The Middlebrow

[padraig (u.s.)]

You reckon the reaction would be more or less extreme had those comments been made today?

about 9/11? far less extreme. it would still be a Thing, but time always smooths over raw emotions to some extent.

there are a million other more pressing things going on than getting angry at a European composer for saying some dumb things about 9/11.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

I wasn't claiming that it was.

I didn't think you were

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

it is an interesting topic - the aestheticization of terrorism, especially as viewed through the framework of historiography and culture

for example, the string of artistic, aestheticized European films about 60s-70s left-wing terrorism - The Baader Meinhof Complex, Olivier Assayas's Carlos the Jackal series, etc

they always inspire a level of controversy, handwringing, thinkpieces, etc but seem generally acceptable in a way labeling terrorism art in real life absolutely would not be

 

[mvuent]

does the middlebrow involve conscious or unconscious striving? could be both.

I know people with thoroughly middlebrow tastes who sincerely think they are in fact informed and, in their minds, ahead of the cultural curve...and in a way they are, compared to the masses. the masses go to see lady gaga or bruce Springsteen, while the middlebrow choice is, say, Radiohead. lots of "average" people who think they're the shit because they're into David Byrne as opposed to Taylor swift.

but I also know folks with middlebrow tastes who seem perennially insecure, conscious enough to see themselves as cultural imposters who might be able to talk a good game but deep down inside know they aren't actually on the cutting edge. they are the ones who are striving.

I like the idea that middlebrow-ness can have almost a Dunning–Kruger effect element to it: it's not so much about striving to be highbrow when you're not as much as not recognizing when you've stopped completely short of your "loftier" ambitions. not that that's necessarily what it's commonly used to mean, but that would explain why/when it bothers me personally, I think.

 

[version]

about 9/11? far less extreme. it would still be a Thing, but time always smooths over raw emotions to some extent.

there are a million other more pressing things going on than getting angry at a European composer for saying some dumb things about 9/11.

Yeah, probably. I imagine it would go something like David Lynch's Trump comment.

 

[version]

I like the idea that middlebrow-ness can have almost a Dunning–Kruger effect element to it: it's not so much about striving to be highbrow when you're not as much as not recognizing when you've stopped completely short of your "loftier" ambitions. not that that's necessarily what it's commonly used to mean, but that would explain why/when it bothers me personally, I think.

You also get the thing where people reject other people with the exact same lofty tastes and start talking up lowbrow stuff instead.

 

[mvuent]

You also get the thing where people reject other people with the exact same lofty tastes and start talking up lowbrow stuff instead.

does any example come immediately to mind? that also sounds a lot like standard dissensus practice lol

 

[version]

does any example come immediately to mind?

It's usually tongue-in-cheek, but the first that comes to mind is the badlit sub on Reddit. If someone appears who quite earnestly likes highbrow stuff then a bunch of them will instantly jump to some dismissive position, saying they only read erotic pulp fiction these days or that some highly regarded writer only has one good book and it's of course the one everyone else thinks is shit.

that also sounds a lot like standard dissensus practice lol

😂

Yeah. I mean luka already mentioned that we all like to sneer at times.

 

[entertainment]

ahh yeah a lot of sneering going on in those bad-somthing subreddits.

 

[muser]

Was broken beat middlebrow? Jazz musicians making 'sophisticated' dance music that ended up just sounding like it could be on-hold music coming from a call centre or the backing track to some b-roll on Place in the Sun.

I know people here like to analyse and disassemble as if it is but can any dance music ever be highbrow? surely any attempt for it to move from the lowbrow leaves it firmly in the middlebrow as it goes against the intended essence of the music in the first place. Can any music be unintentionally highbrow?

 

[luka]

You're right on both counts. Broken beat was definitively middlebrow and dance music can never be highbrow.

 

[Corpsey]

Is pleasure lowbrow?

 

[Corpsey]

But then there are artworks that are universally comprehensible (if not appreciated) which would still retain some sort of highbrow status.

Paintings by Da Vinci, e.g. Mozart/Beethoven symphonies.

But the highbrows would contend ofc that the lowbrows are missing the point of these things.

It's all a brutal competition for cognitive supremacy

 

[Corpsey]

This is John Carey's argument, that modernism was antidemocratic reactionary - make art deliberately obscure, incomprehensible, ugly. So that the masses can't possibly join in.

 

[mvuent]

This is John Carey's argument, that modernism was antidemocratic reactionary - make art deliberately obscure, incomprehensible, ugly. So that the masses can't possibly join in.

interesting to contrast that with the claims to universality that a lot of modernists made, at least in the visual arts and music. my music speaks a language that unites all cultures and peoples--but you wouldn't understand it, you philistine.

my sympathetic take would be that the grumpy elitism probably came second, but there's no doubt they weren't the most humble lot to begin with.

 

[version]

Is pleasure lowbrow?

There are lowbrow pleasures, but I don't think pleasure itself is lowbrow.

 

[Corpsey]

Yes, there's the complex pleasure that you need to be intelligent, sensitive, and/or educated to experience, and the simple pleasures that anybody can experience.

Some art gives both sorts of pleasure simultaneously. The middlebrow artwork tries to do both simultaneously and fails at both.

I suppose all this is aesthetics 101 and luka is tearing his beard out having to read it.

And that's what makes it worth it for me.

 

[thirdform]

You're right on both counts. Broken beat was definitively middlebrow and dance music can never be highbrow.

It can be highbrow, it just has to be expropriated from the hands of the grubby masses. which is what has been happening for the past 20 years and also why the execution and experimentation has gradually nosedived. all those dance music festivals sponsored by the European Union. people do dance at unsound and berlin atonal etc to jungle, techno, garage etc, but it's very much patronised as higher culture with all the conceptronica filler which fills that void of it not being a druggy party. plenty of incestuous copping off going on though no doubt.

yeh, broken beat is middlebrow. but there is no such thing as lowbrow ambient either so that doesn't bother me too much.

 

[muser]

It can be highbrow, it just has to be expropriated from the hands of the grubby masses.

Id say if it's intention or driving force is to make someone dance, that primal urge, it can't be highbrow surely. If there is no intention then it's not dance music. I guess the exception to this could be classical forms and traditional musics lifted into the highbrow that have specific dances that must be carefully learnt.

 

[thirdform]

um in an ideal world aristocrats won't shag but that just doesn't correspond to reality. in fact they shove their sex too much in our face if anything. still preferable to the protestant prude and the temperance freak though, granted.