Sociology

Abstract

Abstract No partial intelligence can so separate itself from the general mass as not to be essentially carried on with it.... The most profound thinker will therefore never forget that all men must be regarded as coadjutors in discovering truth. —Auguste Comte, Positivism (1842/1854, vol. 2, p. 522) Art is the social within us, and even if its action is performed by a single individual, it does not mean that its essence is individual. —Lev Vygotsky, The Psychology of Art (1971, p. 249) The great problems are handed on from generation to generation, the individual acting not primarily as an individual but as a member of the human group —Max Wertheimer (1945, p. 123n26) Another late night in another smoke-filled Chicago jazz club. It was 2 am and pianist Howie Becker was having trouble staying awake during the chord changes. Part of the problem was that it was a Monday night, and as all jazz musicians know, Monday is the night for an open jam session, when musicians from many bands come together in a single club and take turns on the bandstand. An open jam starts with a house band—piano, bass, and drums—that provides the musical backdrop for a rotating series of visiting saxophone and trumpet players. And on this Monday night, Becker’s band was the house band, and the club was filled with horn players—some of them professionals from other local bands, but others aspiring beginners who frankly didn’t deserve to be sharing the same stage. Yet, the egalitarian ethos of an open jazz jam required that they be given the same opportunity as everyone else.