Choofers and music

[Arch0wl]

posting this in CT because I don't want to shit up his AMA with this debate

I asked Choofers what, if anything, causes him to think negatively of someone regarding their taste in music

Originally Posted by Choofers

When it comes to music, it's not really the genres of music other people listen to that I pay attention, it's the reasoning of why they listen to that certain genre. Music is art, so it bothers me when people listen to music so passively that they can't say why they like a certain style of music. I used to be like that, oddly enough. I've found that listening to music in different ways and with different mindsets opens me up to a plethora of different ideas.

this is a solid view and is more in line with most formalistic ways of viewing music, but I'd like to offer an alternative perspective for your consideration:

http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/05/...introspection/

the above article establishes that if you try to establish reasons why you don't like a work of art, these reasons will most likely be bullshit.

in case you don't want to read the whole thing, here are the critical parts of the article:

Is there a certain song you love, or a work of art? Perhaps there is a movie you keep returning to over the years, or book. Go ahead and imagine one of those favorite things. Now, in one sentence, try to explain why you like it. Chances are, you will find it difficult to put into words, but if pressed you will probably be able to come up with something. The problem is, according to research, your explanation is probably going to be total bullshit.

Tim Wilson at UVA demonstrated this with The Poster Test. He brought a group of students into a room and showed them a series of posters. The students were told they could take any one they wanted as a gift and keep it. He then brought in another group, and told them the same thing, but this time they had to explain why they wanted the poster before they picked. He then waited six months and asked the two groups what they thought of their choices. The first group, the ones who just got to grab a poster and leave, they all loved their choice. The second group, the ones who had to write out why, hated theirs. The first group, the grab-and-go people, usually picked a nice, fancy painting. The second group, the ones who had to explain their choice, usually picked an inspirational poster with a cat clinging to a rope.

This brings up a lot of concerns. It calls into question the entire industry of critical analysis of art – video games, music, film, poetry, literature – all of it. It also makes things like focus groups and market analysis seem like farts in the wind.

When you ask people why they do or do not like things, they must then translate something from a deep, emotion, primal part of their psyche into the language of the higher, logical, rational world of words and sentences and paragraphs. Also, when you attempt to justify your decisions or emotional attachments, you start worrying about what your explanation says about you as a person.

In the above example, most people truly preferred the lady over the cat, but they couldn’t conjure up the rational explanation why, at least not in a way which would make logical sense on paper. On the other hand, you can write all sorts of bullshit about a motivational poster.

In a similar experiment by the same psychologist who conducted the Poster Test, people were shown two small photos of two different people and were asked which one was more attractive. They then were handed a larger photo. They were told it was the one they picked, but it was actually a completely different person. They were then asked why they chose it. Each time, people dutifully spun a yarn explaining their choice.

Believing you understand your motivations and desires, your likes and dislikes, is called the Introspection Illusion. You believe you know yourself, and why you are the way you are. You believe this knowledge tells you how you will act in all future situations. Research shows otherwise.

---

this establishes that the reasons you give for liking something are probably based on

(a) your ability to articulate, for one

(b) your ability to bullshit, and/or

(c) your self-honesty, since you will be tapping into essentially arbitrary reasons for things

---

another point to consider is that all music preferences boil down to the visceral in some way or another, and layers of reasoning to justify your preferences are just detours to the visceral anyway

which is to say, it's a dualistic mindset that stigmatizes the visceral, by thinking that with enough complexity the visceral is somehow taken over by a higher faculty, but it's viscerality, all the way down, with the exception that complexity may add satisfaction to a problem-solving impulse in some people

in other words, added layers of complexity don't, to me, make something any different or "higher", they just make it more indirect -- like adding a forest maze on whatever path you're trying to walk.