Some while ago, I heard (or read) someone discuss an idea that they referred to as ‘the narcissism of small differences’. I can’t quite remember the manner in which they described it, and I’m not entirely sure what drew me to the idea, but I was interested enough to read up a little on the concept.
It’s an idea originating with Sigmund Freud, discussed in his 1930 book, Civilization and its Discontents. In the translation I read, it’s referred to as “narcissism in respect of minor differences”, with Freud using it to summarise “the peculiar fact that peoples whose territories are adjacent, and are otherwise closely related, are always at feud with and ridiculing each other.”
Simply put, Freud observes that people are often at pains to separate themselves from those that they are similar with - highlighting what may be perceived as insignificant differences to an outsider, and building them up to be key identifying features. Take for example the sports fan. A fan of a British football team is likely to reserve their greatest loathing for another local team operating at a similar level. In many aspects, fans of these two teams are likely to have many shared characteristics; some crossover in terms of dialect and colloquialisms, shared cultural references and understanding, not to mention a passion for the same sport.
I need to think on this deeper, and read more extensively, but I’d like to think of this phrase in the context of musical genre. Consider genres which are made up of a vast array of subgenres - metal is a great example here. Within the community, we find swathes of discourse dedicated to pinpointing the precise genre of metal music that a band is creating.
Of course, these discussions run deepest when the participants are heavily involved with the music in question. To an outsider, the differences between Symphonic Metal and Power Metal may be fairly irrelevant, but to a passionate consumer, they have significance.
Interestingly, many artists that I’ve spoken to over the years are insistent that they don’t belong to a genre of music and that they “can’t be pigeonholed”. To the listener, truthfully, many of these artists do fit neatly within the idioms of a known genre, but clearly there is an attraction in believing that one’s creations fit outside of commonly understood genres, one that perhaps also manifests itself through hyper-specific generic labelling.
What I’m presenting at the moment is a set of unrefined thoughts tying Freud’s phrase to music that I plan on doing some deeper work on. In that vein then, here are several notions that I’d like to explore:
I suspect that these differences are most important where a genre of music may be linked with what may be consider an ‘alternative’ or ‘outsider’ lifestyle. In such lifestyles, a decision has been made to form a specific cultural identity. Through clearly delineating one’s music taste with very specific genre descriptors, the construction of cultural identity becomes more precise and allows more accurate identification of like-minded individuals.
Whilst what I’m talking about here stems from Freud’s “narcissism in respect of minor differences”, narcissism sounds unnecessarily negative for this usage. Valuing one’s own specific characteristics is not naturally a bad thing, but overestimating these things can make musical communities needlessly fractured. Is there an optimal level of differentiation?
However, as the popular music landscape grows more congested, perhaps we need more precise generic definitions. Such things can make it easier to find new listening with a specific area, and although there is a chance that this could run the risk of leading to homogenised listening, I would argue that listeners are more omnivorous now than ever before, so less likely to fixate on a singular strand of listening.
Genre is, by its nature, often defined comparatively. Perhaps focus on small differences is so pronounced because the larger differences are obvious. It’s fair to assume a surface level understanding of the meta-genres (rock, metal, country) among most invested listeners, especially when those listeners engage themselves in genre discourse, therefore the rudimentary elements of a genre are less likely to need discussing. Instead, it is precisely these minor differences that need identifying to form a genre. Simply put, we compare genres with minor differences because there is no need to compare those with significant distance between them.
There’s nothing particularly new in what I’ve said here, simply another potential way to consider the impetus behind increasingly small music genres. I’ll post updates as I think on this more.