@lonesome_sparrow said:

I appreciate the fact that my post has sparked some conversation. I posted because my opinion seems to differ from much of what I have been reading throughout the last few tours - though apparently I am not as much in the minority as I may have thought.

I don't see much that could be termed "analysis" popping up. I see opinions and I welcome opinions. I don't understand the - what seems to me - hostility. I never tried to tell anyone to stop having their opinion or to stop posting it, although it does seem like that is what I have been told by at least one person.

Moreover, the notion that I advanced a "straw man argument" is silly as I never attemtped to disprove anyone elses assertions or offered any type of formal argument, I simply made my opinion known.

As an aside, I have an M.A. in philosophy and have finished the course work for a Ph.D in that field as well so I know a little bit about what a straw man is and what it is not and it is surely not something that we should be talking about in relation to this thread as these posts reflect people's subjective opinions as they relate to matters of aesthetic judgment and not objective facts that can be clearly demarcated and deliberated upon. As I would never attempt to disprove someone's opinion I find the mention of a straw man to be something of a bait and switch. Simply, making pejorative statements that assert that I am committing some kind of logical slight of hand is simply a way of diverting attention from what I actually said. Not only do I think ththat this is uncalled for; all it suggests to me is an intolerance for others opinions and an unwillingness to interact with them.

If you don't like my opinion that's fine, I have seen numerous opinions that do not reflect my own and that contain all sorts of faulty reasoning that could be pointe out if we were to discuss it in formal terms but this is a forum where people post their opinions and as I have been listening to and seeing Phish for more than twenty years and playing music myself for more than twenty five I felt like I should give voice to my own feelings.

In addition there is something to be said about the letter and the spirit of a reading and this is another area where my purported emphasis is being exagerated. Does it really make a difference if people are talking about twenty thirty or forty minute jams? The main point is that there has been a lot of dialogue about how Phish is not jamming long enough. Focusing on the numbers as if that was an important part of what I said is baffling!

As for the matter of analysis... I would appreciate some of that but I don't see how they didn't jam long enough or they play Possum to much is an analysis. What does any of that tell me about the quality of the musicianship? I am amused that a post that ended with an encouragement to be more constructive was lashed out at by some of you in the way that it was. It was meant to provide more diversity of opinion as I know that it is out there... Telling me that I would be better off not posting is kind of funny coming from someone who claims to be about dialogue... There is much more that could be said but there is only so much time and space... I will say this though the suggestion that "jamming is what we do here" seems a little off... I would suggest that great music is what is done here and that jamming is only one piece of that larger picture. I meant know disrespect to anyone and I really don't understand how anyone would think that I am intolerant of other's opinions. Giving voice to a lack of understanding of other people's opinions and asking for more constructive conversation is almost always and attempt to stimulate conversation, not suppress it!

Peace

ur not the only person with a philosophy degree lurking around here, so i figured i'd give my .02 on the notion of subjectivity/argument/aesthetics. when u divert from commenting on your own subjective experience of a show's aesthetics and plunge into the world of characterization of other reviews, then this whole "just an opinion, not an argument" thing doesn't hold water. you can't have it both ways: either stick to commenting only on the show (subjective) or analyze others' reviews (objective).

as for the notion that each opinion is like a beautiful little baby brain creation, unique as a snowflake and worthy of exaltation; well thats just nonsense. each person as a human being is entitled to his/her own opinions, but that does not mean that i or anyone else am obliged to respect them. i respect your right to have them, but it simply doesn't follow that we should all equally respect the subjectivity of a response to art. i would respect heidegger's views on the being of the object of art in relation to Being in general quite a bit more than someone going to a museum and responding, "totes hetty brah." i see this a lot in the jamband community: that opinions are purely subjective and thus cannot be measured in any analytic sort of way...

anytime there is context provided in opinions, or references to how phish used to play, or how they are playing this tour, etc; we delve into the world of analytic assessment which is based on a response to actual factual artifacts. this sense of contexting is provided in nearly every review and implies an analytically generated starting ground to even be on the same page when speaking on a subject. the implied consensus or relation factual objectivity informs one's opinions in combination with the objective stimulus of the actual show reviewed. one's emotional response to a show has it's own internal logic that can be examined and discussed as to cognitive validity. i.e. "i hate the song caspian thus the whole show was bunk." oversimplification, i know, but you get the point i'm making here.

that person's response to the art had clear internal disconnection between stimulus and rational response. the devaluation of reflective thought is apparent whenever people make claims that one's opinions are subjective and thus one person cannot have greater insight than another. why not fire all the college professors, round up some bums and have them teach the students? would bail out many a school's budget problems. another hyperbolic example, but you see what i'm getting at here. a further extension of censorship is the devaluation of the legitimacy of knowledgeable responses into one giantly inflated pool of "opinions" because it stifles actual thought by immersion into a sea of information. more and more is being said with less and less actually said. dude, that's just your opinion tho bra!

sorry for the rant, just bugs the bejesus loving shit out of me when i see this kind of thing posted. and its posted in these threads more than anywhere else. aside to lonesome sparrow: would love to hear a hermeneutic description not castigated to nihilistic relativism.