David Brooks, "The Power of the Particular": Bruce Springsteen Rocks!

Many years ago, my youngest child underwent a hearing exam before he could even speak. He sat on my lap, and two puppets on either side of the room issued sounds at different frequencies. He turned his head from side to side as the puppets alternatively emitted a preprogrammed range of noises. To my surprise, I discovered that I could barely hear some of the noises to which he was responding; others I could not hear at all.

Yes, I am partially hearing impaired. The cause? Most likely almost 20 years spent in an artillery reconnaissance unit -- I didn't always manage to get my fingers in my ears when the big guns fired. The damage? I remember when some reporters visiting an artillery battery parked their vehicle too close to a 155mm howitzer lobbing shells back at Hezbollah. The car windows were shattered by the single blast of a shell.

Then, too, my addiction to rock and roll over the years cannot have helped. When I drive alone, I often turn the stereo system up to full volume.

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Power of the Particular" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/26/opinion/brooks-the-power-of-the-particular.html), David Brooks marvels at how during a Bruce Springsteen concert in Madrid, tens of thousands of Spaniards responded ecstatically to the Boss's uniquely American themes:

"The oddest moment came midconcert when I looked across the football stadium and saw 56,000 enraptured Spaniards, pumping their fists in the air in fervent unison and bellowing at the top of their lungs, 'I was born in the U.S.A.! I was born in the U.S.A.!'"

Brooks attributes their frenzy to paracosms, i.e. "structured mental communities that help us understand the wider world." Me? I don't know anything about paracosms, but I did attend a Springsteen concert in Amsterdam in 2008 and was overwhelmed by a performance that rocked my socks off.

Did you ever read David Hume's views on aesthetic theory? Hume suggested that if artistic work survives over time, this evidences its aesthetic value. Springsteen, over the course of a career spanning many decades, has met this test many times over and simply represents the best that rock has to offer.

My hearing impairment? There's always the silver lining: "Sorry, dear, what's that you said? The dirty fishes? Those darned dirty fishes! What's that you said? Not the dirty fishes? Ah, the dirty dishes. Sure, I'll get around to those dirty dishes. Seriously, I didn't hear you. You know how it is."