 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2018-10-09 02:36
There’s a lovely little book by the philosopher Harry Frankfurt that I would recommend to anyone.
Frankfurt analyses the phenomenon of ‘bullshit’ as a genuine philosophical category. Bullshit is not lying; indeed it’s not characterisable in terms of its relationship to the truth, because it lies outside the categories of truth and falsehood. It disregards the categories truth/falsehood.
It is therefore possible to bullshit whilst saying something that is true.
People here have said that the purpose of this BBoard is not to deal with the truth of things. It’s to have conversations ‘over the garden fence’ with others marginally interested in the clarinet.
Frankfurt characterises that sort of conversation as belonging to what he (and others) call ‘bull-sessions’, in which – sometimes under the influence of alcohol, though not necessarily – you can say ANYTHING, and not have it subsequently held against you.
I think that this is something we should not do here. There is more value to be had by not doing so.
Read the book, and tell me whether you agree.
Tony
Post Edited (2018-10-09 18:31)
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Author: Windy Dreamer
Date: 2018-10-09 05:29
There is no faster route to despair and insanity than the study of. philosophy.Nevertheless I did a quck review of his book titles, with their accompanying reviews and concluded that I would very much like to meet him some day. I do not believe that he would be as dangerous as most of his peers.
I was particularly struck by the title " On Demons, Dreamers and Madmen " .So much so that I am going to take another day to reflect upon a new thread I was going to start today. That thread concerns a mourning ]plea from Amerindian Elders to music academia.
My shortlived despair was quickly disspelled by the title " On Truth ". That was published shortly after on bs.
When I post the plea of Elders I will be vigilant in gaurding against the human tendency to fall from truth to bs by overstating the case.
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Author: bmcgar ★2017
Date: 2018-10-09 08:39
The book's been a favorite of mine, and I agree. I'd be more inclined to visit this BBD and look closer at some of the posts if things changed in that regard.
B.
Post Edited (2018-10-09 08:41)
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Author: Windy Dreamer
Date: 2018-10-09 10:46
There are probably quite a few people out there that believe this thread is horribly out of context and does not belong on a clarinet forum. I for one am glad it is here. The discovery of Harry Frankfurt has revolutionized my perceptions of academia in general and the faculty of philosophy in particular. I never could have imagined I would see the day that a university professor of any faculty , let alone philosophy,would assert that truth exists .
In the past I have been invited by political science professors to address issues of ethics and community values in the classroom. They claimed to share my values but dared not raise those issues themselves for fear of loss of employment.There was also a group of several professors that invited me to closed door discussions at the faculty club. I felt deeply honored until they told me I would have to arrive in darkness and enter discreetly through a back door to protect them from reprisal. Eventually I lost contact with all of them. They claimed they had to terminate our relationships because too many people had seen us together publicly thereby tarnishing their reputations. I deeply mourn the loss of our friendships and debates, even the hostile ones.
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2018-10-09 21:29
I'll check into that book; it sounds potentially useful. However, it isn't very clear what the problem is that needs fixing on this board. I realize that some posters get upset over posts of misinformation or statements that they disagree with. Some also get upset if others question them or fail to understand what their posts meant or might have been intended to mean. I say they seem to get upset, because they sometimes initiate personal critiques or contemptuous attitudes in response. So maybe my question is, in part, why that?
Is the idea that people without certain bona fides ought to be readers only on this board, and not writers? While the participation of professionals is extremely valuable here - certainly to me - I thought that sort of milieu characterizes, say, blogs, rather than public discussion groups like this.
So, what was the problem again?
Post Edited (2018-10-10 01:03)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2018-10-10 23:24
Philip wrote:
>> However, it isn't very clear what the problem is that needs fixing on this board.>>
As I've said many times, there are plenty of things that people here can and should post quite freely. Their opinions, for example, as in: I like that performance, I don't like that player, and so on.
I'm not myself much interested in people's unsubstantiated opinions – but others may well be. I'm not even much interested in my OWN opinions, which is why I seldom post them.
What I am however interested in is information. And, I think it's very important that that information be TRUE information. True information isn't personal in the way that opinions may very well be.
>> Is the idea that people without certain bona fides ought to be readers only on this board, and not writers? >>
No, because bona fides don't guarantee true posts.
What I would like is that people who don't know much about something try to find out more about that something before posting what first comes into their heads.
In a 'bull-session', as characterised by Harry G Frankfurt (sorry about the initial typo 'Harry S Frankfurt') what comes first into your head is perfectly acceptable.
Notice that this may not be a BAD thing in a bull-session, which has acceptability criteria which are much looser than those of other environments. I'm reminded of the rhyme:
Home life is wonderful
Orgies are vile;
But you need a little orgy
Every once in a while.
People have said here that the 'bull-session stance' doesn't matter, because what people say EVEN ABOUT MATTERS OF FACT will be corrected in the long run.
But it does matter, because many people can't distinguish between the false staters and the correcters. So the truth gets drowned out, in both the short and the long run.
I would like people to think more before posting their 'information'.
Here's an example:
I had something very important to say in the thread 'Intonation difficulty in the simplest case.'
By that I mean, important to EVERYONE, not only to my immediate colleagues, but to students in youth orchestras, professionals in symphony orchestras and so on. I had discovered it by enquiry of informed people. I spread it around.
To appreciate it, you needed to make a little effort; but if you do make that effort, you're released from a possibly persistent worry into another way of looking at the difficulty that can in many cases lead to a resolution.
I hesitated quite a lot about posting it here. That's because I feared that it would be drowned out, as usual. Another way of putting that is that I DIDN'T TRUST YOU. But in the end I did, with mixed results. I think it was worth doing, because some people 'got it'. But there was quite a lot of noise, and I don't know whether the idea made it out cleanly from the ruckus.
Much of the noise came from people who posted innocently out of their limited experience. But some of them were less innocently willing to lay down the law as is their habit here.
My plea here is to have less informed people inform themselves before trying to lay down the law.
Tony
Post Edited (2018-10-10 23:54)
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2018-10-11 02:04
>> How do you know if you are "less informed" ? >>
It's a subtle question, and one that one has to be open to as a matter of course.
Tony
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2018-10-11 18:53
An interesting thread. I don't have a problem with the occasional element of bullshit on this forum. Our natural sense of discrimination enables us to separate it from the genuine article, and adds colour to a sometimes rather dry discussion.
While I would never consider myself to be "informed" musically to anything approaching the level of the real professionals on this forum I do have expertise in other fields that sometimes resonates with problems posters are experiencing, and sometimes I can even help them. I'll confess to sometimes having posted something that was not as I thought, and on these occasions I have generally been corrected by someone more knowledgeable than me. This has invariably been done respectfully and amicably.
Sometimes a poster crops up with a lot to say and not much to back it up, but these are easily recognizable after a few posts and they generally fade away after a while. Although they may not contribute greatly to the sum of knowledge of things woodwind they sometimes show something in a different light, or even contribute a measure of levity.
If an idea is posted for the elucidation of all, then those who value the information will recognize it for what it is and be grateful for it. The fact that some don't doesn't in any way devalue it.
Tony F.
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2018-10-11 20:23
Thanks to Tony Pay for expanding on his thoughts. He is right about the need to take care with what one states as fact. However, readers - all readers - should read critically too. They should consider the source, cross check claims, and think. They should be careful how they invest their conscience.
The public disregard for truth that has so greatly grown, right along with the Internet (no coincidence,) dismays me no end. It's not what Tony's speaking of, but an outgrowth from similar roots, springing from the soil of readerships willing or even eager to be misled. Deliberate public broadcast of misinformation brings negative consequences that can exceed those of many recognized crimes. It's an abuse of a right, one meriting, in my opinion, the revocation of the right. Yet many people seem avid to consume misinformation, and loath - increasingly loath - to attempt any critical evaluation. Some openly defend it.
Again, that's referring to deliberate misinformation, or the many forms of lying. Tony is focusing, reasonably, on more innocent neglect for accuracy. That indeed occurs in public forums, but personally I'm fairly comfortable with it. I've read some very helpful free advice in this forum, some coming from Tony Pay himself, and others who have earned esteem. I've also enjoyed many additional hours reading here, even when it made my head shake. But I check other sources often. And I judge.
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