Stuck In My Skull 500 -- Let's talk

Hey everyone,

I don't really have a song lined up today, but rather I'd like to take a bit and talk about something that's been on my mind lately. Just a heads up, this might get heavy.

I'd been wanting to write something special for Entry 500, and so I didn't write anything on Monday and Wednesday: For that, you have my apologies. I couldn't find a song I liked and I thought was suitably momentous. So why did I stop looking for a song and sit down to write an entry without one? Two things  happened in the last few days that brought about my change of heart.

On Wednesday, March 19th, Fred Phelps died. Fred Phelps, the founder of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church, died. There were reports that he was excommunicated from his own church at some point before his death (Googling "Fred Phelps Excommunicated" produces such results as a Huffington Post article and a local newspaper article on the issue, although at time of writing this seems to be contentious). The Westboro Baptist Church has a long history of being in the spotlight for their actions: Do some research on them if you don't know the story, I don't want to get into it here. I was expecting the collective voice of the internet to descend into jeering and catcalls, flinging mud and insults and descending to the level of the WBC. So far that hasn't happened on my corner of Facebook and Reddit seems to be divided on the issue, but the signs are heartening. I hope that this trend of not lowering ourselves to poke fun at the death of someone we dislike continues.

Then yesterday, something else happened that really made me think. I was showing a friend of mine the music video for Ylvis' song "Someone Like Me" and my friend commented that it was a shame to see 'such a good singing voice wasted on dubstep.' At the time I brushed it off and replied with something to the effect of "You haven't heard 'pretty' dubstep yet," but I found myself returning to my friend's statement over and over. They thought that a voice was wasted on dubstep.

I want to unpack that statement a bit. Disclaimer, this is how I see things, and your mileage may vary. My goal here is not shame anyone, so I'm not going to identify the person who said this, and I'm going to use the singular 'they' instead of a gendered pronoun to provide my friend some anonymity. Saying that a voice was wasted on dubstep implies that dubstep is inferior to some other genre of music and in so doing, asserts the opinion of the speaker as fact. It takes the subjective rankings of musical genres by the person talking, and states them as a factual and immutable ranking of 'goodness' between genres. This is forcing the opinion of the speaker onto the listener, and bespeaks arrogance (by elevating the speakers' opinion) and intolerance (by implying that something is so low as to not be worthy of effort or a good voice).

I'd like to state some things that I believe. These are my opinions, but I like to think they're good rules to live by. Like any of my opinions, they can be changed. That being said, I believe that music is art. I believe that art is subjective, and that there is no objective 'right or wrong,' no 'better or worse' in art. I believe that all people are entitled to their opinion. I believe that all opinions should be respected as having merit because they are ideas held by a human being. There's a quote I really like. A bit of research says that it's from Evelyn Beatrice Hall, who used this phrase to describe Voltaire's attitude: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" (source). I think this is a good attitude to have. I understand what it's like to dislike a genre. I'm still not a huge fan of country. I think some of the artists have really annoying musical habits. But do I think that country is any less of a genre for it? No. I will be the first to say that country is music too, and has every right to be considered a valid genre on par with all others. This is true of all genres, whether or not I like them. Music is art, and the product of time and effort and work and heart and creative energy. Making music is hard work, and worthy of being respected even if you don't like it. Just because dubstep doesn't have guitars or singers or whatever it is that you think makes real music doesn't mean that it's bad, just different. If we try to say that something is or isn't music based on our opinions, we quickly descend into the 'No True Scotsman' fallacy (Wikipedia and TVTropes articles on and explaining this informal fallacy). "Music isn't real music unless it has one electric guitar, one bass guitar, one singer, one drummer, one keyboard." No, that's not correct. That's not the definition for what is and isn't music, that's the recipe for a band you might like.

So how do these two topics relate? I can practically hear some people thinking "I bet Fred Phelps would have hated dubstep," but that's not quite it. I want to talk about tolerance. Tolerance is something we desperately need more of in this world. Even if you don't like a person's taste in music, religion, politics, sexual orientation, or anything about that person, that doesn't make them less of a person or make their opinions less valid. People are who they want to be, and like who and what they want to like. Rather than only liking that which is similar, let's be tolerant. Let's embrace what is different. Let's remember that all art and all people have value. Let's just be tolerant. Not the frosty tolerance of "I'm putting up with you because it's the right thing to do but I still totally hate your guts, think your music is awful, and despise everything you've ever loved but I have to smile through it." No, let's be the kind of tolerant that comes with an open mind and loving people for the mere fact of they are people too. Listen to whatever you want, be whoever you want, and accept that everyone else is just as free to do the same thing. People can choose to be whoever they want and make whatever they want, and that's what makes both music and people beautiful.