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A chasm? No, that is too
strong. I feel that, at least in the United States, the chasm
is between the well informed and the spiritually/intellectually
cultivated on one side, vs. the ignorant and uncultivated majority
on the other side. Now, that is a true chasm, perhaps wider
in my country than in yours. Between the well informed and the
cultivated there is certainly a distinction, and surely being
merely well informed is dangerous, but compared to total ignorance
and crassness around us everyday in America, it seems almost
a luxury to worry about the fine distinction between being educated
and being cultivated. Still, for someone like myself who works
in a university, the distinction needs to be preserved, even
if that means that the chasm must at times be ignored. It is
easy to educate and inform people (if they are willing to learn).
But it is quite a challenge—and ultimately the highest
goal of education—to lead people to being cultivated.
I had a student in my harmony course last year. He was frustrated
with the limitations of eighteenth-century tonal practices.
He brought in a pop/jazz piece he liked. It was dreadful. Not
because it was jazz/pop—certainly not!—but because
it was just tasteless. Everything it did was obvious. So, what
was I supposed to do? I could point out the crassness of the
harmonic progressions and counterpoint, and maybe thereby hope
to inform the student. But perhaps it was better not to tell
the student that something he loves is boorish, but instead
to help him develop his sensibilities, to become cultivated
to the point where he will discover for himself how crass this
piece is. Then, let him find (or, better yet, create) a jazz/pop
piece of great refinement.
But that was just my dream. I did not succeed in helping him
to become cultivated, so he probably just thinks of me as an
old pedant with out-of-date tastes. His opinion is worth as
much as mine is in our equalized postmodern society. In fact,
I would certainly defend his right to hold such an opinion,
his right, in effect, to make himself look like an idiot. I
am sufficiently postmodern to value his opinion, not for what
its substance is but simply because he is a human being and
he has an opinion.
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