I stayed home yesterday and somehow managed to not do my laundry. That takes true procrastination talent. It was one of those days that I fell asleep in the afternoon and had no energy. I do not like those days. It could well be a manifestation of depression. I sometimes think my brain makes up its own mental illnesses. At least it’s creative.
I finalized my top album list. This is the kind of anxiety I know how to deal with. At some point I just say, “What the hell, nobody is going to die if I get this wrong.” I’m not Chidi from The Good Place. I am confident that every album I picked is deserving. The uncertainty comes from the albums that I didn’t pick that are also deserving. My next job is to record my piece on each of them and pick which song is to be played.
On my baseball trivia group, I asked; who Ty Cobb surpassed to set the record for lifetime hits? I’ll give you a second to think about it. That’s enough. The answer is Cap Anson. I didn’t bring it up there to discuss baseball trivia. I brought it up because when the question was answered I pointed out that both Cobb and Anson were notorious racists. One pushback I got was legitimate, there was a book published in 2015 that says that his reputation was undeserved. The rest were not. People were upset that I brought up racism. These kinds of groups are the only places that I regularly encounter racists. Who but a racist would think that bringing up racism is a bad thing? I have found that those that reject modern baseball analysis are overwhelmingly Trump supporters. There are exceptions, but for the most part it’s true. It makes sense, those that want things to be just like they were when they were kids feel that way about both baseball and life. They think we should live like they did on the Donna Reed show. Even as a kid I found those shows too anti-septic.
Equality lies at the heart of my value system. It’s an extension of the Copernican Principle, that humans, on the Earth or in the Solar System, are not privileged observers of the universe. No person or group has a privileged place in the universe. It’s the basis of the Golden Rule, or the ethic of reciprocity; “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” If it is wrong for someone else, it’s wrong for you. There’s nothing special about whites or men or Americans or Christians or that give them a privileged place. It also means that there’s nothing special about people of color or women or Europeans or Chinese or Jews or Muslims or Atheists. No group has inherent moral superiority.
I get upset when my political allies feel otherwise. When progressives feel that it’s fine to use Trumpian tactics. If it’s wrong for Trump and his allies then it’s wrong for us. As Aragorn said to Eomer, ” ‘Good and evil have not changed since yesteryear, nor are they one thing among Elves and another among Men. It is a man’s part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.” People too often look for reasons why it’s right for them to do something but wrong for others. If you want to know if something is justified picture someone you don’t like doing it and see how you feel about it.
Now to bring these threads together, equality, morality, and choosing top albums. Huh? What? Did I just miss something? No, my brain works in mysterious ways. So does yours. I’m not special.
When I listen to music I respond to it. Most of the time the response is, “eh.” Sometimes it’s a whole lot more than eh. Some music has a visceral effect on me. Other music’s appeal is intellectual. I have to think about it to see why it’s great. Both kinds are special, they do have a privileged position that sets them off from the masses. The same is true of baseball players, and books, and even aspects of people. People are to be treated as equal as who is to judge who is more deserving? But that doesn’t mean they are equal. There are people of genius. There are people that are saintly. There are people that I appreciate intellectually, and others viscerally. All those are legitimate, and I will often freely discuss them here. There’s one thing I always hesitate to discuss, the beauty of women. I’ve done it, and looking back I usually regret it, especially if it’s someone that I know. But even if I don’t like discussing it in a public forum it doesn’t mean I don’t think about it. So why not discuss it? Because we don’t live in a world that lives up to the ethics of reciprocity. Women are too often judge solely on their looks. People, both men and women, will make unwarranted assumptions about women based on their looks. I don’t want to feed into that. I would hate for people to think that I like a musician because of her looks. I hate it, but I know that people do think it. There is not a beautiful woman musician that others think is successful primarily due to her looks. The problem is made worse, as looks do affect how people think about musicians. So, I try and avoid the subject. I won’t discuss a woman’s looks and I won’t attribute a woman’s success to her looks, even if I think that might be so. It might also just be my prejudices. I don’t want to feed the problem.
In a perfect world without prejudice I might be writing just as often about beautiful women as much as I do about beautiful music. I certainly think about it. I make the same distinctions between those that affect me viscerally and those that affect me intellectually. But we don’t live in a perfect or even near perfect world, so I’ll keep those thoughts to myself. Except when I don’t. I’m not perfect either.
Wise Madness 