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I love these sort of sociological experiments, and I wish I could sit at the bar with you and discuss this over an ale, because my philosophical brain has so many thoughts and questions that I can't possibly get them out here right.
This reminds me of experiences like what was articulated in Black Like Me, where a white man posed as a black man and was treated like shit. And then when he revealed himself, he was treated even more like shit because he basically make people look like idiots and proved that treated a white guy badly purely becuase of the color of his skine...but I digress.
One thing that this story possibly suggests to me is that the average person has to be told what is good art or music, etc, and they don't have the ability to discern it themselves. It is culturally defined and informed on average, not immediately intuited by the individual. It's like when they have the big jazz festival here in Boise, and this is the time when all the snobs come out and support jazz and claim they are faithful supporters of the art, but it's the only time you really see them do this, when they are told to because it is a huge public event. And quite honestly, they would buy into whatever you put in their faces, hook, line and sinker. So, in this case, "context" is very important. The context is sort of a cue for the average person...it tells them "Hey, this is good art"...you need to pay attention. And they pay attention because they've taught that this is the sort of thing you are supposed to do in the presence of good art. Otherwise, they wouldn't know the difference or wouldnt care. So the story proves that good art or an amazing artist is not something that come by intuition at the individual level. People have to be trained and conditioned to recognize it. It's like a $500 bottle of wine that gets beat in a blind taste contes by a $10 bottle of wine. It happens a lot. If you tell most people that they are drinking the expensive bottle, and then let them drink the less expensive bottle, their conditioned brains will take over and they will claim that the expensive bottle is better...even though a blind taste test shows otherwise. People are extremly vulnerable to the power of suggestion.
This also seems to validate the schemata or mental construct theory in cognitive psychology. Many experiments have been done that show that people have these mental contructs of things, like beauty, good art, etc. They walked several people through a room that they said was a doctor's office. They were asked to note afterwards what they saw...what they did was note things that were supposed to be in a doctor's offfice, but were not there, and they omitted things that were there but not normally in a doctor's office. In other words, their mental schemata of a doctor's office, constructed by their experiences, social influenece, etc, took over and filtered out some sensory data, but added or fabricatd others. So, if people have this schemata that you won't normally see a really, really good an famous arts in a Metro Station, then if there is one, they won't recognize him. So, perhaps it is this, or they just don't have the ability to discernn good art, regardless. Two possible explanations here, or maybe mix of both.
Kris----- Original Message -----
We've had so many thought provoking discussions here at Loopers Delight (oneof the nicest runs in this site's history) lately, about philosophy. Tonight. in an introspective mood, I saw two things posted to Facebook:I'll repost one here and one in the next email because they concern diffrerent topics. I found one depressing and one inspiring but they both inspired meditation.Firstly:A man sat at a metro stationin Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that 1,100 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.Three minutes went by, and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace, and stopped for a few seconds, and then hurried up to meet his schedule.A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping, and continued to walk.A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried, but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally, the mother pushed hard, and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while. About 20 gave him money, but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the most talented musicians in the world. He had just played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, on a violin worth $3.5 million dollars.Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste, and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be:If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?