What it is Like to Be a Taylor Swift Fan
Thomas Nagel once famously puzzled over the subjectivity of bats and I have, at the cost of much bafflement and wasted labor, learned that the taste of others, even human others of kith and kin to you culturally and ethnically, may be exactly as inaccessible. This is a question I might have given up on. For instance, I might have stopped wondering what the subjective experience of actually enjoying an artist like Taylor Swift or Celine Dion must be like. In like manner, there may be classical music fans who have given up trying to puzzle out the mental state called ‘not hating Schoenberg’ and what it must feel like to enjoy Pierrot Lunaire ! Still, if one has students of a certain age it behooves one to understand what they like and why. Moreover, reading a review in The Slate of the latest Swift offering I feel challenged to say something for it was a very definite rebuke to all non-Swift fans and their lack of taste. [1] This reviewer claimed that not only was SHE a Taylor Swi