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Notes: Discussion sections 0202, 0206, 0207 TA: Kallfelz PHIL
May 4, 2007
- âHow Black is Blue?â (Continued). Paul Taylorâs Response to Rudinow (and Rudinowâs Response)
In answer to Rudinowâs final points he raised towards the conclusion of his article, concerning âwhat is crucially and universally human about [the bluesâ] central themesâ (416), which (according to Rudinow) would undermine the objection that whites can play the blues, Taylor complains that such claims as above paint too simple a picture:
[T]he main difficulty with [Rudonowâs] approach is that he misunderstands the cultural forces acting to constitute the subject positions from which the BBA [Black Blues Authenticity Thesis] may be articulated, and so misconstrues the possible forces and intent of the claim. (418)
Relying on Deweyâs theory of works of art as being primarily phenomena that take place in the public sphere, and manifest a collective and sustained (strengthened and instensified) emotional quality from its spectators^1 , as well as sociological notion of âracial space,â Taylor responds:
[C]andidate blues performances in which white participate fail because the BBA adherent is unconvinced that the performer can properly bear witness to the racialized moral pain that the blues is about. (419)
This racialized moral pain is derived by his some cryptically and technically stated claim:
[T]he response-dependent property of being perceived as black [is derived from]⌠the counterfactually specifiable susceptibility to certain forms of discrimination and insult that follows from it. (419)
In other words, the racial space is ringed by such a (relational) property in which the African-American primarily perceives himself or herself in terms of âbeing blackâ based on the response elicited by his or her interaction with someone who is not black. Martin Luther King wrote the he looks forward âto a time in which one is judged by the content of oneâs character, not by the color of oneâs skin.â This aspiration of King is an example of the negation of such a response-dependent property. In this case, one is being judged in terms of oneâs character, so the person perceives him or herself primarily in this lightâas an individual with a moral character and a conscienceâand not as a black or a white person.
Counterfactual statements, in their conditional form, always take the subjunctive mood. In other words, a counterfactual conditional is phrased as:
(^1) âArtworks for Dewey are experiences that art objects participate in and occasion, distinguished from other
kinds of experiences principally in that they intensify and clarify certain features common to those experiencesâŚ[after all] [e]xperience in general is made up of situations, or contextual wholes, within which events take on meanings in relation to their antecedents, consequences, and immediate qualities.â (418)
If it were the case that p, then it would be the case that q.
âŚwhere p and q are the antecedents and consequents of the usual conditional variety:
If p, then q.
The connection with the response-dependent property and counterfactuals is clear. Certainly, when a white person behaves or responds in a certain way that makes the African-American aware of his or her blackness, certainly he or she canât help but wonder: âIf I werenât black, would s/he have acted that way towards me?â^2
It is precisely with these justifications that Taylor argues he is not advancing a (reverse) racist position (in response to Rudinowâs objections to the proprietary argument, pp. 413-414) nor he claim he needs to appeal to some notion of âracial memoryâ (of past and present wrongs) somehow passed on through racial bloodlines. After all âfairly pedestrian sociological commonplaces will suffice.â (420) In other words, the above counterfactually-based scenarios, reinforcing this response-dependent sense of self perception of being black, are indeed commonplace, they occur all the time, whether or not a white person even notices or cares to notice.
Since it is safe to say that incidences of these kinds are usually fraught with negative connotations and associations, the blues have drawn from and continue to draw on this font of âracialized moral pain.ââŚin this regard, âblues songs are tragic, not pathetic.â (419)
[W]e [can] read the blues idiom as a racial project that depicts the black race as a social category whose members are oppressed, insulted, and burdened with diminished life chances, but who still persevere and struggleâŚ.[then] attempts to universalize cultural practices in this country have all too often amounted to attempts to diminish and ignore the worth of the culture within which the practice began âŚthere is not anything crucially or universally human about the blues if the idiom is a racial project. (419-420)
Rudinow of course responds that all Taylorâs construals are rather question-begging:
Taylorâs BBA adherent listener is a âsubjectivityââa term of art âŚ.[h]owever much we may be âconstituted as social beingsâ (i.e. in terms of our social roles and identities)âŚI want to maintain that we are allâperformers, audience members, theorists alikeâstill âpersonsâ, or less abstractly, âhuman beingsââŚ.[Taylorâs] argument will have to do better than the mere suggestion that the blues might be about what contemporary and historical African-Americans have in common uniquely âŚIt will not do simply to assert in a question-begging way that there is not anything crucially or universally human about the blues. (422)
So here we have an example of an impasse (recalling Jeff Jordanâs article). Some of the resulting discussions seemed to reflect this impasse.
The basic issue stemmed from what could be described (as Taylor writes above) the first- hand familiarity with this specific kind of âracialized moral painâ stemming from the above
(^2) Or translated in the above counterfactual form: âIf it were the case that I am not black, then it would be
the case that that [non-black] person would not have acted that way towards me.â
Marcel Pierre-Louis §0202 also brought out the interesting distinction among moral, aesthetic virtue versus virtuosity. Someone can play the blues with great skill (virtuosity) and it may not translate into a moral or aesthetically virtuous experience, and vice versa. Marcel strongly agreed with Shelby âs points that a general reductive scheme seeking to specify authenticity in the case of music seems like a hopeless task. There are too many confounding and particular factors at play.
I offered some analogies concerning this question, dealing with other recent musical forms. In particular, I raised the issue of Rap music and Heavy Metal Rock music. Rap, like the blues, certainly had its roots in âmoral painâ and associated reaction against socioeconomic discrimination and police brutality as experienced in urban areas (arising from the East CoastâŚearly groups to hit mainstream airplay like Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, as well as Public Enemy, emphasized predominantly revolutionary themes and activism.) Yet Rap music, and all its associated amalgamations and spin-offs, has become a truly global phenomenon. Does rap music from Ghana, or for that matter from Azerbaijan^3 have any less âauthenticityâ than its East Coast roots? Heavy Metal musicâs origins and (in a market-driven sense) target were primarily middle, to upper-middle class white teenagers experiencing the associated angst and alienation of suburban âculture.â Yet African-American groups like In Living Color were among the most outstanding Heavy Metal performers, often coopting in their lyrics issues dealing with urban culture and socially revolutionary themes, as in the case or Rap music. Do groups like In Living Color play Heavy Metal in fashion less effectively and authentically as their white counterparts?
Adil Zahman §0202 objected to the analogy, insofar as one associates Rap and Heavy Metal primarily with studio performances, while the Blues is usually thought in terms of live performance, where the audience plays an active part. In this respect, Adil pointed out that Punk Rock might be more analogous. For like the Blues, Punk Rock arose from a particular response (albeit perhaps better described as socioeconomic than racial per se^4 ) expressing a collective sense of response towards discrimination and marginalization felt by British working class youth. And as Adil pointed out, by the time Punk Rock hit the US scene, one of its most influential outfits included the Washington DC-based African American group, the Bad Brains (pictured below)
The Bad Brains, (DC Punk Rock Band)
(^3) Music I was exposed to when I stayed in Tbilisi, (Republic of Georgia), from Dec. 1995-Jan. 1996. (^4) As remarked in conversation, by Darren Hick.
According to Adil, no one in the Punk Rock scene past or present would argue that the Bad Brains played the music with any less degree of raw intensity and authenticity than, for instance, some ârootsâ British Punk Rock band like The Clash, etc.
The discussion concerning the Blues in all three sections was extensive, and in some cases, quite intense. This left less time than I originally allotted for discussion on Bringsjord. Nevertheless, I opened the discussion by asking in all three sections whether or not in the twelve thought experiments he offers any difference in moral kind appears from one to another, rather than just being a difference in terms of moral degree? Keep in mind that his method of recursive modus ponens or hypothetical syllogism is valid. The question then depends on the soundness of this argument. Discovering any moral difference arising between two premises is one way to argue that the argument is unsound, since these incremental changes (according to Bringsjord) donât produce a moral difference from one step to another.
Recall in the lecture (May 3, 2007) the point that Margo T^5 raised, that there exists a moral difference between description and reproduction. Thus, when one arrives at scenarios 7 and beyond, a qualitatively different moral effect kicks in, itâs no longer a question of a difference of degree , rather a difference in kind. (Since at that point, in one way or another, agent A has the capacity to fully reproduce aspects of the film.)
Interestingly, however, most in the sections who voiced an opinion disagreed with this issue. For instance, Alexander Meyer §0206 pointed out that someone endowed with âtotal recallâ should be considered as just merely describing what s/he saw to an utmost degree of precision and accuracy. But this limiting case doesnât impugn one to any kind of moral accountability above and beyond the more typical cases of selective and inevitably distorted descriptions based on memory. Alexander Meyerâs §0206 points were further substantiated Charles Stoll §0202 who argued that the real change in what constitutes a moral difference actually occurs in the stage 10, 11, 12, when the hardware and software of the device entirely replaces the âwetwareâ of the brain/mind of the agent. This is because, according to Charles , in the case of a human being recollecting (whether in the form of a perfect reproduction or by a mere description) some impression, thereâs an irreducible dimension of interpretation that computers simply lack. This is indeed a rather crucial issue, that Charles was illustrating. Try as some may in the philosophy of mind and in AI to argue that the âbrain is just like a computerâ^6 no one has been able to successfully the issue of semantics (the qualitative dimension of the content of meaning) to syntax (the formal aspects of what we thing the mind does when in processes information). Charles was referring to this issue when he mentioned that humans interpret in a way that we wouldnât say that computers can and do successfully. For instance, consider the previous point addressed regarding subjective experience (the problem of qualia, mentioned above). Can one sensibly reduce a personal experience (first person) to some (third-person) algorithm describing in formal terms whatâs going on in some
(^5) I didnât catch her last name. She is in Yu Izumiâs section. (^6) It seems a natural tendency for humans to constantly compare themselves with their latest hi-tech
creations. In the late 19th^ century, for instance, it was thought by some (Freud, etc.) that the human psyche was âlike a steam engine.â In the 13th^ century, when the clock was invented, monks and theologians argued that the human soul was akin to a clock.
