[strictusername]

This is a fucking joke, right? Jazz dominated American music for ages and is as influential as the Blues. It's like making a post today titled "Why Americans Don't Like Doowop."

We get it, you need to feel important for knowing something cultural.

Also: "To be able to enjoy instrumental music, you must be able to appreciate abstract art, and that requires a certain amount of effort." Lol, okay. I listen to Skrillex. Therefore I am cultured.

[happytoexplain]

This response is so aggressive, it makes me wonder if there is more to your opinion of the author than what you've initially shared. I can't find specifics in the writing to warrant the "we get it, you need to feel important" attack.

[remarkEon]

>Visual dominancy isn’t the only problem. The bigger problem is the dominance of our thought. Most Americans do not know what to do with abstraction in general. To be able to fully appreciate abstraction, you must be able to turn off your thought, or at least be able to put your thought into the background. This is not as easy as it might seem. In modern art museums, most people’s minds are dominated by thoughts like: “Even I could do this.” Or, “Why is this in a museum?” Or, “This looks like my bed sheet.” Etc.. They are unable to let the abstraction affect their emotions directly; their experience must be filtered through interpretations. In a way, this is a defense mechanism. It is a way to deal with fears like, “If I admit that I don’t understand this, I’ll look unsophisticated.” This type of fear fills their minds with noise, and they become unable to see, hear, or taste.

This paragraph in particular is oozing with holier-than-thou artistic elitism. These debates always end up being somewhat pointless, though. Art is always in the eye of the beholder and all that. Personally, I think the author's take is just wrong, not necessarily stupid - and I actually think the last point in this paragraph about how you have to pretend to like "modern" art in order to look sophisticated is really a pretty decent insight that's worth exploring more. We don't get any of that in the essay.

Obligatory: I played classical piano up until the 12th grade and moonlighted as the tenor sax in a jazz band in highschool. You can find me playing some Chopin when I'm in a bad mood, and blasting away on my Tenor when I want to annoy my neighbors.

[o10449366]

Because it's a lazy and boring article. It takes what could have been an interesting topic and returns to the beaten to death theme of how "Gangster rap music is ruining this generation. Things were so much better back in my day". It's honestly condescending and the entire thing implies that most people nowadays are simply incapable of appreciating higher forms of art because they lack the education, which is an incredibly simplistic answer to a nuanced issue.

[strictusername]

Well said, thank you.