Role of art in society and culture

Jerrold Levinson, John Dewey, and Theodor Adorno all have differing views about the role that music should play in society or in making a good life. Levinson explains his view on the matter by trying to seek a comprehensive definition of music itself rather than what a piece of music is and how humans psychologically recognize the features of music. He then goes on to provide several possible definitions and finds faults with each one until he arrives at his conclusion. This conclusion is that music can be defined as an organization of sounds produced by humans for the purpose of providing heartening experiences to those who either listen, dance, or perform to it. The sounds are considered to be the basic components of all forms of music, except for Muzak.

Levinson's conclusive definition of music shares one striking similarity with Dewey's conclusion on the same matter. Dewey explains that music is often capable of providing individuals with memorable experiences, which are characterized as containing single important qualities that distinguish them from normal everyday experiences in people's lives. Thus both Dewey and Levinson indicate that music's role in the making of a good life is that it often provides listeners with enriching experiences. The difference between the two viewpoints is that Levinson focuses on what the definition of music is whereas Dewey discusses about how music is capable of providing memorable and important experiences to its listeners.

Adorno's viewpoint on the role of music differs greatly from that of the other two philosophers. His view focuses mainly upon music's impact upon a society and tries to distinguish between two different types of music, namely one that is considered to be sophisticated and classical and another that is known to be ignoble and popular. He believes that popular music possesses no redeeming qualities for a society because its only purpose is to provide its listeners with cheap and shallow entertainment and to distract them from pondering about their entrapment within capitalist society. He also states that popular music has become a commodity just like all other goods, which is to be advertised about and sold to consumers within a capitalist society. Popular music can never thus be used as a format for creating anti-capitalist sentiments among the people according to him.

Thus Adorno's view on the role of music in society is that it should be characterized as an intellectual form of art that challenges its listeners to ponder about their lives and about the type of society they live in. It should be capable of providing a platform towards launching a political movement towards overthrowing capitalist society. Adorno's viewpoint has increasingly come under criticism by other leading theoreticians, who state that Adorno's characterization of popular music is severely lacking in substance. For example, he never realized that certain types of popular music once served as forms of social protest such as Jazz music.

Adorno's viewpoint is in striking contrast to the viewpoints of both Levinson and Dewey, in that it attempts to make distinctions between different types of music and tries to show what role each type plays in society. Levinson and Dewey do not make such distinctions and are only concerned about the role music plays in individual people's lives rather than in society. The only distinction Levinson make regarding music, is that he attempts to show how not all sounds can be characterized as being musical, such as the whistling of the wind or the grinding of the kitchen blender.

Dewey emphasized about how music is capable of providing its listeners with unforgettable experiences that help to excite their emotions. While he was referring to music in general as having that capability, Adorno wished to show how both popular and classical music help to excite people's emotions through different means. Popular music focuses on exciting its listener's base emotions and keeps them apathetic towards thinking deeply, while classical music helps to excite both emotions and intellectual curiosity within its listeners.

Another distinctive point of comparison can be found between Adorno's characterizations of popular music with Levinson's characterization of music in general. In coming to a conclusive definition of what music is Levinson attempts to dismiss the many possible definitions that people may have for it. One such definition is that all forms of music are characterized with having melody, rhythm and harmony; Levinson points out that this definition is lacking because it does not take into account the fact that not all forms of music display these characteristics. In characterizing popular music, Adorno explains that it is often fraught with simplicity in that its tunes, rhythm and harmonies are often formulaic and easy to understand.