majors in a field other than engineering or medicine, independent art outside of either classical (traditional) or commercial context isn't generally respected by society at large, and various other shit.
Most of the shit you said has nothing to do with collectivism and sounds like something somebody would get from a book on Indian stereotypes.
There are over 200 languages spoken in India and over 20 official languages. There are also several major religions in India. This generally does not lead to a collectivist culture.
No it comes from being Indian and being extensively exposed to Indian society on the inside.
Yes, the country is ethnically diverse and there are differences in things like regional art, cuisine, etc. This doesn't mean they aren't homogenous on a very fundamental level though.
How is it homogeneous? None of the stuff you mentioned is collectivist.
As for major religions, there are 3. Minority Christians, and then Hindus and Muslims. Various sects too. And most of what I talked about in my previous post applies equally to all of them.
As for major religions, there are 3. Minority Christians, and then Hindus and Muslims. Various sects too. And most of what I talked about in my previous post applies equally to all of them.
None of what you said was fundamental. Hell, marrying outside of a caste doesn't apply to Muslims.
Family disownment because of inter-caste marriage isn't collectivist? Repression of serious discussion on the issue of homosexuality, considered taboo by all 3 major religions that are seared into the populations outlooks isn't collectivist?
Maybe we're working with a different definition of collectivism. What I had in mind was
Collectivists focus on community and society, and seek to give priority to group goals over individual goals.[1]
As for major religions, there are 3. Minority Christians, and then Hindus and Muslims. Various sects too. And most of what I talked about in my previous post applies equally to all of them.
None of what you said was fundamental. Hell, marrying outside of a caste doesn't apply to Muslims.
Castes are fundamentally communities, and functionally that's what they are today. Muslims aren't allowed to marry outside their community, which in their case would mean any non-muslim.
The best culture is the one that provides me with the most shiny toys. This answer is obviously formed by the culture one lives in and seeing as I come from a very consumerist society, I will like consuming needless shit. I mean, I'm posting this on my Wii. How stupid-fly is that?
I'd say it's absolutely possible to judge one culture as being superior to another. The subjectiveness of 'good' and 'evil' is irrelevant when you consider simple human decency and benefit. A culture that makes the most people comfortable and empowered with the least amount of exploitation is the superior one. There really is only one category that we need to easily judge a culture as being inferior or superior:
Valuing human life is superior to not valuing human life.
If you value human life, you don't kill people, and you feel bad if you accidently kill people.
If you value human life, you don't exploit people for personal gain, and you feel bad if you see people being exploited.
If you value human life, you see people as equals because you reckognise that their humanity is just as valuable as your own.
The amount of equality, liberty, and the mechanisms of governement and all that crap are all just different aspects of that one human truth. Social equality is valuing all human life over not valuing all human life and is therefore better. If you have slaves, you don't value the humanity of those you enslave, and thus it is inferior. If you kill people for theft you don't value their humanity nor care to understand the social and economic motivations that might have led them to 'crime'. If you wage war upon another nation you do not value their life and existence on par with your own.
Thus the greater one culture values humanity and human life, the less exploitation, the less racism, the less inequality, the less war, the less crime, the less pretty much everything negative the culture will partake in. Therefore, we can completely determine which culture is better than another without fail.
I'd say it's absolutely possible to judge one culture as being superior to another. The subjectiveness of 'good' and 'evil' is irrelevant when you consider simple human decency and benefit. A culture that makes the most people comfortable and empowered with the least amount of exploitation is the superior one. There really is only one category that we need to easily judge a culture as being inferior or superior:
Valuing human life is superior to not valuing human life.
If you value human life, you don't kill people, and you feel bad if you accidently kill people.
If you value human life, you don't exploit people for personal gain, and you feel bad if you see people being exploited.
If you value human life, you see people as equals because you reckognise that their humanity is just as valuable as your own.
The amount of equality, liberty, and the mechanisms of governement and all that crap are all just different aspects of that one human truth. Social equality is valuing all human life over not valuing all human life and is therefore better. If you have slaves, you don't value the humanity of those you enslave, and thus it is inferior. If you kill people for theft you don't value their humanity nor care to understand the social and economic motivations that might have led them to 'crime'. If you wage war upon another nation you do not value their life and existence on par with your own.
Thus the greater one culture values humanity and human life, the less exploitation, the less racism, the less inequality, the less war, the less crime, the less pretty much everything negative the culture will partake in. Therefore, we can completely determine which culture is better than another without fail.
i disagree that all human life should be valued equally. i disagree with the goal of attempting to value all human life equally.
I'm not sure what you're trying to demonstrate here, simply saying "I disagree" isn't exactly the best way to foster a Debate & Discussion now is it. Which of course calls into question why you would post such a thing in a forum devoted to "Debate & Discussion".
I'm not sure what you're trying to demonstrate here, simply saying "I disagree" isn't exactly the best way to foster a Debate & Discussion now is it. Which of course calls into question why you would post such a thing in a forum devoted to "Debate & Discussion".
No, he's being relativistic. The way you value other cultures is based on how your own culture values things.
Liberté, Egalité & Fraternité is not a global principal (yet?).
We went over this before, somewhere around pp. 1-6.
The problem is that he cannot use relativism to disprove my position that you can evaluate cultures without somehow showing fundamentally that my scale is incorrect. I make the claim that my basis for cultural evaluation is truth and universal based on several key points namely A)benefit to all involved in a society and the benefits and positive nature such a society would bring to the world.
A culture that 'scores' highly on my scale causes vastly less human misery, and vastly more human happiness than ones that do not. They also grant greater autonomy to a greater number of people than those that score lowly. This is not a question of like or dislike, agreement or disagreement, this is basing upon logical fact of things that are better than something else. Cultures that score highly on my scale cause less universal 'evils' than those that do not.
Slavery is bad. This is truth, culture can say it's good all they want, but no slaves ever say it's a good thing.
War is bad. Governements and fanatics can claim its good all they want, but no 'colateral damage' families or War veteran will make that same claim. You can think war is nice all you want, but nobody who has ever fought a war thinks that war is a great thing to have.
Harming others is bad. This is truth. Your culture can think Jews are evil or that the rich are the best thing since sliced bread, but nobody being harmed thinks that this is a great idea, and nobody NOT being harmed wishes to BE harmed. If I walk up to anyone, kick them in the face and steal their supper, daily, that guy isn't going to think that's a great system. Thusly why should my opinion count moreso than someone elses? There is nothing intrinsically better about me than another.
My issue with his reply is he presented the arguement of relative morality without showing, at ALL, how it was better for mankind as a while than my proposal of universal morality.
Edit: Thus my scale uses quantitative list and logic to prove one culture above another by reducing the number of social evils present in a society.
Additionally by using a relative arguement to attempt to refute my points he's only supporting my arguement because you can only value relative morality if you view the opinions of all equally. To do otherwise would be circular logic and hypocritical which negates the arguement in question. (hope I explained that clearly enough lol)
Basically saying he disagrees does jack because he hasn't proven any of my assertions to be wrong. I present a logical arguement saying that reducing the amount of social universal evils is better than embracing those evils.
To refute my point he needs to prove either A) That what I deem as bad isn't actually bad at all, or That a society based around the embracing of something I rate poorly is superior to something I rate highly.
You don't do that by saying "I disagree".
It's just not much of a Debate that way. Since all he leaves for me to reply with is "You're wrong".
Saying that a culture that 'values human life' more than another culture 'values human life' is a pretty absurd and oversimplistic statement. How you can demonstrate a cultures love for all things human is beyond me.
By your system Australia automatically has a better culture than america because we don't have a death penalty.
im not sure you've understood the problem i've presented.
all your claims necessarily assume that one person is equal in value to another. i do not know why you assume this. this is a positive assumption and requires evidence or reasoning to back it up.
i assume the opposite. one person is not equal in value to another. even if we were able to agree on a definition of "value", i cannot fathom how you would be able to convince me (or anyone) that a paraplegic brain dead vegetable is equal in value to einstein. as such, harming some for the benefit of others may be a good thing given certain situations. attempting to say something like
If you value human life, you don't kill people, and you feel bad if you accidently kill people.
The problem is that he cannot use relativism to disprove my position that you can evaluate cultures without somehow showing fundamentally that my scale is incorrect. I make the claim that my basis for cultural evaluation is truth and universal based on several key points namely A)benefit to all involved in a society and the benefits and positive nature such a society would bring to the world.
i do not need to show that your scale is "incorrect". the burden of proof lies upon you to show that it is correct. that being said, i've already provided you with an example where two people have different values. would i kill the vegetable if it would improve the life of a more "valuable" person? probably.
A culture that 'scores' highly on my scale causes vastly less human misery, and vastly more human happiness than ones that do not. They also grant greater autonomy to a greater number of people than those that score lowly. This is not a question of like or dislike, agreement or disagreement, this is basing upon logical fact of things that are better than something else. Cultures that score highly on my scale cause less universal 'evils' than those that do not.
these are all empirical claims which i seriously doubt you could prove. please provide evidence if you have some.
Slavery is bad. This is truth, culture can say it's good all they want, but no slaves ever say it's a good thing.
War is bad. Governements and fanatics can claim its good all they want, but no 'colateral damage' families or War veteran will make that same claim. You can think war is nice all you want, but nobody who has ever fought a war thinks that war is a great thing to have.
Harming others is bad. This is truth. Your culture can think Jews are evil or that the rich are the best thing since sliced bread, but nobody being harmed thinks that this is a great idea, and nobody NOT being harmed wishes to BE harmed. If I walk up to anyone, kick them in the face and steal their supper, daily, that guy isn't going to think that's a great system. Thusly why should my opinion count moreso than someone elses? There is nothing intrinsically better about me than another.
im still not convinced why you think people have equal value.
do you feel children should have the right to vote? should the blind be allowed to drive? we grant various rights to various groups depending on how much we value them and on how much responsibility we think they have and can handle. we create classes and distinguish between people all the time. if we believe that distinguishing between people based on intellectual or physical capability is fair, then we cannot with a straight face say that we "value" all people equally.
My issue with his reply is he presented the arguement of relative morality without showing, at ALL, how it was better for mankind as a while than my proposal of universal morality.
i wasn't presenting my side of the argument as much as questioning the assumption you base your claim on. im still not sure you've provided any evidence backing up your claim or your assumptions.
Edit: Thus my scale uses quantitative list and logic to prove one culture above another by reducing the number of social evils present in a society.
Additionally by using a relative arguement to attempt to refute my points he's only supporting my arguement because you can only value relative morality if you view the opinions of all equally. To do otherwise would be circular logic and hypocritical which negates the arguement in question. (hope I explained that clearly enough lol)
no, this is a common misconception regarding moral relativity. a relativist makes no judgment regarding the value of any culture. this is the exact opposite of stating that all cultures are equal.
Valuing human life is superior to not valuing human life.
This is a ridiculously simplistic statement. First you have to quantify the value you place on human life, then determine how that can be used to make moral judgements. Is it better to kill one person to save ten? Or is it better to let the ten die so you don't have to take the life of the one?
Slavery, too, is more nuanced than you might expect. Say the people you enslave are incapable of looking after themselves. By enslaving them you provide them with decent working conditions, food, a place to live, etc. If you provide for all the basic needs of a person, even at the cost of their liberty, isn't that "valuing human life"?
War, too, presents similar problems to the "kil one to save ten" hypothetical. I think it would be foolish to say that there is no cause that warrants an expense of human life.
Saying that a culture that 'values human life' more than another culture 'values human life' is a pretty absurd and oversimplistic statement. How you can demonstrate a cultures love for all things human is beyond me.
By your system Australia automatically has a better culture than america because we don't have a death penalty.
That is correct. It does.
I'll take the time to discuss Ketherial post in greater detail in a few hours, gotta run to class, but this is exactly the sort of dialogue I was hoping to foster.
You really just can't say anything intelligent about John Coltrane if you haven't taken any theory classes, and that's all there is to it.
Elitist bullshit. You may not be able to get people wet in some musicology departments, or rather some musicology classes, but Jazz is about a lot more than theory.
Case in point- Jazz-in-literature classes, music criticism by Robert Christgau, who you really can't call a layman despite his lack of backgroudn in theory.
Of course jazz is about a lot more than theory. That doesn't mean that you don't need to understand at least basic theory to truly appreciate jazz after, say, 1955. Someone who doesn't understand theory would be able to say about as much about John Coltrane as a poet might be able to say about Jackson Pollock--they might be able to pick up on some basic things, but they'll be missing out on a lot. I know plenty of people who listen to plenty of good music but couldn't tell the difference between Michael Brecker and John Coltrane. That's because even though there's a whole lot of difference there, it's pretty much all theoretical--stylistically they're pretty similar.
I'll concede that it's probably possible to understand jazz intuitively just by listening to it for many years. But you're still not going to be able to talk about it because you don't have the vocabulary and the way you grasp the concepts will be unstructured and disorganized.
Robert Christgau is a poor example because I specifically said I was talking about classical and jazz, which were the only genres of music that I claimed were necessarily academic.
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Besides, you can just replace "complexity" with "cultural merit" and the point is still valid.
Maybe ideas and actions and behaviors and all the other things people can do that can't be sent via UPS.
Obviously the meaning behind most post-modern art is complex, but in terms of the elements of composition its often quite simple: think Rothko and Duchamp. Nobody would claim their art is unsophisticated, but neither did it require any specialized training.
In other words, technical skill is not a barometer of cultural value.
Incenj, I'm not really sure what you're trying to say. If someone comes up with an idea, is that not a cultural product? What do you mean by "actions" and "behaviors?"
Well, it has been a few days since I've showered.
Dancing is cultural.
Language is cultural.
Every goddamn thing people do is cultural.
Even how you BREATHE is cultural -- Westerners tend to have very shallow breathing.
I think he's looking more in terms of the last 500 years, in which case, he'd be right. Artists have been learning to do more with less over the last few centuries.
In any case, I think the two paradigms (art produced and consumed by a community versus art produced by a specialized talent and consumed by the community) both have merits. Ultimately I think the specialized-artist paradigm is overall superior, but that's not say that the other paradigm is better in some ways. Particularly I think the way music is annotated and taught in the US is unnecessarily complex (and, paradoxically, limiting) and is something of a deliberate barrier to entry perpetuated by each generation of aging musicians as a way of protecting their authority from each wave of young upstarts. Ultimately this leads to the notion that "music" is a specialized and arduous technical endeavor, along the lines of higher mathematics or computer programming, rather than a natural product of the human mind. (This is a false dichotomy, BTW - it can be both.) Consequently, the vast majority of music produced in the "west" sucks. For every Radiohead there are a bazillion shitty garage bands struggling to to produce a chord progression that doesn't sound like cats mating.
I bring this up because I think ultimately discussions of cultural "superiority" are basically intellectual masturbation - most cultures are very bad at one thing and very good at another. West African cultures are good at teaching their kids music but aren't so good at producing compelling new musical forms from one generation to the next. American/European culture is good at making revolutionary advances in musical theory but we suck ass at passing that theory down in an intuitive manner to the next generation of musicians. We shouldn't be talking about how one culture stacks up against another overall, we should be talking about how we can help our culture improve the ways in which it sucks. A "culture" is not an all-or-nothing thing. We can adapt notions from other cultures in order to shore up the weak points of our own.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Although, on second thought, I don't know whether or not classical music has advanced significantly in the last 40 years, but I kind of think it has.
I kept struggling to find a way to describe it concisely and I'm failing. So I'm just going to quote a book.
I acknowledge that this might be my own personal bias talking. My early attempt at learning music theory was a little like banging my head against a brick wall made of sheet music with technical vocabulary as mortar. It was impressed upon me (as far as I could tell, somewhat deliberately) that music is hard. I quit taking music classes out of frustration and I was left pretty hopelessly confused. I'm diving back in again, as an adult, and discovering that is actually really quite simple, it was just that none of my early teachers had any interest in making it seem simple. They seemed more interested in weeding out people who weren't serious about it.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
"Great art" and "better art" sound very poetic, but what are they supposed to mean? While increased interaction can diversify the form, I question whether you can necessarily judge a piece of art to be either better or worse in the way that you would judge a piece of technology to be more or less advanced.
I think the reason why quality of art is somewhat objective is because if you really understand a form of art, how it came about and how it has developed, then you'll almost certainly understand what makes specific examples of that form of art good or bad. Not to mention, anyone who bothers to educate themselves on a particular form of art probably likes that form of art, which minimizes differences in taste. Sure, that same jazz critic probably wouldn't be able to pick out the best metal album in a group of three, but that's why you don't ask a jazz critic about metal albums.
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Feral, in my experience I haven't really noticed that. In fact, I'm surprised at how little knowledge of music theory most music reviewers demonstrate, although this is my view as someone who knows a decent amount of theory. Again, discussions of pretty much all music that isn't jazz or classical tend to talk about theory very little, and everything besides jazz and classical tends to have pretty simple theory compared to jazz or classical. Serious discussions of jazz or classical music are academic by necessity. You really just can't say anything intelligent about John Coltrane if you haven't taken any theory classes, and that's all there is to it.
You could argue that schools don't do a good job of teaching simple theory to people who aren't interested in jazz or classical. Which is true, but rock musicians don't usually learn theory from schools, they learn it informally.
Are you saying that India is collectivist? Because I can say from personal experience that it is extremely individualist, more than any other country I can think of.
Case in point- Jazz-in-literature classes, music criticism by Robert Christgau, who you really can't call a layman despite his lack of backgroudn in theory.
India is sickeningly collectivist, at least the dominant culture of the current generation. the vast majority of marriages are arranged, inter-caste marriages lead to disownment by families for that reason alone, discussion of homosexuality leads to violent mass protests, it's considered extremely odd/shameful if someone majors in a field other than engineering or medicine, independent art outside of either classical (traditional) or commercial context isn't generally respected by society at large, and various other shit.
There are over 200 languages spoken in India and over 20 official languages. There are also several major religions in India. This generally does not lead to a collectivist culture.
No it comes from being Indian and being extensively exposed to Indian society on the inside.
Yes, the country is ethnically diverse and there are differences in things like regional art, cuisine, etc. This doesn't mean they aren't homogenous on a very fundamental level though.
How is it homogeneous? None of the stuff you mentioned is collectivist.
None of what you said was fundamental. Hell, marrying outside of a caste doesn't apply to Muslims.
Maybe we're working with a different definition of collectivism. What I had in mind was
Castes are fundamentally communities, and functionally that's what they are today. Muslims aren't allowed to marry outside their community, which in their case would mean any non-muslim.
Valuing human life is superior to not valuing human life.
If you value human life, you don't kill people, and you feel bad if you accidently kill people.
If you value human life, you don't exploit people for personal gain, and you feel bad if you see people being exploited.
If you value human life, you see people as equals because you reckognise that their humanity is just as valuable as your own.
The amount of equality, liberty, and the mechanisms of governement and all that crap are all just different aspects of that one human truth. Social equality is valuing all human life over not valuing all human life and is therefore better. If you have slaves, you don't value the humanity of those you enslave, and thus it is inferior. If you kill people for theft you don't value their humanity nor care to understand the social and economic motivations that might have led them to 'crime'. If you wage war upon another nation you do not value their life and existence on par with your own.
Thus the greater one culture values humanity and human life, the less exploitation, the less racism, the less inequality, the less war, the less crime, the less pretty much everything negative the culture will partake in. Therefore, we can completely determine which culture is better than another without fail.
i disagree that all human life should be valued equally. i disagree with the goal of attempting to value all human life equally.
I'm not sure what you're trying to demonstrate here, simply saying "I disagree" isn't exactly the best way to foster a Debate & Discussion now is it. Which of course calls into question why you would post such a thing in a forum devoted to "Debate & Discussion".
Liberté, Egalité & Fraternité is not a global principal (yet?).
We went over this before, somewhere around pp. 1-6.
A culture that 'scores' highly on my scale causes vastly less human misery, and vastly more human happiness than ones that do not. They also grant greater autonomy to a greater number of people than those that score lowly. This is not a question of like or dislike, agreement or disagreement, this is basing upon logical fact of things that are better than something else. Cultures that score highly on my scale cause less universal 'evils' than those that do not.
Slavery is bad. This is truth, culture can say it's good all they want, but no slaves ever say it's a good thing.
War is bad. Governements and fanatics can claim its good all they want, but no 'colateral damage' families or War veteran will make that same claim. You can think war is nice all you want, but nobody who has ever fought a war thinks that war is a great thing to have.
Harming others is bad. This is truth. Your culture can think Jews are evil or that the rich are the best thing since sliced bread, but nobody being harmed thinks that this is a great idea, and nobody NOT being harmed wishes to BE harmed. If I walk up to anyone, kick them in the face and steal their supper, daily, that guy isn't going to think that's a great system. Thusly why should my opinion count moreso than someone elses? There is nothing intrinsically better about me than another.
My issue with his reply is he presented the arguement of relative morality without showing, at ALL, how it was better for mankind as a while than my proposal of universal morality.
Edit: Thus my scale uses quantitative list and logic to prove one culture above another by reducing the number of social evils present in a society.
Additionally by using a relative arguement to attempt to refute my points he's only supporting my arguement because you can only value relative morality if you view the opinions of all equally. To do otherwise would be circular logic and hypocritical which negates the arguement in question. (hope I explained that clearly enough lol)
Basically saying he disagrees does jack because he hasn't proven any of my assertions to be wrong. I present a logical arguement saying that reducing the amount of social universal evils is better than embracing those evils.
To refute my point he needs to prove either A) That what I deem as bad isn't actually bad at all, or
You don't do that by saying "I disagree".
It's just not much of a Debate that way. Since all he leaves for me to reply with is "You're wrong".
By your system Australia automatically has a better culture than america because we don't have a death penalty.
https://medium.com/@alascii
all your claims necessarily assume that one person is equal in value to another. i do not know why you assume this. this is a positive assumption and requires evidence or reasoning to back it up.
i assume the opposite. one person is not equal in value to another. even if we were able to agree on a definition of "value", i cannot fathom how you would be able to convince me (or anyone) that a paraplegic brain dead vegetable is equal in value to einstein. as such, harming some for the benefit of others may be a good thing given certain situations. attempting to say something like makes you sound simplistic.
i do not need to show that your scale is "incorrect". the burden of proof lies upon you to show that it is correct. that being said, i've already provided you with an example where two people have different values. would i kill the vegetable if it would improve the life of a more "valuable" person? probably.
these are all empirical claims which i seriously doubt you could prove. please provide evidence if you have some.
im still not convinced why you think people have equal value.
do you feel children should have the right to vote? should the blind be allowed to drive? we grant various rights to various groups depending on how much we value them and on how much responsibility we think they have and can handle. we create classes and distinguish between people all the time. if we believe that distinguishing between people based on intellectual or physical capability is fair, then we cannot with a straight face say that we "value" all people equally.
i wasn't presenting my side of the argument as much as questioning the assumption you base your claim on. im still not sure you've provided any evidence backing up your claim or your assumptions.
no, this is a common misconception regarding moral relativity. a relativist makes no judgment regarding the value of any culture. this is the exact opposite of stating that all cultures are equal.
This is a ridiculously simplistic statement. First you have to quantify the value you place on human life, then determine how that can be used to make moral judgements. Is it better to kill one person to save ten? Or is it better to let the ten die so you don't have to take the life of the one?
Slavery, too, is more nuanced than you might expect. Say the people you enslave are incapable of looking after themselves. By enslaving them you provide them with decent working conditions, food, a place to live, etc. If you provide for all the basic needs of a person, even at the cost of their liberty, isn't that "valuing human life"?
War, too, presents similar problems to the "kil one to save ten" hypothetical. I think it would be foolish to say that there is no cause that warrants an expense of human life.
That is correct. It does.
I'll take the time to discuss Ketherial post in greater detail in a few hours, gotta run to class, but this is exactly the sort of dialogue I was hoping to foster.
Of course jazz is about a lot more than theory. That doesn't mean that you don't need to understand at least basic theory to truly appreciate jazz after, say, 1955. Someone who doesn't understand theory would be able to say about as much about John Coltrane as a poet might be able to say about Jackson Pollock--they might be able to pick up on some basic things, but they'll be missing out on a lot. I know plenty of people who listen to plenty of good music but couldn't tell the difference between Michael Brecker and John Coltrane. That's because even though there's a whole lot of difference there, it's pretty much all theoretical--stylistically they're pretty similar.
I'll concede that it's probably possible to understand jazz intuitively just by listening to it for many years. But you're still not going to be able to talk about it because you don't have the vocabulary and the way you grasp the concepts will be unstructured and disorganized.
Robert Christgau is a poor example because I specifically said I was talking about classical and jazz, which were the only genres of music that I claimed were necessarily academic.