More On The Thoroughly Delicious Experiment

The thoroughly delicious article concerning a thoroughly delicious (if flawed) experiment engineered and chronicled by journalist Gene Weingarten for the Washington Post Magazine, and linked to in this S&F post, seems to have had widespread fallout on the Net. Most interesting was a live online discussion with Mr. Weingarten set up by the Post the complete transcript of which can be read here. I found especially, um, charming this choice little morsel from one of participants:

This is an interesting story; Joshua Bell seems like a gentleman and a cool guy. I have to say, though, that I am very disturbed by the writers' assumption that there is something wrong with the fact that more people didn't stop, or pay attention, or otherwise recognize Bell's virtuosity. The writers' assumption implies that there is a normative "greatness" to the music that Bell was playing and that there was a normative "virtuosity" to his playing; and what is presented as normative in this article, as is usually done in musical discourse in this country, is a white European musical aesthetic. I love the Bach chaconne, as does Bell and as do the writers and some of the passers-by, but many people do not. Many people hold other culturally- and environmentally-learned aesthetic conceptions of musical beauty which, believe it or not, do not recognize Bach as beautiful. The assumption that is expressed throughout this article that something must be seriously wrong because people didn't recognize Bach's or Bell's genius - especially given the writers' obnoxious contention that Washingtonians are "sophisticated" (with the implication that residents of other communities are not) - is spurious and ethnocentric, to say the least. I like the quote from the Kant scholar who says that Kant would have made nothing of the entire experiment. Your alleged experiment is revealing only of the writers' chauvinistic preference for European art music, and of the larger, implied problem of the racialized [sic] canon of Western music. Please, please, get a grip on yourselves. The fact that most people who passed by Bell on their way to work did not register what you consider to be proper approval means absolutely nothing. There is nothing to explain given that you do not know what those people's musical preferences are; what their thoughts on musical performance in public spaces are; what their thoughts on giving money to street performers are; whether or not they grew up in cultures or sub-cultures that value other kinds of music or musical performance as being most beautiful, etc. I would have enjoyed the performance, but so what? I am not so impressed with myself as to believe that my musical tastes represent some objective and all-encompassing notion of musical taste.

To his credit, Mr. Weingarten fielded this imbecile PC gibberish — and fielded it well — with a degree of equanimity that would have been way beyond my capacity to muster.

And here's a piece for Salon written by some twit by the name of David Marchese (whomever he might be) commenting on the experiment and on Mr. Weingarten's article. Choice excerpt:

The apathy came as a surprise to Weingarten, whose article evinces the kind of elitist snobbery that's exactly what classical music doesn't need. From the description of the crowd at one of Washington's most "plebian" subway stations ("ghosts" with "ID tags slapping at their bellies") to Bell's shock at the fact "that people were actually, ah ... ignoring me" to the title's insulting swine allusion, the reader is treated to highbrow condescension of the highest order.

Postmodern populist idiot.