Rules Of The Game #3: Feelings Change

[koganbot]

Rules Of The Game #3: Feelings Change

Key sentence: "What's dangerous here is that feelings seem to be incontrovertible."

Comments always welcome, though attempts to post comments at the Las Vegas Weekly sometimes go through, sometimes don't, so you might want to also post any comments here that you try to make there, to ensure I see them.

EDIT: Here are links to all but three of my other Rules Of The Game columns (LVW's search results for "Rules of the Game"). Links for the other three (which for some reason didn't get "Rules Of The Game" in their titles), are here: #4, #5, and #8.

UPDATE: I've got all the links here now:

http://koganbot.livejournal.com/179531.html

Comments

[martinskidmore.livejournal.com]

My first thought is of the Japanese - they are very inclined to regard their feelings as incontrovertible AND to expect others to respect that. Ian Buruma talks of business meetings where the Western parties say "But your reasoning is wrong" and the Japanese insist "But that is how I feel about it," and expect that to be sufficient. I guess this comes from a religious background that is low on reasoning and argument, high on emotional and spiritual commitment.

But the point remains as to how much weight we should put on people's feelings. I don't think we should say 'you are wrong to find this [art item] moving/dull/exciting', but I think there is room for argument about the basis of this feeling. For instance, there was a wide range of reactions - and I mean gut reactions, feelings, here - to the novel American Psycho. It is possible to argue that the book is more productively read as social satire than as a slasher thriller, and that there is strong reason to doubt whether any of the murders really happened, or were in Bateman's head. This wouldn't mean someone isn't allowed to feel revulsion, but it might shift their interpretation enough that they felt differently about it. I think a sound argument can affect our feelings about things, and not just on a temporary basis. So can tons of other things - our personal circumstances changing over time, our personal links to art and echoes found there, and so on.

[koganbot]

I know very little about Japan, and what I believe about Japan is probably very stereotyped and also simplistic or incorrect or obsolete. But in one way what you say here is very surprising to me and in another way not at all.

The surprise for me is that I tend to associate an emphasis on feelings with individualism and with an emphasis on personal identity, whereas the clichés about Japan are that it emphasizes group over individual identity and that it is more hierarchical so emphasizes people's status in relation to each other. Back in my New York days I had a psychotherapist who was a Japanophile and loved visiting but said that one disagreement she had with her Japanese peers is that Japanese had no word for "identity," at least not one that matched up with western psychology's use of the term. (E.g., think of Ashlee Simpson (whose dad had been an adolescent psychologist as well as a Baptist minister), telling Jessica, "Oh I love you now/'Cause now I realize/That it's safe outside to come alive/In my identity.") The thing about feelings is that they seem individual, idiosyncratic, so if they're considered incontrovertible then the individual shouldn't have to modify them on behalf of the good of the group, or subordinate them.

Where it's not a surprise is that another supposed Japanese trait is to make decisions based on consensus. "Consensus" doesn't mean that everyone agrees 100% in the decision but that everyone endorses the decision and feels that he or she has been taken account in it - so there are no clear winners or losers. Now feelings about a song aren't usually a matter for group decision, but my point here would be that an emphasis on feelings is a way to stop conversations and call off arguments. This can be used against someone, as if to say, "Those are your feelings, and I respect that, but since they're only your feelings they have no jurisdiction or sway over anything else." Or this can be used to defend oneself: "These are my feelings and therefore you can have no argument against them." So to emphasize feelings can be a way to amiably agree to disagree, or at least to agree to disagree in a way that has no clear winners or losers.

In challenging the idea that feelings are incontrovertible, I'm taking away a tool that allows people to shut off argument. Of course, there can be good reasons to shut off argument, if you think the issue is a nonissue or that it's relatively unimportant or that it's important but not in this particular context or that the destructiveness of the argument outweighs its benefits or there are more pressing matters, etc. But "feelings are incontrovertible" is not itself a good reason, and it can be a substitute for stating one's actual reasons, or even figuring out what they are. (On the other hand, strategically it can be better to say to someone, "Well, I can't argue with your feelings, even though I feel differently" rather than "I think you're so stupid that there's no point in continuing this discussion.")

But then, in my column I'm not sure if I'm ready to make the leap to how we explain and justify our taste or if instead I want to stay a bit longer with where taste comes from and how come it clusters in social groups. (But then, when I do get to talking about how we justify our tastes, I'll point out that we sometimes alter our tastes - our feelings! - to try and align them with our justifications. So the column's subject matter should keep looping back in on itself.)

Don Allred writes:

[koganbot]

Don Allred writes (and tells me I can post here):

But that's not all there is to it, not just the power of suggestion, because you've mentioned enjoying things written, but not getting into the subject, when it came to actual listening (Hank III, Leanne Kingwell, Drive-By Truckers, for instance--not as much as the writer did anyway; and that goes even when you said you can see what other people like or love about them). Not that Palmer isn't an uncommonly good writer. Could be that his sensibility as a writer is like yours on a deeper level than some others. Or maybe "deeper" is another word that needs some relief. Say that his approach to the subject is closer to your own particular combination of "gut" response, self-awareness, speculation on how this fits with your sense of how you and the night and the music fit with social and historical--his voice as a writer feels closer to yours than some other's (You'd read about Wolf before, hadn't you?) But there are several writers whose writing I feel close to, and I love their vision of certain artists, but I just can't hear it the same way, not like they do. The most I can say is, "Boy, it *should* sound like that! Something should!"

Re: Don Allred writes:

[koganbot]

Don, I wouldn't say that Palmer's voice feels closer to mine than yours or Xhuxk's does (to name a couple of people who've spoken up for Kingwell and DBTs [both of you] and Hank III [you]) - I'd say the opposite, actually. But I'd say that my feeling an alignment with a writer's sensibility is a powerful motive for wanting to align my tastes with his as well. But as you also point out, this motive and this match of sensibility can only go so far, and a writer's descriptions and arguments also can only go so far: they can open my mind and my feelings to be receptive to an act, but they can't force my mind and guts cooperate with my motive. The music's got to have something.