Hi-Fi Culture, Refinement, and the Nouveau Riche Mentality

【Hi-Fi Culture, Refinement, and Nouveau Riche Taste】
Investment vs. Satisfaction｜High-End Part 1｜High-End Part 2｜Nouveau Riche Taste

The piece I wrote some time ago, “Why the Author Has No Love for High-End Audio.” To put it in a single phrase, it was little more than a lengthy explanation of why I dislike nouveau riche taste — yet it seems that those who project their own nouveau riche aspirations onto high-end audio tend to read it in a rather simplistic way, as the bitter ranting of someone on the losing side, a kind of resentment-fuelled jealousy…

And yet, I grew up in a middle-class household that was reasonably comfortable by any measure, and during my student years I was not especially short of money when it came to music lessons or Hi-Fi. Even so, I believe I have always felt, from those days onward, an instinctive and persistent aversion to the money-worshipping ethos of nouveau riche taste — which is why, from where I stand, this is not the sort of matter where one’s position simply shifts depending on how much money one happens to have.

When I ask myself why I dislike nouveau riche taste, all manner of thoughts rise to the surface from within me. This connects not only to audio but also to the broader question of why, among all the various kinds of music, I have always been drawn specifically and stubbornly to classical music — because I believe that what I think of as my own “sense of taste” ultimately comes down to the expression of a cultural and philosophical way of life.

When explaining this, I have long been fond of the phrase “the fragrance of culture.” It is grounded in the conviction that the taste one brings to music and to Hi-Fi alike — whether consciously or not — is, in the end, an expression of each person’s cultivation. Writing 教養 in Japanese carries the impression of leaning rather heavily towards academic intellect and knowledge, more so than towards culture or the arts, and I worry that too narrow a definition would invite misunderstanding — so here I intend it broadly, to encompass high culture, refinement, and all manner of things besides: a general expression of cultivation rooted in the arts and culture.

A love of the arts nurtured from early childhood, the aesthetic sensibility that grew from it, the philosophy of thought and the culture of Christianity that encompass them all — there is the pleasure of visual art and the learning that comes through literature as well, but what has taken concrete shape most distinctly as self-expression is my taste in music: playing an instrument, listening to music and collecting records, and within that, pure Hi-Fi as one part of the whole. In short, however ordinary a person I may be, there is a certain stubborn pride in wishing to be, at least in terms of one’s identity, a humble member of the community of cultured people.

Viewed from that perspective, my approach to Hi-Fi systems has an aspect of expressing cultural and cultivated sensibility and refinement through the coordination of various components — and one could say that beyond the essential function of being a tool for enjoying music purely, it is also a complex mixture of taste as a form of cultural expression close to one’s daily life. Incidentally, while this runs in the opposite direction from nouveau riche taste, it is itself a kind of bias in taste, and I cannot in honesty clearly deny the possibility that it may at times compromise the pure pursuit of performance as a music reproduction device. If someone were to say it is merely vanity pointing in a different direction, I would have no words in reply.

When one considers this cultural-cultivation ethos from its negative side — and this applies to my own inner life too (at my level, at least) — one cannot deny that it contains a good deal of snobbism, and that there is no small amount of pride that quietly looks down upon contrasting values such as nouveau riche taste or the obsession with sheer size and grandeur. When one views Hi-Fi as a hobby through that lens, the sight of someone ostentatiously showing off obviously expensive objects in a way anyone can immediately recognise feels superficial, cheap, embarrassing, and lacking in dignity — I sense that this aversion is deeply rooted within me. It is rather like the feeling of laughing at the Emperor in his new clothes from the Grimm tale, who cannot perceive the true nature or genuine worth of things. …And yet, writing it all out like this and looking at it from a distance, I must say neither side has particularly good taste, does it…

Looking with a frown — from the standpoint of high culture and cultivated values — at that part of high-end audio which is money-worshipping and brand-religious in character, whether one feels a sense of unease at the nouveau riche taste of those who leap at dazzling, lavish objects dressed up in the sophistry of “added value” is, I think, expressed quite succinctly by this rather extreme YouTube video. I do not think there are many people quite this brazen about it — but when one traces the tastes and inclinations of those many high-end enthusiasts whose spending on audio tends to be in inverse proportion to their actual knowledge of music, one gets the impression that this is more or less where their true feelings lie…

In the end, I think what happens in high-end circles is that the belief — that value judgements correlate directly and strongly with monetary value, and that whatever costs more is therefore superior (and whatever costs less is to be looked down upon), a belief born of an absence of the intellect and cultivation needed to recognise the many exceptions and inversions — tends to be accepted uncritically, even positively, as an article of faith among those who feel no shame about their nouveau riche taste. It is the embodiment of money-worship as a form of faith — much like an impractical, hollow ultra-luxury car, or a certain type of woman wearing an expensive designer brand that sits oddly on her, parading her rings and jewels for all to see. And incidentally, from a psychological standpoint, this is also a tendency found in those who conflate “good and evil” with “strong and weak,” or equate power with righteousness — and I have the feeling it does not actually have much to do with whether one is genuinely wealthy.

Those in nouveau riche circles who find it galling to be compared to a hollow Emperor in his new clothes tend, as if stamping from a template, to spit out the word “ressentiment” and consider the matter settled. But why on earth would those of us on this side, who can only manage a wry smile at the unsightly spectacle on display, feel any envy? They spend large sums of money in the hope of being envied by others, and when that envy is not forthcoming as planned, they feel bitter about it. Yet because they cannot understand the real reason, all they can do is brand it ressentiment and shut down any further thought. It is precisely because their own purpose in competing over high-end audio for dominance begins with the acquisition of a superiority born of jealousy that they genuinely cannot grasp the existence of a set of values in which monetary hierarchy plays no part to begin with. That, I think, is the sorry reality of a certain type of high-end enthusiast — one who has taken money-worship so far that they have lost their moral bearings as a human being, and whose inner life has grown impoverished as a result.

If one were to apply a monetary yardstick while still approaching Hi-Fi as a hobby from a culturally cultivated standpoint, then — being able to assemble a system unconstrained by price by listening purely to the sound itself, and the ingenuity required to build a high-quality system at low cost: these, I believe, are true wisdom, and proof of a kind of taste that cannot be achieved without intelligence, experience, and sensitivity of a high order. A style that strips away price bias, perceives genuine substance, and does not take the easy route of simply reaching for expensive items ought to lead far further — towards a deeper pursuit of truth that stays close to the essential nature of music — than a nouveau riche approach that anyone can replicate simply by throwing money at it. It also connects, I think, to the philosophy of vintage Hi-Fi: finding in older things that have been repaired and kept going for years a richer depth that reflects something of how a person has lived, and a value that is essential rather than dependent on current market price — rather than chasing after unnecessarily expensive new releases.

Human inner lives are complicated, and I think most people carry within them, to a greater or lesser degree, some underlying money-worshipping sense of values — and I could not possibly claim that my own Hi-Fi hobby is entirely free of such nouveau riche elements. And yet, as an antithesis to that tendency, offered with a measure of self-reproach, there is also the aspiration towards a cultural-cultivation ethos that has become an extreme minority position in contemporary society — and the snobbism of looking down on the taste of the newly wealthy produced by capitalist principles as vulgar and in poor taste. This, too, is a sense of pride that a certain kind of enthusiast or culturally minded person — myself included — carries within them, and when viewed from a standpoint that does not share the same footing, it can no doubt become a negative element that is difficult to understand. Which of the two afflictions is the heavier will depend on the circumstances each person finds themselves in, and I suppose it differs from one individual to the next…

【Hi-Fi Culture, Refinement, and Nouveau Riche Taste】
Investment vs. Satisfaction｜High-End Part 1｜High-End Part 2｜Nouveau Riche Taste