by guest blogger Corey Dargel
The late Robert Solomon was a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas. He had a very fun cameo in the animated film Waking Life.
Solomon created a lecture series called Philosophy and the Intelligence of Emotions. One of the lectures was titled “Laughter and Music.”
Solomon argued that laughter has very little to do with what’s funny and what’s not funny. Rather, he believed that laughter is a bonding mechanism; its primary purpose is to create a feeling of connection between members of a certain group. That’s why people are more likely to laugh at a movie when they’re watching it with a group of people than when they’re watching it alone. That’s also why racially oriented jokes, for example, are funny to some people and offensive (or at least unfunny) to others.
Solomon believes that music, like laughter, is primarily a bonding mechanism. Just as people’s senses of humor depend on the groups they associate with, so do people’s feelings about music depend on the context in which they experience it.
To be sure, music and laughter can still have a bonding effect on someone who listens alone to a recording. Even in that isolated context, there’s a sense of connection with the artists who made the recording and/or with other people who have listened to the recording.
If you ask someone why a piece of music is “sad,” they tend to give one of the following answers:
1) A piece of music is sad because it arouses sadness in the listener.
2) A piece of music is sad because it was sadness that the author or composer was expressing when he or she composed it.
But, alas, it’s not that simple.
Music that comforts some people can be used to torture other people. Conversely, I would bet that we’ve all had the experience of listening to a really depressing piece of music and yet feeling euphoric while listening to it. Also, the first time people hear a piece of music can sometimes set up a
powerful association that recurs on every subsequent hearing.
According to Solomon, recent research
suggests that adolescence is a special age of life when people are
particularly receptive to different kinds of music. Perhaps what they hear during that
time is something they carry with them, something that sets the
patterns of musical meaning for the rest of their lives.
Have you heard about the theory of transplant memory?
“A man received a heart transplant and developed a love for classical music. The donor was a 17-year-old who loved classical music and played the violin, and had actually died while holding a violin to his chest.”
Corey replies: I’ve read about things like this before. Very strange indeed. What will it take to convince neuroscientists that they won’t be able to explain everything about why we like the things we like!
Corey – I suspect you were being intentionally glib, but Ill maintain my indignation nonetheless, since thats what the Internet is for – those cases are first of all anecdotal, and second of all statistically insignificant. The imagery of the heart as a center of feeling is a historical/cultural phenomenon, not based on even the slightest observation, like, ever. The heart is a muscle. It pumps blood. It contains not a single biological device for recall.
Somewhat similar tales to the one above are told by, among others, Oliver Sacks, but the line of thinking there is clearly maintained – neurological changes are produced by trauma, whether it be stroke, lightning, or heart transplant. Also, of all the neuroscience books Ive read, which have quite a few as of late, none of them ever suggest that its a science that is anything other than its infancy right now, not capable of profound understanding, but only beginning to shed light on the proverbial rabbit hole.
It seems that we’re at an impasse anyway when it comes this discussion, since I find this discussion topic highly satisfying in the realm of evolutionary psychology (see Stephen Mithen’s The Singing Neanderthals, among others) while in the realm of conventional psychology I find wholy unsatisfying, and given to fits of fancy.
Yes, I’m being overly confrontational about this, but few things annoy me so much as the suggestion that the properties of music are permanently ineffable. But, in the end, I completely agree that music, as well as laughter, is by its very essence social.
Corey replies: Actually, I find neuroscientific theories fascinating. So, yes, I was being a bit glib. I should know better than to attempt to convey tone via the magical internets. I’m reading a book by Steven Pinker called The Blank Slate which has some pretty interesting things to say about the arts and evolutionary psychology. I hope to write about it before my tenure here is over. You say that you are irritated at the suggestion that the properties of music are permanently ineffable. I’m curious: Does that mean that you don’t believe there is any metaphysical component of the effects music has on people?
The Blank Slate is definitely on my to-read list. Interesting caveat, however – its surprising to me how many writers about music and evolutionary psychology take issue with Pinker’s theories. I’ll do my best to hold judgement until I read him myself, but Mithen’s arguments have been the most compelling case against Pinker that I’ve seen – but at the same time the recent reconstruction of the Neanderthal vocal cords seem to go against some of his own proposed theories. All of this ambiguity just adds to the allure of the study for me though; if I was looking for something firmly grounded, I’d be reading tome after tome about earth gravity.
Obviously I clumsily stepped into a rather personal game with the metaphysical argument. To explain my own predispositions, I’ll say this: I do not believe we have yet understood even a small part of intricacies of the human mind and its development on any temporal plane (be it childhood or evolutionary or what have you), but I do believe that an explanation to all the effects of not only music, but all stimulus, lies within. And I find that to be absolutely magical.
And Corey, allow me to say, since I’ve been kind of bitchy so far, that I’m thoroughly enjoying your work on this blog in Molly’s stead.