I think without low art there can be no high art. All of Bach's gigues, and gavottes, and minuets, and pavannes started on the dance floor. And I think the people who happily revelled in Prague, humming arias from Figaro, did so because nearly all of them could pluck a string, or sing a song, or play a flute. Low art is what we can all participate in: singing, dancing, playing an instrument. The industrial revolution put an end to all that; it put an end to the leisure required to learn an instrument (even badly); it put an end to growing up with bird song; and thereby put an end to the feeling that music helps us participate in a meaningful universe. The spheres became silent. What filled the silence was virtuosity and circus acts; and really, when you compare nineteenth and eighteenth century music, you cannot help feeling that music had become more spectacular but cruder. What magic remains (Chopin) could only be accomplished in small strokes. (Is Mahler an exception?)
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Each of us has our weak spots.
For example, Eric is "fixated" on knocking Chomsky down a few rungs. My Brian Eno-esque distaste for nostalgia, hauntology and any sepia-toned memory of lovely yesterdays makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up whenever anyone starts in with 'back in my day' shtick.
I think these on list, art-related laments are, regardless of whatever individual points of factual accuracy they may contain, wrong in spirit and scope.
Earlier today, a 10 year old played one of his iPad compositions for me. It wasn't a Lady GaGa knockoff but his own creation, inspired by an ant colony he's observing in his backyard ("the ants are very much like us" I tell him as we watch, "organized, warlike, ruthless yet utterly charming").
The iPad isn't as romantic as the fiddle I suppose -- at least, not yet -- but I think his work qualifies as contemporary "folk" music or low art.
I note that nearly everyone I know who cut their arts teeth in the 1940s, 50s or 60s is unaware of, or unable to see, the different forms of expression and DIY efforts that are happening around them, neoliberal capitalism notwithstanding.
A simple chat with people around my office reveals a wealth of non-spectator activities underway.
.d.