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Why do some think "music" (not gear, trading, etc.) is the ultimate end?

A recent thread spurred a debate about the word "audiophile." Again. It went round and round in the usual ways.

What I don't understand is why so many take for granted that loving music is superior to loving gear. Or that gear is always -- and must be -- a mere *means* to music, which is the (supposedly) true end.

But if you stop and think about it, why do we love music? It gives us enjoyment.
Isn't that why people love gear? The enjoyment?
Or even, to push the question, buying, selling, changing gear? That's for enjoyment, no?

So, it raises the difficult question: Why do some think that "music" as an "enjoyment" is better than "gear" or "shopping, buying, selling, trading"?

Not everyone believes this, but it is the most prevalent assumption in these discussions -- that "love of music" is the end-which-cannot-be-questioned. 

So, while music is the largest end I'm personally striving for, I do realize that it's because it brings me enjoyment. But the other facets of the hobby do, too. And I'm starting to realize that ranking them is an exercise but not a revelation of the "one" way everything should sort out. It's all pretty subjective and surely doesn't seem like a basis on which I could criticize someone else's enjoyment, right? 

What do you think? On what grounds do you see it argued that "music" is a *superior* or *ultimate* end? Whether you agree or not, what reasons do you think support that conclusion?
128x128hilde45
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
13,102 posts
 
To go way deeper than with Pirsig in the same direction, try Jean Gebser, "the ever present origin" and reading Julian Jaynes and Ernst Cassirer will do the rest of the job....

Classical and romantic, or left brain and right brain are surface manifestation of polarities deeply seated in the dynamic genesis history of consciousness...

Gebser, Cassirer, and Jaynes are all complementary works but perhaps a bit hard to read then i suggest this small book, very astounding one indeed : Owen Barfield, "saving the appearence" and more easy read than the three i recommended already : Iain McGilchrist: "the master and his emissary" will complement Barfield.....After these 2 you are ready for Gebser/Jaynes/Cassirer....

In one small book by the physicist Henri Bortoft, disciple of David Bohm: an explanation of Goethe vision and perception: "taken appearence seriously"... Understanding Goethe the greatest thinker since Plato and easily the more underestimated and difficult to understand anyway, is very helpful even if you read none of the books i suggest....Goethe was a supremum artist and his science understanding had 2 centuries in advance then.....😊

The best Christmas to you and to all.....
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
That book (Zen, etc) was popular around the time I was in college. Between the motorcycle angle and philosophy it seemed a natural for me, yet I never could get into it. Sometimes with time and experience things change and you find new meaning. But no. Thanks to the excerpt above I'm quite sure I was right to take a pass, and I care less and less for pretentious blather as the years go by. 


hilde45's avatar
hilde45 OP
4,974 posts
 
Pretentious blather is in the eye of the beholder. 
hilde45's avatar
hilde45 OP
4,974 posts
 
@mahgister I also like the aesthetics of John Dewey -- experience-based, interactive. "Classical" and "Romantic" are old labels meant to capture something, but they hardened and set people apart. That's his thrust, I think. Pirsig was pushing toward something like a more integrated view, a connective, dynamic way of seeing experience rather than pigeonholing ways of seeing. Good work done here: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781403974020

And yes! Have a great holiday.
mahgister's avatar
mahgister
13,102 posts
 
Thanks hilde45...

Pirsig is an interesting writer and your recommendation is interesting...

Pirsig was pushing toward something like a more integrated view, a connective, dynamic way of seeing experience rather than pigeonholing ways of seeing.

You are right and it is the reason why i name few of my favorite to walk the same walk....

I only push the many writers i did recommend to go more on the same road, and Dewey was indeed one of the great american thinker with Peirce, and few others....

By the way the best friend of Goethe is a thinker in his own way and express very deep thinking about the polarities in his own way in a very simple and deep book : Schiller "on the aesthetic education of man" a pleasure to read...

Happy holiday to you and all....
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