[LAU] re Subconscious Affecting Music

[fons at kokkinizita.net]

On Wed, Sep 01, 2010 at 06:11:53AM -0700, Patrick Shirkey wrote:

> > * Reducing a complex social process to a simplistic conspiration theory.
> >
> 
> Analysing a myriad of options to arrive at a place that I can work from
> and an angle I can confidently approach with gusto.

What myriad of options ? I have no idea what you want to say here.

What happens is a general dumbing down, of people refusing to think,
be critical and form well-informed opinions. And yes, some people have
an interest in this and do stimulate it, and a lot more just exploit it.
Why this phenomenon exists in society is not something that can be
explained in a few slogans. And if you reduce it to a 'conspiration
of music producers', that becomes just an example of the very dumbing
down itself.

> > * Abusing ill-defined but suggestive terminology from Freudian psychology,
> >   ('subconscious', 'mind', etc.) ignoring everything this science as
> >   produced over the last 30 or so years.
> >
> 
> What exactly have I ignored? Definitely not everything.

Without going into the details: the idea that there is some part
of our mental activity ('the unconscious') that remains mysteriously
closed to ourselves but is open for others to 'manipulate' just
doesn't hold. You can't invoke 'the inconscious' as a magic wand
to explain aspects of people's behaviour. On the contrary, the 
fact that we are not aware of some of our motivations needs
itself to be explained.

Terminology such as 'the inconscious', 'the mind', etc. is so
vague that it is effectively useless. It seems to explain some
things, but that is an illusion. If used at all in modern psy-
chology such terms will be defined much more striclty, at which 
point they lose their capacity to apparently explain things.
They just become words with an agreed-upon meaning, just as
'table' or 'combustion engine'.

As used in everyday parlance, they are just placeholders for
what is in fact a complete absence of understanding. Yet they
remain popular even with 'intellectuals', mainly those who
are into human sciences, who still worship Freud as a guru
and analysis as the ultimate therapy. One reason for this is
that Freud's work has literary qualities, apart from not
being completely without merit. He was after all the first
who at least *tried* a scientific approach.

-- 
FA

There are three of them, and Alleline.