Scruton on Banality, Cliché and Sentimentality
I recently read a portion (pp.474-88) of Roger Scruton’s major 1997 work, The Aesthetics of Music on the topic of banality, cliché and sentimentality in music. First I will relate the basic gist of Scruton’s writing, and afterwards will explore the implications of these ideas as they pertain to my own thoughts on emotional expression in music.
The first point that Scruton makes is that “music is intrinsically aesthetic.” This means that the art of music is an end in itself rather than being a means to another end. Music “has no purpose but itself.” One may object that music can be used for other purposes such as dancing, but dancing is simply an “aesthetic response, a response to the music as music,” and rather than being the purpose for which music is used, dancing is “a way of adopting [music’s] lack of purpose.” (478)
How does this relate to banality and cliché? They all pertain to the topic of value. Music has intrinsic value because it is intrinsically aesthetic, because it has no purpose beyond itself. Banality and cliché involve a lack of value; they are valueless gestures. Cliché is defined as “an outworn commonplace,” but more than being simply outworn, it is devoid of meaning, it is “pointless, a sign of thoughtlessness.” (479) Clichés are utterly banal.
Art is appreciated because effort has been put into its creation, and this effort “is made for us.” It is appreciated because it portrays human emotion in its higher form. This is precisely the reason that the cliché is so detestable in art. Cliché stands for thoughtlessness; it makes easy what should be difficult, and its end result is the canceling of the possibility of the true expression of emotion. (480)
Sentimentality is related to banality and cliché. Taking a cue from Michael Tanner, Scruton describes the sentimental person this way: he “responds with extreme readiness to stimuli,” he “appears to be pained, but actually enjoys their pangs,” he “avoids following up [his] response with appropriate actions,’ and he “responds more warmly to strangers than to those who are close to [him], and are more heatedly concerned with abstract issues which demand no personal sacrifice, than by concrete obligations that cost time and energy to fulfill.” The bottom line is this: the sentimental person only pretends to feel, distancing himself from reality. Sentimentality involves “an overevaluation of the self at the cost of others.” (486)
When the artist creates true art, he invites his audience to sympathize. When the artisan creates sentimental art, he invites his audience “to pretend to an emotion, without really feeling it.” Art of the sentimental variety then gives “the trapping of emotion without the real and costly fact of it.” (487)
IMPLICATIONS
It is this final point that rubs the roughest against my own views on the musical expression, namely, Scruton’s point that the primary distinction between sentimentality in art and true emotional expression in art is that sentimentality represents an invitation “to pretend to an emotion, without really feeling it.” [emphasis added]
I have stated before (here), in agreement with Hanslick to a large extent, that the expression of emotion in music, though certainly not impossible, usually has little relevance to aesthetic value. Taking a more formalistic view of expression, I would then not be sympathetic (no pun intended) to Scruton’s account of expression in art as “involving an invitation to sympathy.” (487)
Stated another way, I believe that all emotional responses, apart from that pleasurable thrill, or “stirring” as Laird Addis would put it, wherein the music itself is the object of our pleasurable emotional response, are pretended, taken on fictitiously.
What then am I to make of Scruton’s distinction between sentimental music and truly expressive music? I certainly understand what he is referring to, but I am left searching for an alternative way of characterizing the distinction. Furthermore, this brings to light the fact that some formalists ignore any such distinction when building their arguments, for it is customary to use as an example overly sentimental music in which various emotions can be “heard in” but which add no aesthetic worth to the music. This, the formalist says, is a proof that music of the lowest quality can still be highly expressive of emotion.
I have a couple initial responses. Firstly, while I understand the differences between what Scruton calls the expression of sentimentality and the expression of true emotion in music, one can easily characterize the distinction in purely musical or stylistic terms. Music that borrows stale, outworn melodic or harmonic gestures (clichés) lacks the freshness and originality that we value in art. Secondly, there is certainly little question that music can be appreciated for capturing (or expressing) a precise mood or emotion, perhaps one evoked by the text or program that it accompanies, and here the distinction between sentimentality and true emotion is of great importance. (Although for me personally, this is rarely a primary reason I value music.) Just as we can think of the improvising pianist accompanying a silent film who uses nothing but borrowed, trite musical gestures to mime those emotions expressed on the screen, and whose resulting music has little or no value in itself, we can also think of the many composers who have shown the ability to brilliantly capture the mood of a text. Even so, this admission is far from maintaining that music invites us into sympathy with that expressed emotion. We can perhaps sympathize with the characters or author of an accompanied text or program. But it is simply difficult to imagine who or what we could possibly sympathize with in the realm of purely instrumental music.
The first point that Scruton makes is that “music is intrinsically aesthetic.” This means that the art of music is an end in itself rather than being a means to another end. Music “has no purpose but itself.” One may object that music can be used for other purposes such as dancing, but dancing is simply an “aesthetic response, a response to the music as music,” and rather than being the purpose for which music is used, dancing is “a way of adopting [music’s] lack of purpose.” (478)
How does this relate to banality and cliché? They all pertain to the topic of value. Music has intrinsic value because it is intrinsically aesthetic, because it has no purpose beyond itself. Banality and cliché involve a lack of value; they are valueless gestures. Cliché is defined as “an outworn commonplace,” but more than being simply outworn, it is devoid of meaning, it is “pointless, a sign of thoughtlessness.” (479) Clichés are utterly banal.
Art is appreciated because effort has been put into its creation, and this effort “is made for us.” It is appreciated because it portrays human emotion in its higher form. This is precisely the reason that the cliché is so detestable in art. Cliché stands for thoughtlessness; it makes easy what should be difficult, and its end result is the canceling of the possibility of the true expression of emotion. (480)
Sentimentality is related to banality and cliché. Taking a cue from Michael Tanner, Scruton describes the sentimental person this way: he “responds with extreme readiness to stimuli,” he “appears to be pained, but actually enjoys their pangs,” he “avoids following up [his] response with appropriate actions,’ and he “responds more warmly to strangers than to those who are close to [him], and are more heatedly concerned with abstract issues which demand no personal sacrifice, than by concrete obligations that cost time and energy to fulfill.” The bottom line is this: the sentimental person only pretends to feel, distancing himself from reality. Sentimentality involves “an overevaluation of the self at the cost of others.” (486)
When the artist creates true art, he invites his audience to sympathize. When the artisan creates sentimental art, he invites his audience “to pretend to an emotion, without really feeling it.” Art of the sentimental variety then gives “the trapping of emotion without the real and costly fact of it.” (487)
IMPLICATIONS
It is this final point that rubs the roughest against my own views on the musical expression, namely, Scruton’s point that the primary distinction between sentimentality in art and true emotional expression in art is that sentimentality represents an invitation “to pretend to an emotion, without really feeling it.” [emphasis added]
I have stated before (here), in agreement with Hanslick to a large extent, that the expression of emotion in music, though certainly not impossible, usually has little relevance to aesthetic value. Taking a more formalistic view of expression, I would then not be sympathetic (no pun intended) to Scruton’s account of expression in art as “involving an invitation to sympathy.” (487)
Stated another way, I believe that all emotional responses, apart from that pleasurable thrill, or “stirring” as Laird Addis would put it, wherein the music itself is the object of our pleasurable emotional response, are pretended, taken on fictitiously.
What then am I to make of Scruton’s distinction between sentimental music and truly expressive music? I certainly understand what he is referring to, but I am left searching for an alternative way of characterizing the distinction. Furthermore, this brings to light the fact that some formalists ignore any such distinction when building their arguments, for it is customary to use as an example overly sentimental music in which various emotions can be “heard in” but which add no aesthetic worth to the music. This, the formalist says, is a proof that music of the lowest quality can still be highly expressive of emotion.
I have a couple initial responses. Firstly, while I understand the differences between what Scruton calls the expression of sentimentality and the expression of true emotion in music, one can easily characterize the distinction in purely musical or stylistic terms. Music that borrows stale, outworn melodic or harmonic gestures (clichés) lacks the freshness and originality that we value in art. Secondly, there is certainly little question that music can be appreciated for capturing (or expressing) a precise mood or emotion, perhaps one evoked by the text or program that it accompanies, and here the distinction between sentimentality and true emotion is of great importance. (Although for me personally, this is rarely a primary reason I value music.) Just as we can think of the improvising pianist accompanying a silent film who uses nothing but borrowed, trite musical gestures to mime those emotions expressed on the screen, and whose resulting music has little or no value in itself, we can also think of the many composers who have shown the ability to brilliantly capture the mood of a text. Even so, this admission is far from maintaining that music invites us into sympathy with that expressed emotion. We can perhaps sympathize with the characters or author of an accompanied text or program. But it is simply difficult to imagine who or what we could possibly sympathize with in the realm of purely instrumental music.
posted by Luke Dahn at 10:07 PM
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