Jamming to Hold Music?
Thanks to “Gorgonzola from Goa” for the following imaginative ethical stumper:
Morning HEC, was wondering what thoughts you have on the ethics of jamming along to hold music? I know you’re supposed to think hold music is annoying, but some of the lo-fi beats they’ve been putting out lately are just hard to resist moving along to.
Gorgonzola, it’s great to see that you are puzzling through an ethical problem that, while it may seem specific at first blush, actually belies an ethical dilemma that many of our readers and even us face every day: What to do when what you want to do is in conflict with what society says you should want to do in a given situation—or, in the situation you’ve given, what society says you shouldn’t want to do but you want to do!
You may be surprised to learn that acclaimed ethicist John Stuart Mill actually took up this precise question, albeit in a more general form, in a viral blog post entitled “On Liberty: Chapter IV. Of the Limits to the Authority of Society over the Individual.” Mr. Mill, like you, noticed that sometimes society tries to tell us what is and isn’t moral in a given situation. And sometimes, society’s “majority” opinion is right—humans have sure had a lot of practice over the years, after all—but other times, society’s majority opinion is more about getting in the way of everyday people like you and our other loyal readers to simply enjoy life the way they want to enjoy it—or not. But let’s read it in the words of Mr. Mill himself:
But the strongest of all the arguments against the interference of the public with purely personal conduct, is that when it does interfere, the odds are that it interferes wrongly, and in the wrong place. On questions of social morality, of duty to others, the opinion of the public, that is, of an overruling majority, though often wrong, is likely to be still oftener right; because on such questions they are only required to judge of their own interests; of the manner in which some mode of conduct, if allowed to be practised, would affect themselves. But the opinion of a similar majority, imposed as a law on the minority, on questions of self-regarding conduct, is quite as likely to be wrong as right; for in these cases public opinion means, at the best, some people’s opinion of what is good or bad for other people.
(source: https://gutenberg.org/files/34901/34901-h/34901-h.htm)
We happen to think your situation about jamming along to catchy hold music falls into the latter category. It’s one of those behaviors that some, perhaps even a majority of people, might find morally questionable or problematic, but at the end of the day, when the chips have fallen where they may, that’s really just “some people’s opinion,” and you’re free to take it or leave it.
Now, don’t forget to blast us a message over at hades@acaciavalleyhoa.org if you have any additional ethical travails … until next time!