Have an elite day

Of course, the folks here would never use the term "elite," since
it conjures the image of only *12* type characters per inch!

But seriously - while I remain profoundly suspicious about those folks who
would uncritically claim some sort of hegemony across all kinds of temporal
and cultural and stylistic borders [which is what I think that Neil may have
been sketching out for us], there *is* a sense in which it seems reasonable
to think that there will always be *some* folks who participate in social
negotiations of value from a position of greater exposure or experience than
others. In some measure, larger questions of taste or judgement are often in
the hands of those persons in a given culture who either spend more time
*doing* the thing we're trying to evaluate or have a broader background in
knowing its origins and structures. I've personally got little problem in
thinking that I'd be better at evaluating a performance of central Javanese
gamelan than some of you, and that there are any number of you who'd
have a great deal more to say about 31-tone stuff. Within the sphere of
"local" knowledge, we're being elitists [the word's origin signifying nothing
more than "choice" in old French ("eslit")].

Similarly, I don't think that Neil (or I) might have much problem with a
clarinet player who could tear holes in anything with 12 bars *and* engage
with some serious Babbittry with equal ease telling us something like, "I
prefer 'I Can't Sit Still' to 'Philomel.'" We might listen to him pretty
seriously,
I expect - I'd at least want to know *why* he prefers one version. But the
normative language of "X is good" is different from speech that explicitly
acknowledges the provisionality of opinion. I think I've mentioned that I
tend to find this a particular problem with Brian when his Intemperate bit
is stuck high. It's also been my experience that proof by assertion (Because!
I! Say! So!) is a usual resort of the sort of elitism that Neil dislikes. Your
mileage may vary.

With regards,
Gregory

_
I would go to her, lay it all out, unedited. The plot was a simple one,
paraphrasable by the most ingenuous of nets. The life we lead is our only
maybe. The tale we tell is the must that we make by living it. [Richard
Powers, "Galatea 2.2"] Gregory Taylor/Heurikon Corporation/Madison, WI



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