Context and Anticontext
Oct. 4th, 2007 05:12 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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poptimistsQuite unformed thorts based on Frank K's latest column and discussion of same - see here: http://koganbot.livejournal.com/26897.html
Music has a social context, obv - who else is listening to stuff you encounter, both people you know and people you don't but you assume things (good or bad) about.
It also has an anticontext (erm this is just another part of the context rly but I wanted a snappy name for it) - people who AREN'T listening to it, because they don't like it or because they don't know about it.
But not everyone who doesn't listen to something matters in terms of the anticontext - my reaction to Keane, say, is affected by my imagining Mums listening to Keane, and NME readers mostly not listening to Keane, but isn't significantly affected by Amazon tribesmen not listening to Keane, or by my Great Aunt Betty not listening to Keane. The Amazon tribesmen and Great Aunt Betty are not part of the anticontext here: the NME readers are.
Context and especially anticontext are obviously hugely important in enclosed social spheres, like school or University, and then maybe the anticontext fades from importance a bit later in life.
Here's my theory - the anticontext has shrunk, steadily, since the 1960s. The sense that a random guy on the street, or someone of a different agegroup, or someone not dressing the same as you, is part of the anticontext, has diminished (with occasional seismic flare-ups). And also, MAYBE, the size of the potential context is directly related to the size of the anticontext (since just as not every non-listener is in the anticontext, not every listener is in the context).
Music has a social context, obv - who else is listening to stuff you encounter, both people you know and people you don't but you assume things (good or bad) about.
It also has an anticontext (erm this is just another part of the context rly but I wanted a snappy name for it) - people who AREN'T listening to it, because they don't like it or because they don't know about it.
But not everyone who doesn't listen to something matters in terms of the anticontext - my reaction to Keane, say, is affected by my imagining Mums listening to Keane, and NME readers mostly not listening to Keane, but isn't significantly affected by Amazon tribesmen not listening to Keane, or by my Great Aunt Betty not listening to Keane. The Amazon tribesmen and Great Aunt Betty are not part of the anticontext here: the NME readers are.
Context and especially anticontext are obviously hugely important in enclosed social spheres, like school or University, and then maybe the anticontext fades from importance a bit later in life.
Here's my theory - the anticontext has shrunk, steadily, since the 1960s. The sense that a random guy on the street, or someone of a different agegroup, or someone not dressing the same as you, is part of the anticontext, has diminished (with occasional seismic flare-ups). And also, MAYBE, the size of the potential context is directly related to the size of the anticontext (since just as not every non-listener is in the anticontext, not every listener is in the context).
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Date: 2007-10-04 04:45 pm (UTC)Except, in a high school, jock isn't one context and burnout another, but rather jock vs. burnout is the context. A college musical context might be rock vs. dance vs. pop vs. indie (not to mention subcontexts and suboppositions, and maybe country is in there somewhere), except "versus" to some degree will be "and" (and vice versa)(and vice versus).