And the idea that you must “examine” this need in itself can be stigmatizing.
That’s an issue to take up with Socrates. We examine stuff.
Would you even consider “examining” why gay people are gay? Why straight people are straight? I don’t know this site very well. Maybe you would discuss those questions.
You don’t know this site very well. We would discuss those questions if they seemed relevant. An important category of discourse here is “examining what makes X people do Y” when Y runs counter to their other goals, as some of the masochism examples seem to do.
then perhaps it might be worth asking yourself why you think it’s worth examining masochism and wondering what “causes” it, when you don’t ask similar questions about straightness or LGBTQ or what have you.
Did you even click the “Followup to” link to see what the original context was for this discussion? People intentionally losing, people intentionally seeking “negative” emotional stimuli. Can you see how this might reasonably connect to masochism in particular, and not sexuality in general?
I do know this site very well, and I have to say the way the article refers to masochism got up my nose too. I think if we were going to discuss stuff like why straight people are straight, we’d take care that our audience didn’t misunderstand our intent.
Good question. Here’s a few thoughts—let me know if these are useful or whether you think I’m barking up the wrong tree.
As you say, the first thing people think of when you say “masochism” is sexual masochism; it’s the root of the word and its primary meaning. I’d prefer to keep it that way than to extend it to cover self-defeating behaviour, which falls about as well on my ears as extending “gay” to mean “lame”.
“Perversion” is judgemental in every other context and has been used to be judgemental about sexuality for years. A neutral word like “behaviour” or “activity” would serve just as well here.
This is harder to pin down, but I just don’t get a feeling from the way you talk about us that you think of us as having a really good time. I promise you, in our own curious way we really are having a lot of fun.
As you say, the first thing people think of when you say “masochism” is sexual masochism; it’s the root of the word and its primary meaning. I’d prefer to keep it that way than to extend it to cover self-defeating behaviour, which falls about as well on my ears as extending “gay” to mean “lame”.
Hmm. I see your point. What Bruce has is called “masochistic personality disorder”, but it could also be called “self-defeating personality disorder.”
“Perversion” is judgemental in every other context and has been used to be judgemental about sexuality for years. A neutral word like “behaviour” or “activity” would serve just as well here.
I wanted to convey that many people have a judgmental attitude towards masochism, and yet don’t have a judgemental attitude towards the other things on the list. If they truly are related, then that’s a very interesting mental disconnect.
Thanks for making the changes you have to the article—they are big improvements from my point of view. It might be good to note in the article that it’s been edited following this discussion, otherwise someone reading the comments might wonder what all the fuss is about!
Yeah, seriously … I only just came back to this, and I’m rather surprised that a community like LessWrong will countenance editing posts without noting the edits.
Technical solution for a technical problem: simple diff, well known for years, works like a charm on every wiki. Then such a question would not even arise.
I just don’t get a feeling from the way you talk about us that you think of us as having a really good time. I promise you, in our own curious way we really are having a lot of fun.
So are people who eat food so spicy that many countries would classify it as a chemical weapon (please note that this is not an exaggeration for humorous effect).
The pleasure-pain connection is an interesting subject in multiple domains, even if Phil’s phrasing was unfortunate.
I’d hope we can spare some benefit of the doubt as whether or not someone’s intent is bigoted and judgmental, rather than just slightly influenced in its phrasing by cultural norms (however unfair or misguided those happen to be), but I can see how it could be annoying.
I’ve got to say, I was reading the original post and rolling my eyes, but it looked more like “Someone so naively square as to compare sexual masochism to eating spicy food” than “Someone actively bigoted”.
Note that one doesn’t need to be actively bigoted in order to do harm. The vast majority of those who are slowing down the spread of rational thought aren’t religious fundamentalists out to stop rationality; no, they’re the completely innocent ones who unthinkingly pass on cached thoughts.
It’s no different when it comes to attitudes concerning, say, BDSM. I don’t for a moment think that Goetz was actively bigoted when he wrote that. That doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t have worded it differently. More generally… it’s often dangerous to think “but (he isn’t / I am not) bigoted”, as if only active bigots could say harmful things. Once the harmfulness of what they’re saying is pointed out to them, they automatically go on the defensive—after all, only bigots say bad things, and they’re not a bigot, so the other person must simply be oversensitive.
What exactly do you mean by ‘saying harmful things’? How are they harmful? If I firmly believe that someone should be allowed to pursue any activity they wish to as long as it doesn’t cause injury to any non-consenting individuals, how is it harmful if I continue to consider that behaviour unusual, or even continue to view it negatively?
I believe there’s are implicit assumptions underlying the claim that speech is ‘harmful’ that you need to make more explicit if you are going to expand this into a top level post. You may find that not everyone shares your assumptions.
Well, the “Indeed, it’s often dangerous...” wasn’t referring to Goetz anymore, but was on a more general level (edited to make that clearer).
But anyway, by ‘saying harmful things’ I refer to saying things which propagate potentially close-minded attitudes which can do real harm to people. I’m by no means saying such speech should be banned—I am quite a strong advocate of freedom of speech, myself—but that doesn’t mean it should be socially accepted, either.
For instance, if I read the comments below correctly, the original version of this post apparently said “socially acceptable behaviors” instead of “socially accepted behaviors”. Saying that something “isn’t socially acceptable” sounds pretty condemning. clarissethorn’s criticism also has some merit. I don’t really think that Goetz’s post was very bad, but it did bring to mind the general phenomenon.
But yes, I will make the related assumptions more explicit if I get around expanding this. It’s getting rather late here now, so I’m too tired to type up a much longer explanation right now.
I think a top level post would be useful. If less wrong turns out to be the sort of community where I have to worry about ‘accepted’ vs. ‘acceptable’ when posting for fear of hurting the feelings of someone on the Internet then it’s not going to be a community I want to be a part of. That would be useful information.
IMO, Less Wrong should be a community that encourages you to worry about precise expression, which includes the distinction between ‘accepted’ and ‘acceptable’.
FWIW, Nick pointed it out in a non-accusatory way, and I appreciate having it pointed out, and will be more careful about that particular distinction in the future.
Let me try and explain why I find the kind of discussion over the precise connotations of speech here frustrating.
It seems that people who strongly believe in the importance of eliminating implicit negative connotations in language are often coming from a position where they implicitly accept the premise that it is ok for society to make laws governing activities that individuals choose to partake in that do not impinge on the rights of third parties.
They see some activity that they wish to be permitted either being restricted or under threat of being restricted and they desire to influence the set of permitted activities to match their preferences. The proposed cure is to police language in order to influence the thoughts and preferences of others in a direction that increases acceptance of the favoured activity.
I see this as a mis-diagnosis of the problem. The thought police would not be necessary if we all agreed to allow people to conduct their lives as they choose without threat of interference. I suspect that at some level many of those seeking to control the use of language do so because they ultimately do want to restrict the choices of others and so must fight the battle to control the set of restricted behaviours rather than fighting to remove all restrictions.
To be honest it’s more an elaboration on the ongoing discussion which I was mulling over and posted in reply to your comment because it happened to be the most recent response to one of my posts.
It is an attempt to explain why I don’t think the overall discussion about precise language in this context is fruitful. I’ve clearly passed my previously mentioned tolerance threshold for this sort of thing though so I should probably walk away and think calming thoughts for a while.
Opinion about the fact that I wouldn’t want to be part of a community where that kind of self-censorship was necessary? I know that it winds me up/hits my buttons/irritates me enough that discussions become a negative emotional experience. While I have found much of value here there are other ways I can attempt to improve my rationality that have less negative expected emotional utility for me.
Right, but it’s a negative emotional experience for me to open an article that describes me as a sexual pervert something like a chronic loser, don’t you think?
Taking care to be polite to each other is not some foolish ritual of mundanes; it serves a real purpose in facilitating discussion. It isn’t always the right thing, but it’s the right side to err on.
By and large people take notable care over their words here in a variety of ways, and it makes the site a better place.
I’d like one of the many people criticizing how I wrote the second sentence to suggest a better way to write it, that would still point out the contrast between social attitudes towards sexual masochism, and social attitudes towards the other things on the list.
Ciphergoth did this.
ciphergoth, there were a lot of other things on the list besides Bruce. I don’t think it’s fair to you pick out the one bad thing from a long list of good things, and then complain about that one.
By and large people take notable care over their words here in a variety of ways, and it makes the site a better place.
I took notable care; yet it wasn’t good enough for you.
I’ve said much more inflammatory things to other people that didn’t get jumped on by anybody. I’ve said much harsher things to EY. I’ve repeatedly said things about classical music that drive komponisto up the wall. Should I refrain from criticizing Schoenberg because it upsets him?
These are bad examples. Yes, I should have been more polite in all those cases.
I don’t see the difference. I didn’t even say anything bad about masochism. I wrote a post saying that maybe masochism is an essential part of everyone’s ordinary, healthy human nature; and you were still offended by it.
I’ve repeatedly said things about classical music that drive komponisto up the wall. Should I refrain from criticizing Schoenberg because it upsets him?
Well, a matter of fact...
There’s a difference between criticism and taking potshots. If you wanted to write a post explaining in detail why you think Schoenberg’s music is flawed, that might be one thing (provided it was on-topic). By contrast, merely stating a negative opinion (repeatedly, as you note) in an authoritative tone that suggests it is akin to a widely-accepted fact (particularly when you have no authority in the matter), after you have already been called on it, is just a form of aggressive behavior that I don’t think should be welcomed.
It might be that Schoenberg is good music to people with specialized musical training. I have said that his music is bad, but I don’t have high confidence that it is “bad” in an absolute, moral realist sense.
I do have high confidence that the relentless pursuit of novelty rather than quality caused most arts to become inaccessible to most people around the turn of the 20th century. And I regard that as bad. The elite forgot that they need us. We, the unwashed, untrained masses, provide the money to build the concert halls and the universities that the elite sit in; and instead of remembering their obligation to us, they take our money and use it to get their special training and then sit in their ivory towers and look down their noses at us.
So we abandoned them; and their art shriveled without us. Everybody defected. Game over.
Physics is so specialized that ordinary people can’t understand it, but they can still use it. Music, on the other hand, once moved beyond the point where we ordinary people can appreciate it, is useless to us.
I do have high confidence that the relentless pursuit of novelty rather than quality caused most arts to become inaccessible to most people around the turn of the 20th century
What makes you so confident that the pursuit of “quality” was being abandoned? The fact that you don’t find it appealing?
Mere novelty could have been accomplished by much cheaper means than those employed by composers in the “Schoenbergian” tradition, whose music tends to be very precisely and delicately constructed. Contrast, for example, Milton Babbitt (whose works are often so intricate that they take me several hearings to “get”) with John Cage (who was capable of “composing” the most trivial case of a piece of music—one with no sound at all). Cage is arguably an example of the extreme case of pure novelty-seeking (though I think people are too hard on him -- 4′33″ is not his only work); but this sort of thing is completely divorced from what the mainstream of “post-tonal” composers were going for.
We, the unwashed, untrained masses, provide the money to build the concert halls and the universities that the elite sit in; and instead of remembering their obligation to us, they take our money and use it to get their special training and then sit in their ivory towers and look down their noses at us.
Where does this attitude come from? There is no conspiracy going on. Nobody is forcing you to listen to Schoenberg, or—still less—preventing you from listening to Mozart. The public funding of advanced music in the U.S. is negligible to nonexistent. I defy you to explain how the existence of a few people (of whose existence you are barely even aware) pursuing this esoteric line of work could possibily result in negative utility for you.
Physics is so specialized that ordinary people can’t understand it, but they can still use it. Music, on the other hand, once moved beyond the point where we ordinary people can appreciate it, is useless to us.
What makes you so sure? What about cosmology, or high-energy physics? String theory? Pure mathematics?
The point here is that you want to have the sort of culture where advanced creative achievement—formidabilty, awesomeness—in all domains is encouraged and rewarded, not suppressed. (Tsyoku Naritai!) A culture that would place limitations on the permissible complexity of musical thought is not one in which we should want to live.
(And beware the treacherous weapon of populism; it’s easy enough when you think you’re on the side of the masses—but the time may come when they show up at your own gates with their torches and pitchforks...)
Some people (well,
komponisto at
least) may get a chuckle out of hearing that when I read
this I had a little twitch in my brain that corrected it
to “drive komponiston up the wall”.
I imagine it might be a negative emotional experience for a theist to see theism described as “the maddest thing you can believe without being considered mad.”. There’s being polite and there’s being constrained in what you are able to discuss for fear that it might be construed as offensive by someone. I think the majority of the discussion here strikes a good balance, certainly better than the average for an Internet forum (admittedly a pretty low bar). Any individual might suffer a negative emotional response to certain specific posts that address topics that are ‘hot button’ issues for them but I would hope that if the general character of the discussions remains high we could all be thick-skinned enough to suffer the occasional slight.
I would suggest that a good rule of thumb for everyone would be to attempt to apply the most generous interpretation to language that could be considered offensive rather than the most negative. If someone says something that could be interpreted as describing you as a pervert and a chronic loser without any clear intention to actually describe you that way, perhaps it would be best to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Is that really naively square? Yes it seems obvious that sexual masochism is much more psychologically complex than that, but I’d be surprised if whatever it is that makes spicy food enjoyable weren’t usually a factor as well.
I agree that spicy food and some others (fiction? really?) don’t seem to fit. I’m objecting to Clarisse characterizing it as “presenting a judgmental viewpoint”.
::::::::::
You don’t know this site very well. We would discuss those questions if they seemed relevant.
::::::::::
Good!
I just think it’s important for people who have these conversations to consider the point that “what’s relevant” or “what’s worthy of examination” is often, itself, socially constructed.
::::::::::
Can you see how this might reasonably connect to masochism in particular, and not sexuality in general?
::::::::::
Yes. But my concern is not masochism in general. I am responding to the ways in which sexual masochism has been framed in this discussion.
Sexual masochism is relevant—it was brought up in the original post. I recognize that my comments may not directly address the main questions of the original post. But what I am hoping is that my comments shed some light on some aspects of the post, and encourage the writers here to consider what biases they are bringing to those aspects.
I just think it’s important for people who have these conversations to consider the point that “what’s relevant” or “what’s worthy of examination” is often, itself, socially constructed.
Point taken. In this case, I thought the relevance was pretty clearly motivated by earlier discussion.
Yes. But my concern is not masochism in general. I am responding to the ways in which sexual masochism has been framed in this discussion.
It was “framed” by one pretty neutral statement, making the true observation that many people consider it a “sexual perversion”. I object to your taking a statement like that as a cue to come “educate” the speaker on how judgmental he’s being. He quite simply did not present a judgmental viewpoint. He made reference to a judgmental viewpoint. You’re the one inferring some kind of endorsement from it.
I think you intended it to look like some sort of anti-gay rhetoric (didn’t you?) so it’s odd that it could be read as a pro-homosexual statement, i.e.:
“Many think homosexuality is a sexual perversion, but as I shall show, homoeroticism is perfectly ordinary and socially accepted in many arenas.”
It’s odd that nobody has defended Phil with the observation that the description of masochism as a possible sexual perversion was immediately followed by the word “but”.
Update: This post no longer makes sense because the top-level post has been edited. :)
I want to get across the point that, if it’s true that sexual masochism and other behaviors have some underlying pleasure mechanism in common, then it’s remarkable that people demonize sexual masochism yet have no guilt about riding rollercoasters. I can’t do that without saying something like “Many people think masochism is evil.” There’s no way to get my idea across without using negative terms.
(The thought just occurred to me as I wrote this: Maybe the puritans (the stereotypical puritans, as opposed to the real ones, whom I am less familiar with) were just being consistent! Seeing sexual pleasure as immoral should lead to seeing dancing, card-playing, and many other things as immoral.)
If I had just written
“There are ordinary, socially-accepted behaviors that seem partly masochistic to me”,
that would be less neutral, as it would imply that I myself believed masochism was wrong.
I changed it. I think it’s weaker and less interesting this way, but it’s not in my advantage to repell people who have the expertise necessary for this conversation.
That’s an issue to take up with Socrates. We examine stuff.
You don’t know this site very well. We would discuss those questions if they seemed relevant. An important category of discourse here is “examining what makes X people do Y” when Y runs counter to their other goals, as some of the masochism examples seem to do.
Did you even click the “Followup to” link to see what the original context was for this discussion? People intentionally losing, people intentionally seeking “negative” emotional stimuli. Can you see how this might reasonably connect to masochism in particular, and not sexuality in general?
I do know this site very well, and I have to say the way the article refers to masochism got up my nose too. I think if we were going to discuss stuff like why straight people are straight, we’d take care that our audience didn’t misunderstand our intent.
Seconded.
How would you rephrase it?
Good question. Here’s a few thoughts—let me know if these are useful or whether you think I’m barking up the wrong tree.
As you say, the first thing people think of when you say “masochism” is sexual masochism; it’s the root of the word and its primary meaning. I’d prefer to keep it that way than to extend it to cover self-defeating behaviour, which falls about as well on my ears as extending “gay” to mean “lame”.
“Perversion” is judgemental in every other context and has been used to be judgemental about sexuality for years. A neutral word like “behaviour” or “activity” would serve just as well here.
This is harder to pin down, but I just don’t get a feeling from the way you talk about us that you think of us as having a really good time. I promise you, in our own curious way we really are having a lot of fun.
Okay, sorry, I didn’t see this before.
Hmm. I see your point. What Bruce has is called “masochistic personality disorder”, but it could also be called “self-defeating personality disorder.”
I wanted to convey that many people have a judgmental attitude towards masochism, and yet don’t have a judgemental attitude towards the other things on the list. If they truly are related, then that’s a very interesting mental disconnect.
Thanks for making the changes you have to the article—they are big improvements from my point of view. It might be good to note in the article that it’s been edited following this discussion, otherwise someone reading the comments might wonder what all the fuss is about!
Yeah, seriously … I only just came back to this, and I’m rather surprised that a community like LessWrong will countenance editing posts without noting the edits.
It’s generally frowned upon.
Technical solution for a technical problem: simple diff, well known for years, works like a charm on every wiki. Then such a question would not even arise.
It’s not that surprising—sex is always treated as an exception
So are people who eat food so spicy that many countries would classify it as a chemical weapon (please note that this is not an exaggeration for humorous effect).
The pleasure-pain connection is an interesting subject in multiple domains, even if Phil’s phrasing was unfortunate.
I’d hope we can spare some benefit of the doubt as whether or not someone’s intent is bigoted and judgmental, rather than just slightly influenced in its phrasing by cultural norms (however unfair or misguided those happen to be), but I can see how it could be annoying.
I’ve got to say, I was reading the original post and rolling my eyes, but it looked more like “Someone so naively square as to compare sexual masochism to eating spicy food” than “Someone actively bigoted”.
Note that one doesn’t need to be actively bigoted in order to do harm. The vast majority of those who are slowing down the spread of rational thought aren’t religious fundamentalists out to stop rationality; no, they’re the completely innocent ones who unthinkingly pass on cached thoughts.
It’s no different when it comes to attitudes concerning, say, BDSM. I don’t for a moment think that Goetz was actively bigoted when he wrote that. That doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t have worded it differently. More generally… it’s often dangerous to think “but (he isn’t / I am not) bigoted”, as if only active bigots could say harmful things. Once the harmfulness of what they’re saying is pointed out to them, they automatically go on the defensive—after all, only bigots say bad things, and they’re not a bigot, so the other person must simply be oversensitive.
This probably deserves a top-level post.
Yes. Exactly. This comment says everything I would have said, and probably more eloquently.
What exactly do you mean by ‘saying harmful things’? How are they harmful? If I firmly believe that someone should be allowed to pursue any activity they wish to as long as it doesn’t cause injury to any non-consenting individuals, how is it harmful if I continue to consider that behaviour unusual, or even continue to view it negatively?
I believe there’s are implicit assumptions underlying the claim that speech is ‘harmful’ that you need to make more explicit if you are going to expand this into a top level post. You may find that not everyone shares your assumptions.
Well, the “Indeed, it’s often dangerous...” wasn’t referring to Goetz anymore, but was on a more general level (edited to make that clearer).
But anyway, by ‘saying harmful things’ I refer to saying things which propagate potentially close-minded attitudes which can do real harm to people. I’m by no means saying such speech should be banned—I am quite a strong advocate of freedom of speech, myself—but that doesn’t mean it should be socially accepted, either.
For instance, if I read the comments below correctly, the original version of this post apparently said “socially acceptable behaviors” instead of “socially accepted behaviors”. Saying that something “isn’t socially acceptable” sounds pretty condemning. clarissethorn’s criticism also has some merit. I don’t really think that Goetz’s post was very bad, but it did bring to mind the general phenomenon.
But yes, I will make the related assumptions more explicit if I get around expanding this. It’s getting rather late here now, so I’m too tired to type up a much longer explanation right now.
I think a top level post would be useful. If less wrong turns out to be the sort of community where I have to worry about ‘accepted’ vs. ‘acceptable’ when posting for fear of hurting the feelings of someone on the Internet then it’s not going to be a community I want to be a part of. That would be useful information.
IMO, Less Wrong should be a community that encourages you to worry about precise expression, which includes the distinction between ‘accepted’ and ‘acceptable’.
FWIW, Nick pointed it out in a non-accusatory way, and I appreciate having it pointed out, and will be more careful about that particular distinction in the future.
Let me try and explain why I find the kind of discussion over the precise connotations of speech here frustrating.
It seems that people who strongly believe in the importance of eliminating implicit negative connotations in language are often coming from a position where they implicitly accept the premise that it is ok for society to make laws governing activities that individuals choose to partake in that do not impinge on the rights of third parties.
They see some activity that they wish to be permitted either being restricted or under threat of being restricted and they desire to influence the set of permitted activities to match their preferences. The proposed cure is to police language in order to influence the thoughts and preferences of others in a direction that increases acceptance of the favoured activity.
I see this as a mis-diagnosis of the problem. The thought police would not be necessary if we all agreed to allow people to conduct their lives as they choose without threat of interference. I suspect that at some level many of those seeking to control the use of language do so because they ultimately do want to restrict the choices of others and so must fight the battle to control the set of restricted behaviours rather than fighting to remove all restrictions.
What does any of that have to do with what I said?
To be honest it’s more an elaboration on the ongoing discussion which I was mulling over and posted in reply to your comment because it happened to be the most recent response to one of my posts.
It is an attempt to explain why I don’t think the overall discussion about precise language in this context is fruitful. I’ve clearly passed my previously mentioned tolerance threshold for this sort of thing though so I should probably walk away and think calming thoughts for a while.
You sound very confident that you have the right position about this; I’d be interested to know more about where that confidence springs from.
Opinion about the fact that I wouldn’t want to be part of a community where that kind of self-censorship was necessary? I know that it winds me up/hits my buttons/irritates me enough that discussions become a negative emotional experience. While I have found much of value here there are other ways I can attempt to improve my rationality that have less negative expected emotional utility for me.
Right, but it’s a negative emotional experience for me to open an article that describes me as a sexual pervert something like a chronic loser, don’t you think?
Taking care to be polite to each other is not some foolish ritual of mundanes; it serves a real purpose in facilitating discussion. It isn’t always the right thing, but it’s the right side to err on.
By and large people take notable care over their words here in a variety of ways, and it makes the site a better place.
I’d like one of the many people criticizing how I wrote the second sentence to suggest a better way to write it, that would still point out the contrast between social attitudes towards sexual masochism, and social attitudes towards the other things on the list.
Ciphergoth did this.ciphergoth, there were a lot of other things on the list besides Bruce. I don’t think it’s fair to you pick out the one bad thing from a long list of good things, and then complain about that one.
I took notable care; yet it wasn’t good enough for you.
I’ve said much more inflammatory things to other people that didn’t get jumped on by anybody. I’ve said much harsher things to EY. I’ve repeatedly said things about classical music that drive komponisto up the wall. Should I refrain from criticizing Schoenberg because it upsets him?
These are bad examples. Yes, I should have been more polite in all those cases.I don’t see the difference. I didn’t even say anything bad about masochism. I wrote a post saying that maybe masochism is an essential part of everyone’s ordinary, healthy human nature; and you were still offended by it.
Well, a matter of fact...
There’s a difference between criticism and taking potshots. If you wanted to write a post explaining in detail why you think Schoenberg’s music is flawed, that might be one thing (provided it was on-topic). By contrast, merely stating a negative opinion (repeatedly, as you note) in an authoritative tone that suggests it is akin to a widely-accepted fact (particularly when you have no authority in the matter), after you have already been called on it, is just a form of aggressive behavior that I don’t think should be welcomed.
It might be that Schoenberg is good music to people with specialized musical training. I have said that his music is bad, but I don’t have high confidence that it is “bad” in an absolute, moral realist sense.
I do have high confidence that the relentless pursuit of novelty rather than quality caused most arts to become inaccessible to most people around the turn of the 20th century. And I regard that as bad. The elite forgot that they need us. We, the unwashed, untrained masses, provide the money to build the concert halls and the universities that the elite sit in; and instead of remembering their obligation to us, they take our money and use it to get their special training and then sit in their ivory towers and look down their noses at us.
So we abandoned them; and their art shriveled without us. Everybody defected. Game over.
Physics is so specialized that ordinary people can’t understand it, but they can still use it. Music, on the other hand, once moved beyond the point where we ordinary people can appreciate it, is useless to us.
What makes you so confident that the pursuit of “quality” was being abandoned? The fact that you don’t find it appealing?
Mere novelty could have been accomplished by much cheaper means than those employed by composers in the “Schoenbergian” tradition, whose music tends to be very precisely and delicately constructed. Contrast, for example, Milton Babbitt (whose works are often so intricate that they take me several hearings to “get”) with John Cage (who was capable of “composing” the most trivial case of a piece of music—one with no sound at all). Cage is arguably an example of the extreme case of pure novelty-seeking (though I think people are too hard on him -- 4′33″ is not his only work); but this sort of thing is completely divorced from what the mainstream of “post-tonal” composers were going for.
Where does this attitude come from? There is no conspiracy going on. Nobody is forcing you to listen to Schoenberg, or—still less—preventing you from listening to Mozart. The public funding of advanced music in the U.S. is negligible to nonexistent. I defy you to explain how the existence of a few people (of whose existence you are barely even aware) pursuing this esoteric line of work could possibily result in negative utility for you.
What makes you so sure? What about cosmology, or high-energy physics? String theory? Pure mathematics?
The point here is that you want to have the sort of culture where advanced creative achievement—formidabilty, awesomeness—in all domains is encouraged and rewarded, not suppressed. (Tsyoku Naritai!) A culture that would place limitations on the permissible complexity of musical thought is not one in which we should want to live.
(And beware the treacherous weapon of populism; it’s easy enough when you think you’re on the side of the masses—but the time may come when they show up at your own gates with their torches and pitchforks...)
Some people (well, komponisto at least) may get a chuckle out of hearing that when I read this I had a little twitch in my brain that corrected it to “drive komponiston up the wall”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto#Grammar
I imagine it might be a negative emotional experience for a theist to see theism described as “the maddest thing you can believe without being considered mad.”. There’s being polite and there’s being constrained in what you are able to discuss for fear that it might be construed as offensive by someone. I think the majority of the discussion here strikes a good balance, certainly better than the average for an Internet forum (admittedly a pretty low bar). Any individual might suffer a negative emotional response to certain specific posts that address topics that are ‘hot button’ issues for them but I would hope that if the general character of the discussions remains high we could all be thick-skinned enough to suffer the occasional slight.
I would suggest that a good rule of thumb for everyone would be to attempt to apply the most generous interpretation to language that could be considered offensive rather than the most negative. If someone says something that could be interpreted as describing you as a pervert and a chronic loser without any clear intention to actually describe you that way, perhaps it would be best to give them the benefit of the doubt.
How would you rewrite the second sentence?
Combining the second and third sentences:
“Many associate the term masochism with sexuality, but there are plenty of masochistic, non-sexual behaviors:”
Is that really naively square? Yes it seems obvious that sexual masochism is much more psychologically complex than that, but I’d be surprised if whatever it is that makes spicy food enjoyable weren’t usually a factor as well.
Well, simple way to test it. Just check out the prevalence of spicy food enjoyment among Ms versus the general population.
I agree that spicy food and some others (fiction? really?) don’t seem to fit. I’m objecting to Clarisse characterizing it as “presenting a judgmental viewpoint”.
It is a judgmental viewpoint. Maybe he didn’t mean it that way, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a judgmental viewpoint.
:::::::::: You don’t know this site very well. We would discuss those questions if they seemed relevant. ::::::::::
Good!
I just think it’s important for people who have these conversations to consider the point that “what’s relevant” or “what’s worthy of examination” is often, itself, socially constructed.
:::::::::: Can you see how this might reasonably connect to masochism in particular, and not sexuality in general? ::::::::::
Yes. But my concern is not masochism in general. I am responding to the ways in which sexual masochism has been framed in this discussion.
Sexual masochism is relevant—it was brought up in the original post. I recognize that my comments may not directly address the main questions of the original post. But what I am hoping is that my comments shed some light on some aspects of the post, and encourage the writers here to consider what biases they are bringing to those aspects.
By the way, if you want to quote stuff, you can do it with a > at the beginning of the line.
Thanks!
Point taken. In this case, I thought the relevance was pretty clearly motivated by earlier discussion.
It was “framed” by one pretty neutral statement, making the true observation that many people consider it a “sexual perversion”. I object to your taking a statement like that as a cue to come “educate” the speaker on how judgmental he’s being. He quite simply did not present a judgmental viewpoint. He made reference to a judgmental viewpoint. You’re the one inferring some kind of endorsement from it.
Presentation is endorsement, unless it’s framed with disclaimers.
Let’s return to the LGBTQ example. Consider the following potential sentences:
“Many people think of homosexuality as a sexual perversion. But there are ordinary, socially-accepted behaviors that seem partly homoerotic to me:”
Would you call that a neutral statement? Would you claim so passionately that it revealed no bias on the part of the person who said it?
I don’t think it reveals bias, so much as a lack of diplomacy.
Hmm. I would object, but empirical evidence from other threads is compatible with the “lack of diplomacy” theory.
Sometimes rationalism is a bitch.
(Wait, am I doing it again?)
Many people thought Hitler was a great leader.
Yes.
I think you intended it to look like some sort of anti-gay rhetoric (didn’t you?) so it’s odd that it could be read as a pro-homosexual statement, i.e.:
“Many think homosexuality is a sexual perversion, but as I shall show, homoeroticism is perfectly ordinary and socially accepted in many arenas.”
It’s odd that nobody has defended Phil with the observation that the description of masochism as a possible sexual perversion was immediately followed by the word “but”.
Update: This post no longer makes sense because the top-level post has been edited. :)
I want to get across the point that, if it’s true that sexual masochism and other behaviors have some underlying pleasure mechanism in common, then it’s remarkable that people demonize sexual masochism yet have no guilt about riding rollercoasters. I can’t do that without saying something like “Many people think masochism is evil.” There’s no way to get my idea across without using negative terms.
(The thought just occurred to me as I wrote this: Maybe the puritans (the stereotypical puritans, as opposed to the real ones, whom I am less familiar with) were just being consistent! Seeing sexual pleasure as immoral should lead to seeing dancing, card-playing, and many other things as immoral.)
If I had just written
“There are ordinary, socially-accepted behaviors that seem partly masochistic to me”,
that would be less neutral, as it would imply that I myself believed masochism was wrong.
I changed it. I think it’s weaker and less interesting this way, but it’s not in my advantage to repell people who have the expertise necessary for this conversation.
Some are Against Disclaimers: http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/06/against-disclai.html