Dilemma of Goodness
 

Pastimes: The Context of Contemporary Leisure Third Edition By Ruth V. Russell

Is watching wrestling inferior to watching fencing? Is classical music superior to rock, jazz or hip hop? Is polo better than football? Are horse derbies more civilized than demolition derbies?

Depends on who you talk to.

I think it's important for us to retain the past and educate about it...particularly with music. I think I got the short end of the stick on classical and jazz as a kid. But at the same time, our society evolves, and we should enjoy whatever pleases us...within reason of course.

Morality and being "civilized" is subjective, so no.

What reason?

Well for example, if you consider bear-baiting to be entertainment you're probably out of step with society.

Depends on which one.

Inherently, no. Though remember that when you're talking about classical music in 2007, you're generally talking about the best of the best, and not all the rotten stuff (q.v. Sturgeon's Law) that wasn't good enough to survive. For a fair comparison, you'd have to look at ALL the music available in, say, 1785, not just Mozart, compared to, say, all the rock music available in 2007.

You shouldn't be doing anything illegal or that causes others severe distress. If you want to listen to loud music, have at it. But if I can hear it loud and clear from five houses down, that's probably a problem.

In my opinion, I don't think leisure time is not biased by outside factors. There are many things I do by myself that other people have influenced me to do. For example, I don't like painting my toenails, but I do it leisurely by myself because I know other people might think it's pretty. Am I taking the word leisure out of context in reference to what the original post was about?

It's about social capital in my opinion. Some things cost more and are more accessable to people with more money whilst other things cost less and are therefor accessable to people with lower incomes. Does it mean one is better or worse than the other? Not in my opinion. It's about finance and what you have the opportunity to be exposed to during your lifetime.

To answer the questions in the original post, there is nothing superior about, I dunno, "WASP" activities and experiences compared to a blue collar layman's enjoyments. Like Ali said, they just have different opportunities with leisure. But one isn't better than the other.

the more expensive something is to do it automatically limits it to the wealthy therefore becoming "refined"

Like drinking Cristal and getting a blingy diamond grill in your mouth?

What's wrong with that?

Question: In considering attending a performance of the Philadelphia Orchestra, and a Philadelphia Eagles game, which would you consider "blue collar" and which would you consider "WASP"?

Would you change your answer if you knew that a ticket to an Eagles game costs about four times the cheapest ticket to a Philadelphia Orchestra concert?