Scott and dialectics

[Stephen Chilton]

On Fri, 8 Aug 1997, Kevin D. Haggerty wrote [in reply to Scott]:

> I would be interested to hear this argument expanded a little more. In
> particular, what type of "universal import" do you think the subjective
> evaluations of music might have? I would also like to know what it would
> mean for such subjective evaluations to be "objective"? (I'm not trying to
> bait, I just don't know what you are hinting at.)
> 
> 
> [Scott:]  What riled me about, for example, Haggarty's
> > post was that his approach would have denied that the particular,
> > subjective evaluation of music could have any universal import, that it
> > could be objective (that is, that evaluations of music as high or low
> > were anything other that expressions of "class conflict" 
> 
> 
> Not that I think evaluations of music, art, etc., are entirely a matter of
> class conflict. Rather, what I was thinking about was that if we think with
> Bourdieu about the question of the evaluation of art, he notes that there
> is a particular structure of feeling (a habitus) loosely associated with
> different classes in their engagements with cultural objects, artifacts,
> music,  etc. The structure of feeling loosely associated with the elite, or
> upper class, is the one that tends to be recognized as being more refined
> or correct. Such approval and legitimation is not the result of any
> conspiracy but results from genuine shared beliefs about the superiority of
> particular works of art by the people who's opinion is able to "stick".
> Over time, this tends to loosely reproduce the habitus of the elite and
> affirm the rightness of their artistic discriminations.
> 
> So, I guess in this respect, the evaluations of art and music are never
> entirely subjective (in the sense of  being entirely peculiar to a
> particular individual). Rather, we hear and see works of art in ways that
> have been informed by our particular class upbringing. 

Larry Kohlberg had to address many of the same issues in his work on
the development of moral reasoning.  There's a lot to say here, but
I don't have time to do much more than telegraph the following
points.  Let me know if you want them expanded.

	- First, we have to be careful to avoid the "genetic
fallacy":  the idea that if we know the origin of some belief, we
are thereby excused from evaluating it on its own merits.  Thus in
the domain of moral reasoning, the fact that almost no one except
people with formal education development post-conventional moral
reasoning -- this fact may make us suspicious of the claim that
post-conventional reasoning is more moral than developmentally
earlier reasoning, but it does not relieve us of the necessity of
considering the claim directly on its own ground, i.e., what
constitutes the moral domain, what constitutes "better" reasoning,
etc.  Similarly, the fact that one class hears and sees art
differently from another class does not relieve us of the necessity
of questioning whether one sort of aesthetic judgment is superior to
another.

	- But in opposition to some implications of the above, I
also note that we have to distinguish between the claim that
"higher-level reasoning is philosophically more adequate" and the
claim that "we ought to strive to master and employ higher-level
reasoning".  Even if the first claim is true, the second is not --
and in fact violates the very premises of genetic epistemology that
development is not teleological (striving toward some better/best
end state) but is instead deontological (driven by the necessity of
resolving concrete issues that present themselves to us).  If some
society is organized so that Stage 1 reasoning is adequate to handle
all the society's moral problems, then there is no basis for
claiming that its citizens "should"  develop higher-level reasoning. 
Carrying this to the domain of aesthetics, there is no point except
snobbery to claim that another "ought" to develop an aesthetic
sensibility beyond what is necessary to take what is meaningful from
the music [in this case] or to communicate with others about that
meaning and/or reflect on that meaning oneself.  So I come to the
conclusion that regardless of any larger aesthetic judgments we can
make about hip-hop (or any other art form), it is simply (classist)
snobbery to argue that it "ought" (even in an artistic sense) to
live up to a set of standards that pass beyond what the people
listening to it require to understand its meaning for them. 

Off to have breakfast.  I'm not sure this is clear, even in my own
mind.  I'd welcome responses.

Best,
Steve

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| Stephen Chilton, Associate Professor, Dept of Pol Science |
|    Univ of Minnesota-Duluth / Duluth, MN 55812-2496 / USA |
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