Sophistication

luka

Well-known member
This becomes impossible after the 1960s. Sophistication post '60s can only ever be kitsch. The boomer apocalypse laid waste to it. The idea of learning a social code and becoming adept at it, the idea of table manners and dinner jackets became the symbol of the old world order.
 

luka

Well-known member
Looking back, the crooners all sound rapey of course and it's hard, though perhaps not impossible, to connect with the jazz.

The adult world itself no longer exists. Even those of us, Corpsey etc, who do adult jobs live children's lives and listen to children's music.
 

luka

Well-known member
I'm not mourning it especially. Just noting it's disappearance. What replaces it is 'self-expression' and, what? 'Fun'?
 

luka

Well-known member
Related thread

 

luka

Well-known member
Related thread

 

linebaugh

Well-known member
Perhaps related:

"Since 1959, we have come to live among flows of data more vast than anything the world has seen. Demystification is the order of our day, all the cats are jumping out of all the bags and even beginning to mingle. We immediately suspect ego insecurity in people who may still try to hide behind the jargon of a specialty or pretend to some data base forever ''beyond'' the reach of a layman. Anybody with the time, literacy and access fee these days can get together with just about any piece of specialized knowledge s/he may need. So, to that extent, the two-cultures quarrel can no longer be sustained. As a visit to any local library or magazine rack will easily confirm, there are now so many more than two cultures that the problem has really become how to find the time to read anything outside one's own specialty."
 

mvuent

Void Dweller
I do get the feeling that after the 60s, aligning yourself culturally with the young became seen more as the "right" move. The tables turned and people started to assume that young people knew things that older people didn't, rather than the other way around. Whatever knowledge old people think they have no longer counts as such. It's expired. So embracing "sophistication" marks you as a fool, someone who's fallen behind in the race rather than someone who's leveled up.
 

entertainment

Well-known member
at what point did men stop wearing hats as part of the civilized society uniform?

a friend of mine reported that in the business world, wearing suits is now for nerds. they all wear expensive athleisure wear like they're headed for the gym
 

luka

Well-known member
Sophistication came to mean both emotional repression and, in a Holden Caulfield sense, phoniness.
 

luka

Well-known member
I do get the feeling that after the 60s, aligning yourself culturally with the young became seen more as the "right" move.

All sorts of related transvaluations of this kind. Proles over the bourgeoisie. Raw over the cooked. Low culture over high culture. Primitive over civilised. All seen to embody a kind of libidinal energy and emotional and social truthfulness.
 

luka

Well-known member
the adult then moved into a kind of spiritual or intellectual seriousness, both opposed to social ease and grace. Maladroit and over committed by nature.
 

boxedjoy

Well-known member
What sounds and signifiers would you interpret in music as sophistication and how do you respond to them?

I love Sade but I'm often turned off by wine-bar deep house, for example.
 

luka

Well-known member
I see what you're saying Leo but I was mostly thinking in terms of music that's why I put it in the music thread.
 

luka

Well-known member
What sounds and signifiers would you interpret in music as sophistication and how do you respond to them?

I love Sade but I'm often turned off by wine-bar deep house, for example.

Control is a big thing here. Control of vocal tone and volume correlates to control of the emotions and vice versa.
 

luka

Well-known member
So with Sade there is no cracking, no hoarseness, no whisper to a scream volume dynamics
 
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