The Great Unwashed, Lila (Robert Pirsig)

[Tabouli]

Me:
> P.S. Ahh, Dicentra, I see you share my irritation with what I call
the "Unwashed Masses factor"... if it's popular it must be bad!  Let's
go spray graffiti on their ivory tower some time... (glances
thoughtfully at Elkins, a known graffiti artist on the main list...)

Dicentra:
> No, no. It's not BAD, it's Beneath Us. Unfortunately, they would
probably appreciate the graffiti because it's "anti-bourgeois" (read:
their parents would disapprove).  What would really get their goats
(not Aberforth's) would be a chorus of people saying the Emperor is
buck nekkid. That's their worst fear--being Found Out.<

Ah, but in my experience the ivories *do* consider popular culture to be bad, and *therefore* beneath them.  They have what they consider to be an objective scale on which the Quality of literature, music, etc. can be measured, based on what the People Who Know consider worthy.  If you press them, they will actually come up with *reasons* as to why Harry Potter, the Spice Girls, etc. are in fact objectively of Poor Quality, and, indeed, Not Art, usually along the lines of "it's all marketing, it's not Art, it's a commercial product designed to generate money from the Unwashed Masses Too Stupid to recognise Troo Art, unlike us".

I've noticed that the Unwashed Masses syndrome is more common among critics (art critics, literary critics) and classical performing artists (e.g. classical musicians) than it is among what could loosely be termed "creative" artists, who are actually painting the paintings, and writing their own music and literature.  Which, once I thought about it, makes sense: after all, if your life is about playing classical music which was written centuries ago, what's the point if you're dealing with people who don't know the difference between one interpretation of Bach and another?  The whole point of the exercise is to interpret Bach in a highly skilled, expressive way which compares with or "exceeds" previous interpretations, and the only people who are going to be able to judge this are a limited elite.  If they don't believe there's any value in doing this, their whole career is without value.  Hence the "Unwashed Masses", who would rather turn on a commercial radio station and couldn't tell Bach from Debussy *have* to be dismissed as of no consequence.

(Tabouli glances warily about for the avenging fury of classical performing artists on the list).  Mind you, I've tried to argue this position with a couple of classical musicians of my acquaintance, and they were livid.  Performing Bach *is* a creative process!  Without the performer, Bach is just black squiggles on a page!  The performer creates the music, brings it to life!  Yes, I said, but that's not the same as composing your *own* music in terms of creativity, is it?  That's a completely different thing! they screech (I learned classical piano for 12 years and know as much music theory as most of them, but they're inclined to assume I'm an ignorant philistine when I spout such blasphemy).

Then there's the diehard indie music types, who believe that anyone who listens to "mainstream" music is clearly brain-dead and boring.  It's quite disturbing when you're sitting at a table with such types and they're talking to you as *in-group member*; you are capable of intelligent conversation, and therefore of *course* must like indie music, like them, and they air their scathing opinions of people who like the music you *actually* like.

Ha, that reminds me - has anyone read Robert Pirsig's "Lila"?  (sequel to "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance").  A lot of that book made me squirm, but it did have a discussion of this very issue in it from the ivory point of view.  IIRC, I think Lila (whom he depicts with such condescension I cringe) is admiring some glossy holiday brochure with a cruise ship, and he is speculating about why this "beauty" is of utterly no value and why Lila is such an Unwashed Mass as to admire it.  Something about it not having anything new to add to the world and give it Quality, I think.

Tabouli
(who has actually come to like and respect Madonna... anyone who can stay at the top of the fickly music industry that long has to have something)


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