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Comment by rpdillon | Hacker News Reader

> This is the fault of the sound engineers, who subsequently engage in fundamentally quite unmusical procedures by surgically extracting these voices, which is quite in keeping with their—if I may say this—unartistic intuitions and is also congenial to the highly problematic taste of the public.

I've never been a fan of the word 'problematic' because it says so little about what the problem actually is.

Regardless, he seems to have disdain for the tastes of the public, which doesn't quite jibe with the idea that he's treating the public as capable of appreciating music without it being dumbed down.

I see a lot of defense of his arguments in this discussion, and I don't have much to add, other than to say I really don't understand it at all. I think it's really just a blind spot in how I think about art, but asserting that a televised performance of an orchestra playing some classical music is 'pointless' doesn't make sense to me.

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A quibble:

A 1983 Webster's Collegiate gives the definition of problematic as "1: a. difficult to settle or decide b. not definite or settled c. open to question or debate 2: expressing or supporting a possibility".

(Bold type, proffered synonyms, and examples omitted.)

The sense of "problematic" as in "you've got a problem" developed after 1968, perhaps after 1990.

I had no idea, thanks for pointing this out! I'm mostly frustrated with the modern usage, usually when used in reference to someone or some entity's behavior. Every time I hear it I want to understand what exactly the issue is.

So if I go back and reread the quote that I had posted, is the critique that the public's tastes are not fixed, and change across geography and time? I'm still not sure what he was really getting at, I guess.

This sentence scores as 'extremely difficult' or 'difficult' on most readability scores, and it's just unnecessarily flowery.

Basically, I think the point is that the idea of the 'taste of the public' is just a shorthand for 'something that appeals to lots of people with differing tastes'.

The author's key point (I think) is that 'engineering' music somehow makes it less artistic, and the 'problematic taste of the public' is a tangent which explores why sound engineers do what they do, rather than being part of the main argument.

> This sentence scores as 'extremely difficult' or 'difficult' on most readability scores, and it's just unnecessarily flowery.

It was written for the Paris Review subscribers of 1968. I imagine that they found little difficulty in understanding it.

It was adapted from an interview which took place with Der Spiegel, so I guess it was originally in German, although I haven't found the original. My guess would be there are less complicated translations, but I might be wrong.

Regardless, I think you're right, the target audience of this as it's written probably would not have issues understanding it.

I don’t recall encountering the latest usage until the mid-2010s.

I think the common modern usage of that word is kinda an euphemism for "yucky because they're not woke enough". I've never seen it used outside that context, personally...

Caricaturing progressive ideas as some linear scale of 0 - Not Woke, 10 - Wokest is such a lame way to avoid the real points being made on a given subject.

If by “not woke enough” you mean racist, sexist, or homophobic, that what I usually assume too.

>Regardless, he seems to have disdain for the tastes of the public, which doesn't quite jibe with the idea that he's treating the public as capable of appreciating music without it being dumbed down.

Their "tastes" are not set in stone - and according to him they're not even consciously their own to begin with, in the sense that they arrived at them with knowledge of the possible options and/or after cultivating them. Just conditioning from the music industry and lack of education. Like a teenager who defaults to the current hits everybody listens to.

Would he have been out of place on any audiophile forum today?

This is just one of these things where he wants to find some deep philosophical basis for his personal preferences.

Rather one of the things based on the idea that "personal preferences" as in "everything is personal taste, bro, and as good as another, if you like it you like it", is a bad aesthetic and even moral default - backed by a certain line of development of culture and aesthetic ideas for a couple of millenia before the mass market era arrived (America, once it developed beyond barebones settles was almost always embedded in it like fish in the water -with the exception of some European leaning academics and such-, so ideologically can't even understand it could be any different to begin with).

Which is less than some definite objective final measurement (as it's not physics, it's culture, and it's impossible), but a lot more than "personal preferences".

the way I've dealt with semi-related issues is to regard 'engineered music' as it's own artform distinct from live music

the archetype I'm trying to follow is painting. when the camera was invented photorealistic paintings became usless and what followed was impressionism, which focused on what the cameras cannot do.

however I do not think music has reacted to reccording technology in the same way painting did (pretending for one sentence that 'music' and 'painting' are entities with agency). I don't think there's an "impressionistic" movement within music that arose as a response to reccording technology, at least not yet.

> I've never been a fan of the word 'problematic' because it says so little about what the problem actually is.

I don’t think that’s the real problem with the word “problematic”. So many other words have the same problem—“bad” doesn’t say anything about what the badness is, “difficult” doesn’t say anything about the difficulty, etc. “Green” doesn’t say anything about greenness.

I think the problem people have with problematic is that you’re taking a subjective claim and making it sound like a property of the object. If the taste of the public is “problematic” then it means that someone has a problem with it, but that someone is absent from the sentence.

The word “problematic” is, eh, fine. Writers and speakers shouldn’t be injecting subjects into sentences just because the sentences express opinion. There’s not necessarily any kind of clear subject to introduce. The author/speaker is usually better used as an implicit subject for subjective statements.

I have other problems in Adorno’s claims here but I have somewhat accepted the word “problematic”.

Nah, "problematic" as used commonly today is, well, problematic:

Kind of like "woke" and some others, perhaps "toxic", it's used as a placeholder for a feeling/idea that the speaker believes to be commonplace, but is often VERY ill-defined, and thus ends up muddying the discussion and/or leaving things unsaid that do deserve more consideration.

Kind of like the words “good” or “bad”, or “smart”, or “ugly”, or a million other subjective, contextual ideas?

Words that are ill-defined and leave things unsaid are the norm. If you want clarity, you need sentences, paragraphs, and context. Those sentences will be filled with words that, individually, and stripped of their context, are unclear.

I think of it like the writing advice that tells you not to use words like good, bad, and nice, since they are low information density. My general feeling is you could replace the word problematic with a much more specific word in every single context where it's used, and the message would be clearer.

Ok, could you replace Umberto Eco’s use of the word “problematic”?

It seems like just the right word to use here, and in many places. I think some people just dislike the word “problematic” on an emotional level, and conjure up some justification for that emotional reaction.

Ah, I wasn't clear; I was referring to the modern usage which seem to mean "a thing that I see problems with". I'm unfamiliar with the original definition and have never heard it colloquially, so I'm not sure how it's used.

This is an old discussion now, so I won't post too much more here, but in responding to this, I decided to do a bit of research on "problematic", and it seems (from Merriam Webster) that the first use was in 1609, and was indeed exactly the sense we use it today: "posing a problem: difficult to resolve or decide". https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/problematic

So let's say Umberto Eco's use of problematic was indeed in this sense (as I haven't heard a very compelling alternative). My point is that _he_ could replace problematic with what he's really trying to say, but of course I can't because I'm not the speaker and I don't know what he means. But I can take a few (bad) guesses:

1) The public's music taste is a problem for him because they don't appreciate the aspects of music that he thinks are most valuable. In this case, the phrase would be "congenial to the unsophisticated taste of the public".

2) The public's taste could be a problem because they want easy, convenient access to music via radio and TV, and Eco believes the true value of music can only be expressed live, where the listener has more agency. The phrase here would be "congenial to the convenience the public demands".

3) Maybe the public just doesn't like classical music, and like rock instead. Maybe ""congenial to the modern music taste of the public" would work here.

I could go on and on: the point is, if this were written instead of spoken, and I were the editor, and circle the work "problematic" in red and write in the margin "What are you really trying to convey here?" It would then be a discussion point with the author to dig into the real point so it could be conveyed clearly. But this is an (translated?) interview, so I don't think that bar is appropriate, but I still think there's ambiguity.

> "What are you really trying to convey here?"

I don’t think you’ve articulated a reasonable or valid complaint against the word “problematic”.

Words convey very little in isolation. When somebody uses the word “problematic”, it’s only in a larger context—sentences and paragraphs, just to start with.

> …I still think there's ambiguity.

I don’t see how this complaint applies to “problematic” but not, say, your use of the word “ambiguity” here. What are you saying is ambiguous or unclear about the word “problematic”? Why are you saying it is ambiguous or unclear?

You are asking the reader to do some of the work and figure out what you mean by that. But that is ALWAYS true, in every sentence, with every word. I think you are basing your complaint against the word “problematic” on some imagined usage of it in a particular context, and without that context, the complaint just isn’t grounded.

Again, to jump in here -- I mean "problematic" as you usually see it on social media/pop culture today. And the issue is that it's kind of a cowardly word. The person wants to make a serious accusation without being too open/bold about it; they're implying, but not saying outright, something potentially damaging/devastating if true, but a bad look for the accuser if false.

Thus, they often should say more precisely what they are implying; often e.g. this person is racist, or a pedophile, or homophobic, etc.

You’re referring to some usage of the word “problematic” and you’re making an assumption that we have enough shared context that I can understand what you’re talking about—but honestly, no, no, I do not understand what you’re talking about.

I think you are just complaining about some specific usage of the word, and there are a lot of words which happen to be used poorly—like “dopamine” which people use to talk about the feeling of scrolling through social media. This isn’t a complaint about the word “dopamine” but a complaint against its misuse!

> And the issue is that it's kind of a cowardly word.

I think, at the core, complaints against the word “problematic” can be boiled down to emotional sentiments like this.

> Thus, they often should say more precisely what they are implying; often e.g. this person is racist, or a pedophile, or homophobic, etc.

Usage of the word “problematic” to describe people is somewhat minor, I think. I definitely didn’t think of this usage. I see the word “problematic” used to describe practices, processes, ideas, situations, etc.

Sometimes, a problem is complicated and multifaceted. You can’t boil it down to a single thing like “pedophilia”. The word “problematic” is there to say “there are problems with this, but those problems are many and don’t boil down to some simple, other word.”

We need both broad and specific words. The correct, specific word does not always exist.

Sure -- to refine even more: I mean "problematic" as it is used in pop culture, social media, today -- often among generally "liberal" leaning folks (which I'd include myself in) and again, I can tell you what they're trying to say is in reference to a public figure or situation that has the appearance of supporting a currently taboo person or subject. And when it's done, I find it to be the kind of thing that SHOULD have more discussion, but doesn't.

I believe the most common example is probably "enjoying art made by someone who did ostensibly bad things," especially where the range of "bad" here is kind of broad.

Like, Dave Chappelle, JK Rowling, Kid Rock, Louis CK, R. Kelly, Woody Allen, Diddy etc. are all people who someone might say it's "problematic" to enjoy their art, but that's a WIDE range.

No.

To use a metaphor, we're talking about the weather and you're saying technically true but useless things about climate.

I think "problematic" is more or less used a synonym for "bad", except the speaker wants to indicate "this isn't just not to my personal tastes, you are a wicked person if you don't agree".

That's exactly it. And I don't mind calling someone wicked, but you really should be clear exactly WHY you think they are wicked.

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