Fun Stuff > BAND
On Taste Relativism and Judgement
Streltsy:
Hey, mostly a lurker but this the last few pages of 'mainstream bands' thread got me thinking.
Thread topic -> Why is it wrong to judge people and/or their taste based on the music they listen too?
I am hoping this thread will have a bit more philosophical weight than replies like "cause that'd make you a dick".
The question is a bit misleading; judgement is how we 'put' the world around us in order to make prediction and most of us have the faculty to bestow different amounts of faith in our judgements. When you judge someone for the music they listen to, but don't put to much weight into that judgement, does that still make you an asshole?
Is judging looked down upon in music because people put too much weight into those judgements, because their judgements are uninformed, because they connect music preference with other qualities? These are a lot of questions, I only began 'appreciating' music about a year ago so I thought I would let you answer them as you probably already thought about this more. Maybe there really isn't that much to this question :/, I guess ViolentDove stated my position in that thread pretty well too.
Also didn't introduce myself cause there isn't too much to say. 1st year in UofT, I like rock music :-o ~!
ViolentDove:
Um, yeah. I was making a general statement about labeling or categorising things.
I was just saying that categorising things, including people and subcultures, is a grand feature of language which allows us to refer to things like ducks, without having to say "the genus of bird-shaped animals with webbed feet, a turned up beak, remarkable hydrophobic feathers, and that make a quacking noise".
Or you know, being able to refer to Goths instead of having to say "those people who wear black alot, sometimes some eye makeup, and enjoy listening to bands like the Cure or Siouxsxszie and the Banshees."
Judgment implies a moral aspect along the lines of good or bad. Eg. anyone who listens to Rush, is, by definition, a rapist. Or anyone who likes Rush has a poor taste in music.
Judging someone on the basis of what music they like is pointless, because it draws a (false) correlation between liking a certain type of music, and a something else, like personality type. While this correlation might exist in some cases, most of the time, it probably doesn't.
Jackie Blue:
tl;dr version:
"There's no accounting for taste."
psyne:
--- Quote from: ViolentDove on 30 Jan 2008, 19:26 --- Eg. anyone who listens to Rush, is, by definition, a rapist.
--- End quote ---
Oh shit I should look out. One of my teachers is the biggest Rush fan I've ever met. (Seriously, half the class examples are about Alex Lifeson...)
Anyway, yeah, there's no real conclusions you can draw about personality based on music taste (or about music taste based on fashion). You can make assumptions, and sometimes they'll be right, but you could be missing out getting to know someone great just because you have different taste in one area. A lot of my friends listen to music I wouldn't touch with a stick. I also have met people with really similar music tastes to me that I don't get along with, or just don't have much else in common with. Stereotypes are useless and prevent diversity. I have friends who listen to rap, Disney channel music, nothing but Simon and Garfunkel, techno, JPop, super-prog spacey stuff that would put me to sleep, etc. I might like some things from those categories but they aren't even close to my main interests. They're still all great friends and I wouldn't change them for the world.
Although on a side note, I don't think I could be friends with someone who doesn't listen to music at all. I'd either be too appalled to keep talking to them, or I'd unintentionally piss them off by throwing every song I have at them in hopes that something will get them into music.
casull:
I judge people very harshly by what they like in terms of music, but it's not because I really care whether they listen to good stuff- they probably enjoy their shit as much as I enjoy my 'good' music. I do it because listening to music outside the mainstream has a very high correlation for them being an all-around educated person who spends a lot of time keeping tabs on current events and pop culture online, which IS something I really favor. It's not that I dislike people for listening to bad music, it just turns out that poor taste predicts that I will almost inevitably find that person uninteresting, if not irritating.
Edit: I should add that whether my taste and theirs overlap much is of little importance, in my experience. The point is that we spend large chunks of time online finding and discussing music. I have the dubious pleasure of talking music IRL with flaming ostrich pretty often, and it's usually a blast, despite our tastes differing wildly.
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