# Classical music and its so-called improvement of humanity. . .



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I've been thinking of this for a while. Actually, its come and gone in my mind for years. In this - http://www.talkclassical.com/5215-does-music-make-you.html - earlier thread I gave THIS answer which I still stand by. Then there's Andrew Ford's opinion (point 5 on my opening post) of THIS thread.

Basically, I don't think classical music has improved or 'bettered' humanity. My years on this forum have actually made my opinion of that more convinced that its nothing much more than glorified ear candy (in relation to behaviour of some people who have good or superior taste to the rest of us, but it seems to have little positive effect on their attitudes, eg. a marked lack of tolerance for opinions or tastes different from their own). But the reasons that are more objective are these:

1. Many (or most?) of the composers themselves where not very nice people, but even if they weren't followers of some repulsive political ideology or criminals of some sort, they where just ordinary human beings like the rest of us with the same vices and virtues. Not gods or fetishes or totems like some seem to make them out to be. Not untouchable sacred cows.

2. Some of the fans of said composers where far from noble and some I would even hesitate to call human. Eg. genocidal sociopaths like Hitler and Stalin, who made criminals out of thousands of people. Did classical music exalt their souls or make them caring of others?

3. Despite countries like imperial Germany and Russia, or Austria and the rest of Central-East Europe which the Habsburgs ruled, or what is today Italy and so on, having a very rich and long tradition of classical music behind them, it did not make them better societies. The basis of these cultures being very authoritarian, racist, based on rigid hierarchy and rankings of power and privelege, militarism and so on, had more impact on the lives of people than classical music, or other areas of art, or philosophy. If a society or nation does not put into practice its ideals, then its nothing but a facade hiding corruption behind it.

So my conclusion is that classical music does not improve humanity at all. The logical conclusion to that is that it is not superior to other types of music. & maybe even more controversial is the fact that European culture is not superior to cultures of other parts of the world. Its not better or worse, just different. But sometimes in my more cynical moods, I think its worse than any of them, for putting in front of the worse things these pretty things we call 'art' and 'civilisation.' Things that everyone has to accept as 'great' and marvel at like tourists taking happy snaps in front of places of oppression, like Rome's Colesseum. The oppression occured so long ago, and its so photogenic and beautiful, so why do we even need to think about the unpleasant aspects that bought it into being?

(I hope this will ignite an interesting and maybe lively debate, but not a bloodbath!)


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

http://forte.music.unt.edu/?q=node/261


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Sid James said:


> So my conclusion is that classical music does not improve humanity at all. The logical conclusion to that is that it is not superior to other types of music.


That is entirely dependent on what criteria you are considering. The reasons I think CM is in many cases superior to other types of music is entirely confined to those specific criteria for which CM excells at; those criteria which CM fails, and with which other genres succeed, is precisely why it is in many cases inferior.


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## Ralfy (Jul 19, 2010)

It stimulates the brain and may help with various thinking and creative skills.

Morality is a separate issue.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

This whole notion of improving and ennoblement via art came about as a vogue in the mid-late 1800's - not surprisingly when there was a rage vogue for the works of Sir Walter Scott. It is completely insupportable, as put forth by your quoted Australian author.

Listening to Bach's Goldberg variations may calm and delay a psychopathic homicidal maniac from his primary urge and mission to torture maim and kill for its running time: it did not / will not make him a better human being.

I am so in agreement with that terse and less than politically correct blunt set of retorts given by that author that I think there is nothing, really, to discuss. 

The notion is, literally, a Romantic era fantasy.


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## Ondine (Aug 24, 2012)

PetrB said:


> Listening to Bach's Goldberg variations may calm and delay a psychopathic homicidal maniac from his primary urge and mission to torture maim and kill for its running time: it did not / will not make him a better human being.


Agree.



> The notion is, literally, a Romantic era fantasy.


Agree.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I don't think there are a lot of composers that were 'bad' people. They could be self absorbed because they believed in what they were doing or doubted it but felt compelled to do it nonetheless.

A valuable thing about music, especially classical(upon even the humble listener as opposed to the dedicated performer or composer)is it stimulates creativity. Its also complicated and deeply interesting to some, and therefor gives creative people a way to connect with each other. That can of course be construed into elitism, but there is always a negative side to things. And yeah, it is more of a mental and imaginative thing, having little or nothing to do with morals.

And as a listener, if one open mindedly seeks to learn about other composers and doesn't glorify a few pieces or an entire genre(or whatever they might do purely for their own need to amplify their ego), intellectual curiosity is usually a good thing.

From a group performing perspective: I feel that performing in the ensemble I do with others, makes me a better person, morally speaking. I have to do things for others and participate as part of a greater whole, certainly that's worth a lot.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I think in addition to helping with the things mentioned by poster Ralfy, classical music can be beneficial in a lot of areas, for example - inspiration, the imagination, some have called it 'food for the soul' etc. I think its a fallacy to suggest that because classical music hasn't created a perfect utopian society, that it hasn't improved some areas of humanity. 

In other words it only improves certain areas. It isn't a magic fix for all the problems in the world. It hasn't perfected humanity, but that doesn't mean it hasn't improved humanity. But keep in mind I think a lot of different forms of music have improved humanity - not just classical.


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## Stargazer (Nov 9, 2011)

I don't think that music has all that much of an impact on who you are as a person. If you're a terrible person before listening to classical music, you'll likely be a terrible person afterwards. If you're the most noble person in the world, classical won't suddenly corrupt you either. That said, music can at times be an inspiration for people to do certain things in their lives. For example, listening to some of Bach's masses and cantatas has led me to re-examine my spirituality and helped to strengthen my faith, and I do feel that that helped to make me a better person. However, it wasn't the music itself, it was me who made the change, and it's very likely I would have made the effort eventually regardless of what I was listening to.

Now that said, I think that classical music, and really all music, has indeed improved humanity. Perhaps not from any sort of ethical or moral standpoint, but from the view that listening to music is an incredibly enjoyable and enriching activity that billions of people worldwide take part in, to varying degrees of interest. And without music, I can assure you that my stress and anxiety levels would be ten-fold higher than they are today.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

As far as functional use in improving humanity, no, I do not believe that classical music is innately qualified to better the race in any way that could not be matched by any other artistic/cultural activity. Look at all of the Pop/Rock stars who do great things for charity with their money and try to make the world a better place, inspiring others in the process.

I do believe that classical music has done much to serve the art of music itself. In my opinion, it needs no higher goal to succeed. Simply being great music is a worthy thing to attain.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Thanks for all the replies.



PetrB said:


> This whole notion of improving and ennoblement via art ...The notion is, literally, a Romantic era fantasy.


Well that's what's my view. I think it can be attached to other ideologies though, not just Romantic. Socialist/leftist ideology of the 20th century - and I don't only mean its more extreme kind, Stalinism - had the idea that art can improve worker's lives. Eg. in terms of music, that it can unite a society. This even occured in the West (eg. Luigi Nono apparently went to factories in Italy to perform his music, and you had Henze doing these operas but I don't know if workers would have seen those). But whatever these ideals, I think with the triumph of consumerism and the god that is money, today they look naive.

Of course we know about people like Furtwangler who said he'd stayed behind in Nazi Germany to not leave it to the barbarians or something like that. I saw footage of him conducting a concert for workers. But I am cynical of this. It did not make a difference, even thought the Maestro was not a Nazi, and the barbarians had already taken over and overrun the fort anyway. Doing something like this for them was like window dressing, again like those pretty facades on the Ringstrasse in Vienna, all fake, all rebuilt since the war exactly as they where before.



clavichorder said:


> ...
> From a group performing perspective: I feel that performing in the ensemble I do with others, makes me a better person, morally speaking. I have to do things for others and participate as part of a greater whole, certainly that's worth a lot.


I do hear and read musicians say this, I'd guess many musos who are not millionaires (the vast majority of them) are into music for these positive 'vibes' it brings them. I remember hearing an interview with Australian composer Brett Dean who used to be a violist say that playing an orchestra made him feel like he was part of this amazing living sound system (he actually played in the Berlin Philharmonic, but in recent years he has come back to live in Australia, while living half the year in Germany).



Mahlerian said:


> As far as functional use in improving humanity, no, I do not believe that classical music is innately qualified to better the race in any way that could not be matched by any other artistic/cultural activity. Look at all of the Pop/Rock stars who do great things for charity with their money and try to make the world a better place, inspiring others in the process.


In the 20th century, we had many things occure in pop/rock/jazz etc. that do speak to that. It is hard to think of segregation ending without the support and mere existence of role models in terms of Afro-Americans, like Ray Charles, Nina Simone, James Brown and so on. There's many things like this and also benefit concerts as you discuss. In classical there where shining stars in the darkest times of the 20th century, but I think they where fewer than those that went along with or even supported regimes that where pure evil:
http://www.talkclassical.com/22547-humanitarians-classical-music.html



> ...
> I do believe that classical music has done much to serve the art of music itself. In my opinion, it needs no higher goal to succeed. Simply being great music is a worthy thing to attain.


Well that would be good, music without an agenda behind it (or in front of it). Music not serving any particular ideology or pseudo religion but just being itself. & so too with the diversity of listeners.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

If Hitler had listened to the right performances of Beethoven's ninth, he would have been a ***** cat!

Hey, the forum censored my post!


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

I mostly agree with your first and second points, with the exception of this:



> Many (or most?) of the composers themselves where not very nice people... Not gods or fetishes or totems like some seem to make them out to be. Not untouchable sacred cows.


It's not the composers' character that their fans love them for, but the fact that they have created things of exceeding beauty, far above and beyond anything that (most of) their admirers will ever be able to create, things that have given us great joy and for some have become their profession.

As for your third point, at the risk of opening a huge can of worms, I do believe that European/Western culture is superior to the others. Of course it is far from perfect and will hardly ever be, but at least it acknowledges its faults and strives towards perfection. All those things you mention: militarism, obsession with power and privilege, authoritarian governments have existed in every single civilization on this planet, but it is the Western civilization that has made the most progress in getting rid of them and therefore, should be emulated by all others who want to advance their own culture.

Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner and other great masters may have had a great natural ability for making music, but I doubt they would have ever composed anything admirable, had they not been born in a society that puts value on music, that had invented instruments and orchestras and where they could find support for their work, and yes, that includes imperial Germany, Austria, Italy, Russia etc. We have even managed to build a society where an average, not noble-born or wealthy person can spend part of his time on internet debates (not to mention the internet itself and other technical achievements that make debates like ours possible at all), not worrying how he will survive until the next day/month/year.

As for whether the music itself (apart from the composer's personality) can make you a better person, I think that depends on the particular person and the meaning he attaches to music. If a particular person feels that a particular piece of music, not even necessarily classical (I know people who attach such meaning to metal ballads) makes him want to be a better person, than it probably will.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Sid James said:


> I've been thinking of this for a while. Actually, its come and gone in my mind for years. In this - http://www.talkclassical.com/5215-does-music-make-you.html - earlier thread I gave THIS answer which I still stand by. Then there's Andrew Ford's opinion (point 5 on my opening post) of THIS thread.
> 
> Basically, I don't think classical music has improved or 'bettered' humanity. My years on this forum have actually made my opinion of that more convinced that its nothing much more than glorified ear candy (in relation to behaviour of some people who have good or superior taste to the rest of us, but it seems to have little positive effect on their attitudes, eg. a marked lack of tolerance for opinions or tastes different from their own). But the reasons that are more objective are these:
> 
> ...


From your post, it seems that you have taken as a criterion of "improvement of humanity" the respect of moral values and related things. It's a valid criterion and, in that case, I agree with your post, the "benefits" of classical music in these regards are ambiguous.
On the other hand, if we relax our meter stick and admit other criteria, I agree with tdc's post:



tdc said:


> I think in addition to helping with the things mentioned by poster Ralfy, classical music can be beneficial in a lot of areas, for example - inspiration, the imagination, some have called it 'food for the soul' etc. I think its a fallacy to suggest that because classical music hasn't created a perfect utopian society, that it hasn't improved some areas of humanity.
> 
> In other words it only improves certain areas. It isn't a magic fix for all the problems in the world. It hasn't perfected humanity, but that doesn't mean it hasn't improved humanity. But keep in mind I think a lot of different forms of music have improved humanity - not just classical.


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

One good aspect of music is that it can unite people from different cultures, countries and religious backgrounds together. There are members here for example who enjoy JS Bach's religious music who are Christians and who are non-believers. They can discuss and appreciate the same piece of music. Thats gotta be a good thing in its little way.

But I don't have other grandiose objectives about "solving the problems of humanity".


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Polednice/Mephistopheles would have been all over this thread, of that we can be sure.


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## Renaissance (Jul 10, 2012)

Classical music doesn't make you better, but it helps you so, if you are willing to. Nothing can change you without your own permission. For me, CM did a lot, lot more than I would like to tell here. There are sociopaths who likes classical music and see in it nothing more than aesthetics, but one can't deny its power... If you look for statistical evidence, you won't probably find it (well, aside from those "classical music played in X city reduced criminality with 20%") because there are too many variables in changing the human behavior. too many causes, that I doubt someone can organize these things into an empirical experiment. But, if one is willing to change, and need some help, classical music is just fine. It works, if you know how to listen to it.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

From a personal perspective: 

In some ways, I feel classical music has confined and limited my life. This is why I have grave reservations about pursuing a professional career in it, even one of teaching groups or mentoring individuals. On the other hand, there's way more to life out there for sure, but I'm never turning my back on it, and if I get very skilled somehow, then there is no reason for me to turn my back on a career either.

Singing is great; it hasn't been difficult for me to learn and yet I already feel competent in a group, results are happening. Solo piano performance is way too much of a sacrifice, even to be a talented amateur focused on 'self improvement,' the whole classical pianist thing just seems unhealthy unless you've been made for it from day one. The most I can claim for it at this point is that I really want to sight read well, and also know a few hard and beautiful pieces really well. Composing, I have yet to make a pronouncement about it, but for now I see more value in occasionally focusing my energy but for the most part, just doing it because its therapeutic.

Not thinking about it too much, I feel enriched just knowing the different feels of Brahms, Dvorak, ect. Probably some kind of worship, no doubt. Its like, better than any other music, classical allows you to see the personality of a person that has gotten skilled enough at their craft for personal patterns to emerge. I can't make value or character judgements too seriously about the patterns that come out of composers personal styles, but just the thought that they have made their mark, that's cool to me. Even a composer who didn't really have a stylistic consistency, I believe that with enough creative freedom, in their best works a pattern of who they are emerges.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

> At the Day of Judgement we shall not be asked what we have read but what we have done -- Thomas à Kempis


Cultural clothes distinguish and disguise us, make us feel less like animals. Those with an excess of culture perhaps feel they have more to hide than most. You are able to make yourself a better person, entertainment won't do it for you.


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## Ramako (Apr 28, 2012)

PetrB said:


> The notion is, literally, a Romantic era fantasy.


Quite the reverse:

http://www.burchschool.com/musibeat1.html

Now I hate to bring in what reeks of pseudo-science to bear on a perfectly nice philosophical conversation, but unfortunately, the facts given here are facts. What conclusions you draw from these facts are another matter. Especially, it is mice that are being ennobled here 

Classical music is, I think, something that *sometimes* requires or encourages better parts of ourselves than most of us usually live in. The problem is that good things can often make people proud. Pride causes a lot of damage, and is, I think, usually the _fundamental_ motive (not justifying ideology, motive) for people who cause very large amounts of damage deliberately, e.g. Hitler. It is therefore perhaps unsurprising that Classical listeners can sometimes be unreasonably intolerant of other people's views - a classic symptom of pride.

Another issue is that in the past Classical Music has been the reserve of the upper classes, and they were the only ones in the material position to cause large amounts of harm. That does not mean the damage they caused was in any way influenced by Classical Music.

Also, as others have pointed, listening to Classical music isn't likely to change you from a murdering maniac into a saint or vice versa.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Sid James said:


> Basically, I don't think classical music has improved or 'bettered' humanity....So my conclusion is that classical music does not improve humanity at all. The logical conclusion to that is that it is not superior to other types of music. & maybe even more controversial is the fact that European culture is not superior to cultures of other parts of the world. Its not better or worse, just different.


Are we talking about music _as it affects just us, as insulated, protected listeners in a forum,_ or the people who have to _actually go out and perform this music for people who are there engage in various "rituals" to consume this music?_

Everyone seems to have forgotten all the _extra-musical social functions of music in performance,_ as if "music itself" exists in a vacuum. Here are some common-sense generalities, which everyone knows, but seem to have been conveniently forgotten:

• Classical music originated in the Church, and is still associated with churches: church organs and choirs being the most obvious vehicles of performance.

• Jazz, blues, country music, and rock music are often played in bars & lounges, where alcohol is served. In this sense, they are Dionysian by nature, Bacchanalian celebration rituals, basically pagan in nature.

Even if, as listeners-only, we are insulated from these "extra-musical" trappings, _we are still affected by the "spiritual/social fingerprints" which infuse these genres, as they are reflective of their performance contexts, as well as their compositions and songs being infused with content which acknowledges and celebrates these Bacchanalian aspects._
Recorded music does not eliminate this aspect: recorded music is often used in bars and other social "street" contexts.

Would you rather have your children singing in church choirs?...or smoking joints in back of the rock club where their band is playing, on Friday and Saturday night up till 2 A.M? Maybe that hooker over there will give him the clap!

Would you rather have your son play the electric guitar in Joe's Bar, or perform a classical guitar recital in a Church auditorium?

No, _Classical music itself, per se, will not improve you;_ it's the social trappings that are associated with various genres of music that are important. If you lay with dogs, you will get fleas!

Techno: Raves, alcohol, drugs, sex, contact with undesireables
Rock: Drugs, groupies, disease, alcohol, playing in bars, etc
Jazz: Drug addiction, alcohol, sex, disease, playing in bars, etc
Country: Drugs, alcohol, sex, disease, playing in bars, etc

*All of these popular genres basically revolve around Bacchanalian celebrations, exemplified by both performance practices and subject content.*

Even if, as listeners-only, we are insulated from these "extra-musical" trappings, _we are still affected by the "spiritual/social fingerprints" which infuse these genres, as they are reflective of their performance contexts, as well as the compositions and songs being infused with content which acknowledges and celebrates these Bacchanalian aspects._

So does classical music make you better? *Not necessarily of itself, *but at least it is played in concert halls and churches.

*So you decide:* Is listening to music with "religious/spiritual/artistic purpose" better than listening to popular music which celebrates:

*•Drugs:* (_Cocaine_ by Eric Clapton, _Sister Morphine_ by The Rolling Stones)

*•Sex:* (_Pearl Necklace, Legs, Fool for Your Stockings_ by ZZ Top), most "rap" music

*•Alcohol use:* Country songs like _Pop A Top, One Fool On A Stool, She's Acting Single (I'm Drinking Double)_

Which one is more "spiritually uplifting?" Which represents "better people?" No, it won't make you a better or worse person, necessarily, unless you go to these places to see it performed. What happens then? _How does the "eco-system" affect the water you drink?_

_(Right now: listening to "Dancing With Mister D" by The Rolling Stones)_


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

So, you mean one cannot get drunk/high while listening to classical music? 
Sometimes I contemplate doing just that while listening to _Der Ring_, for example. Maybe then I will get to see Valhalla on the mountain heights and the Valkyries in all their divine beauty.

*Just joking.*  I drink very little and have never taken any other stuff. Music is a drug all by itself.


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## LordBlackudder (Nov 13, 2010)

if a student goes through school listening to ***** and learning the usual drivel they might be less inspired.

but if you teach and play classical music that student might go onto listen or compose.

so in that example i would say the trend is it can improve humanity.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

SiegendesLicht said:


> *So, you mean one cannot get drunk/high while listening to classical music? *
> Sometimes I contemplate doing just that while listening to _Der Ring_, for example. Maybe then I will get to see Valhalla on the mountain heights and the Valkyries in all their divine beauty....*Just joking.*  I drink very little and have never taken any other stuff. Music is a drug all by itself.


Sure, you can do anything you want. All I'm saying is that no music, in and of itself, can make you do good or bad; but in its respective social function and performance context, classical music is more associated with Churches than with barrooms. 
Bacchanalian celebration, although it can be the subject of CM, is really more of a popular music theme. Carl Orff's Carmina Burana deals with this subject, but is cautionary as well (cooked goose). Romanticism, Opera, Impressionism, modern music, or any instance of CM separating itself from religious context, can be used as arguments against this, but their intent is still "high art," entertainment in opera-houses, or concert halls, not barrooms or "rave" parties.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Are we talking about music _as it affects just us, as insulated, protected listeners in a forum,_ or the people who have to _actually go out and perform this music for people who are there engage in various "rituals" to consume this music?_
> 
> Everyone seems to have forgotten all the _extra-musical social functions of music in performance,_ as if "music itself" exists in a vacuum. Here are some common-sense generalities, which everyone knows, but seem to have been conveniently forgotten:
> 
> ...


Dammit ~ Remove the VERBIAGE, THE TEXT from that music and run that by again. I'm talkin' "Bunches of notes" here ~ Not Bunches of Verses with the music in a subservient role.


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## Ondine (Aug 24, 2012)

In my opinion:

Music can produce a lot of things in the mind of an unaware person. If that person is not aware of such things, music will lead her/his behaviour.

If the person becomes aware of what such and such music produces in her or himself then that person will learn what music leads to what things in thoughts and actions, being those harmful to her or himself and others or not harmful to him or herself and others. 

But this depends on the person, not on music. The same happens with other things like religion, politics, social utopias, academic achievements, etc.

The second aspect is that music, at the very end, is about of sensual pleasure. It can stimulate pleasure in a very ordinary way -or to seek for ordinary pleasures- or pleasure in a very subtle way -or to seek for subtle ones-, as it is the pleasure of having such and such thoughts; or the pleasure of imagining becoming a sort of special individual that can delight with special stimulation far from the ordinary ones.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

PetrB said:


> Dammit ~ Remove the VERBIAGE, THE TEXT from that music and run that by again. I'm talkin' "Bunches of notes" here ~ Not Bunches of Verses with the music in a subservient role.


Nahh, because these popular genres are really "drama." The music supports the Dionysian drama being enacted, by the patrons in bars, engaged in various social rituals (doing drugs, drinking, dancing, engaging in sexual foreplay). Words and song lyrics help, and are also supported by the music, but the main focus is the social drama being enacted.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Renaissance said:


> Classical music doesn't make you better, but it helps you so, if you are willing to. Nothing can change you without your own permission. For me, CM did a lot, lot more than I would like to tell here. *There are sociopaths who like classical music *and see in it nothing more than aesthetics, but one can't deny its power... If you look for statistical evidence, you won't probably find it (well, aside from those "classical music played in X city reduced criminality with 20%") because there are too many variables in changing the human behavior. too many causes, that I doubt someone can organize these things into an empirical experiment. But, if one is willing to change, and need some help, classical music is just fine. It works, if you know how to listen to it.


*Sociopaths who like CM?* _Interesting_. I wonder what _Sid James_ thinks? Probably the same thing;

...you poor guys are apparently surrounded by _sociopaths_ who mistakenly think that they can be "redeeemed" by classical music! "These derelicts and sociopaths don't need _CM;_ what they need is _rehab!_ Why are they bothering us!"


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## SottoVoce (Jul 29, 2011)

If you mean "better" as in it makes you a better person morally, classical music can't do that; in fact, music can't do that in general since it has no linguistic propositions, and just because art does that doesn't mean it's good art. But even the strictest utilitarian would admit that being a good person doesn't just consist in being moral. Classical music has certainly expanded my view on what humans are capable, what great creative forces we have, what profundity our experience is in the world, and at times it has led to me to a feeling that seems too good for ordinary human life. 

If being moral is the only endeavor to do anything, in this case mathematics, science, and generally those fields of human inquiry that have nothing to do with improving the self morally (which is quite a lot) is useless too. But I think you would agree that there is some great good in them, even if if used in themselves (for example, science isn't JUST good for technology, mathematics isn't JUST good for finance, etc). I think classical music is the closest I've got to a transcendental experience, as those who love science and mathematics think these are their transcendental experiences too.

So, I don't think classical music makes you a better person morally, but then again a lot of worthwhile things don't either. In either case, I don't look to art as a way to teach me anything about morality, because morality isn't all that exists to being a good person. Whether Wagner was a jerk or not is not important to me because I don't look up to Wagner as a person nor do I model my life on him, but the music he made has certaintly made my life more profound and enjoyable. I'm sure you would agree to that extent too.

I would recommend John Stuart Mill, Sid; he talks about the same issues that you do when it comes to the utility of high art, and he admits that although it doesn't make a better person, he - the strongest utilitarian there is - even doesn't admit it's useless. He says it's one of the higher pleasures, the pleasures that open us up to something significant. And he makes a distinction between the higher and lower pleasures, so I think even he would disagree that classical music is not any better than pop music. Sure, if you were basing it on a moral criteria, that would be the case, but giving that it is irrelevant to the other properties to have I don't think that would be a fair way of judging it. Just my two cents.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> *Sociopaths who like CM?* _Interesting_. I wonder what _Sid James_ thinks? Probably the same thing;
> 
> ...you poor guys are apparently surrounded by _sociopaths_ who mistakenly think that they can be "redeeemed" by classical music! "These derelicts and sociopaths don't need _CM;_ what they need is _rehab!_ Why are they bothering us!"


Beethoven was a sociopath, maybe that's where it all stems from. 
[Rehab has become the new goddess, like College has become 'the goddess,' i.e. "Nothing wrong with anyone wot that won't fix'em by sending them to..."]


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## SottoVoce (Jul 29, 2011)

And I think there is a lot of judging going on when it comes to classical musicians of the past, as there is when evaluating any historical person's past lives. Einstein had numerous affairs and treated his wife very poorly, but he was also one of the first proponents of a scientific humanism. Beethoven may have been a little grumpy sometimes, but he supported the French Revolution for it's notion on freedom and progress and fraternity. I'm sure if we were to evaluate my life, there would be times in which, like everyone else on this planet, there were times I was a coward or I did something I choose bad freely. We are all human, and I think we judge too much when we look at a past life; there lives were just as disjunct and confusing as ours were. I find that thought sort of liberating.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

It's been an interesting thread to read. I'd like to add a little bit.

So people have said here that music can't improve someone's morality. This I believe, in the direct sense. However, I believe that music can stimulate emotions in people that make them think harder about things that they hadn't thought of before. It can be from music that is explicitly about a subject, or it could be abstract. I doubt anyone here would claim that music has _no_ way of altering the psychological state of listeners. Someone may become touched by a painful piece of music, realizing it's mirroring their own pain, and although it doesn't automatically give them answers to life, it might make them start _looking _for it. I figure music with subject matters behind them can make the most impact. Thus, I think it's reasonable to say that music can change the way people view the world by altering their emotions, _possibly leading to thoughts about improving their morality._ For example, hearing a piece of music about the destruction of humanity, one can be touched, and start to think, "wait... am I down that path? Am I destroying myself too?" etc. Music is a tool then, in a sense, for persuasion. Anyone know Karel Husa's _Apotheosis of This Earth_? That's exactly what I'm thinking of.

In general, I think if you're a "moral" person in that sense, you will understand what it means to appreciate beauty. And so, since much of classical is beautiful, you couldn't help but appreciate it. But this doesn't exclude the "immoral" person, because they can appreciate beauty too, even just as well.


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

1) Not just classical musician/composers, but artists in general have more than their share of personality dysfunctions -- goes with the territory.

2) Art is "about" intrinsic quality.

3) The best of all the arts uplift the "soul" -- in sometimes intangible ways. Doesn't always make us better persons, but humanity in general is better for it.

4) If we were to send a fleet of Voyagers off in all directions before Earth explodes like Krypton, a recording of Beethoven's E-flat Quartet, Opus 127 is all we'd need to put onboard to let space aliens know what they needed to know about our existence.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Interesting responses all round, its been great reading them all. I will not comment directly on what anyone said, I don't think there's a right or wrong answer to any of this. But my opinion is firm. 

In terms of rock and jazz music, there are many examples in the 20th century of that contributing to or mirroring changes in society. Look at Benny Goodman (jazz clarinetist and band leader) having Lionel Hampton (black vibes player) as a guest in Carnegie Hall in the 1930's. It was controversial but Goodman wanted to show that he did not believe in segregation, esp. the absurdity of a bunch of white guys playing black man's music (jazz) for a largely white audience. Of course later in the 1950's and '60's, black musicians where empowered to challenge the system themselves. Ray Charles played to mixed black and white audiences in the deep South, James Brown calmed a very angry and largely black crowd when Martin Luther King was assassinated and reached out to viewers on television to not respond with violence (it worked), and others like Nina Simone sang songs of protest that had effect not just as ear candy, but as an expression of a need for change and justice. So non-classical is not just all about what some have caricatured it on this forum. We can equally caricature classical music, and get nowhere with that. If people want to find out about this, there are many books written on how different types of music changed the world in our times.

If anything, since 1945 classical music has slid into museum piece territory. You got the Vienna Philharmonic only allowing women into the orchestra in the 1980's. This is like an anachronism to say the least. Vienna is a total basket case of a city, I intend to do a separate thread on it entirely. The Habsburgs where a corrupt and decayed monarchy, and way before the Anschluss there where serious 'issues' with Viennese society and politics, is it a city of dreams or is it a city of nightmares? I mention this because so many of the great composers come from or settled there, yet for me its a symbol of all that was wrong with the ancien regime that nurtured the heights of classical music, a place of facades hiding nasty things, both physical and metaphorical facades.

Anyway, I ask people this, to think about this. We know what some of the dictators listened to, both Stalin and Hitler. Its well documented. But what about the people who actually did good on this earth. Eg. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi. Do we know or care what music they listened to? As someone said above, actions speak louder than words. It seems to me that the uses and origins of much classical music (eg. being produced for oppressive regimes and rulers, etc.) is exactly like one of those facades. It is beautiful on the outside, but what is it beneath the surface? What agendas are there when we do a little digging or scratching? Maybe ask and face up to some quite unpleasant and discomfiting questions? Eg. what about Lully serving the most decayed and corrupt absolutist monarchy, that of France and esp. Louis XIV? What of Bach composing his Musical Offering for Frederick the Great, an oppressive ruler whose subjects danced with joy on the streets of Berlin when he died? What of Johann Strauss II dedicating the Radetzky March to a maniac who supressed Czech and Hungarian attempts at freedom in 1848 in a bloodthirsty and ruthless way? What of composers in the 20th century like Orff and R. Strauss composing music for the Berlin Olympics in 1936? Or Xenakis writing Persepolis for the Shah of Iran, who had been installed in a coup backed by the CIA unseating the democratically elected government of Iran? I can give at least half a dozen more examples. I can do a whole thread on these dodgy dedications.

So? Given these origins of the music many of us love, where does that leave us? Are these things a bit uncomfortable for us to face? Do these things maybe explain how classical music has failed on whatever missions some people said or say it does, to elevate people to a higher level of profundity or spirituality or whatever? & does it explain how today it is like a relic, but sanitised and looking new, but without the unpleasant bits. Decontextualised, like a painting hanging on a white wall. Its neutral because that's all we see, because maybe we want it to be pure and noble. But as some people have touched upon, its not the whole reality, its only a part of the story.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

GGluek said:


> 4) If we were to send a fleet of Voyagers off in all directions before Earth explodes like Krypton, a recording of Beethoven's E-flat Quartet, Opus 127 is all we'd need to put onboard to let space aliens know what they needed to know about our existence.


Well, at least it would say what we WANTED them to think about us.  The truth may be somewhat different!


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Did you know that Hitler ate gourmet food and liked to read books? And some people have the audacity to claim that these things improved humanity! I've heard Stalin also was surrounded by these things too... they may be a corrupting influence!


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I would add to what I said above that yes, classical music can improve the lives of individuals. But I in terms of its wider effects on particular societies or 'humanity' as a whole, I think that's more mixed. It can tell stories, of historical events or in relation to the lives of the composers. So we can understand and maybe empathise with what went on then. However, to get the full picture, what I'm saying is we got to take not only the good but also the bad and the ugly of classical music and its history, so to speak. I am against elevation of composers as gods, or elevation of high culture above everything else. It brings connotations of not only the rigid hierarchies in place during the absolutist monarchies of the past for example, but also of totalitarian regimes that used culture as a symbol of their supremacy and as tools for oppression.

So that is it. We are of course talking about many things. The individual and the wider society in which he is living. In terms of the individual, yes I do draw sustenance from music, esp. classical music as a matter of fact. But in terms of the societies and political contexts (& values, etc.) from which a lot of the classical music I like comes from, I have kind of realised that all is not as it seems. Its difficult for me because it seems that some things that I maybe believed, or wanted to believe, are not as I thought they where. As a matter of fact, they are exactly the opposite of my former perceptions. Such is life, perhaps. We grow and learn.

The fact is that out of oppression and injustice there also came things that gave us great art. Eg. African slaves, their descendents, the legacy of all that defines American music today. Not only jazz but of course rock and other genres, and it has touched classical more than a bit. Then there are those horrible events of the 20th century, the persecutions and genocides, which have made composers and musicians look deeper within themselves and question their own cultures, societies, histories and maybe even humanity itself.

So there is a lot of 'unpacking' to do with this topic and I think that ultimately what I'm against is the decontextualised 'white box' view of art. But as people responding to this thread have ably demonstrated, none of us think its a white box, but we all draw differing conclusions to what these contexts, histories, origins of music mean to us as listeners.

I just wanted to add this stuff to balance out what I wrote above, but these are no less genuine thoughts than those.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I'd like to add that when I attend a live concert, I sometimes kind of achieve a meditative state. It doesn't necessarily reflect how into the piece I'd be outside the concert hall, but it really helps me be aware of myself in a way that I hadn't been previously.


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## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

millionrainbows, Huilunsoittaja and Renaissance said what must be told.

Those other genres are mostly material (not necessarily as bad as what millionrainbows said though!), some are focusing on dirtier aspects of it ... But the Classical is mostly immaterial (with positive meaning), inspirational (in creativity) and motivational (in morality).
Note: Some genres in music focus on insanity and shouting like freaks, they're absurd and nonsense and inhuman by default. They aren't worth even talking about them here.


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## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

I agree with most of which Schopenhauer said about 'music' ... its purity and being a shelter to escape from material world and also about 'noise'.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I can not presume to cap this off. I do greatly wonder about what seems to me an extraordinarily strong and wrongly focused magnifying glass set to gaze upon the political relative to art, the sociological relative to art, and well after the fact of the art itself and the context within it was made, (as someone said, those evil politicians who consumed music also drank milk and read books.)

The fact of a decadent and eccentric Austrian capital, its general population of international renown for hundreds of years as one of the most particularly fickle of audiences, is not 'evidence' of anything else, political rot, etc. It is evidence of a people who hungrily, and perhaps superficially, sought entertainment. And that Vienna is, like many a capitol city, often filled with tourists and non-national temporary residents.

The way some have presented it, Hitler, Mussolini, Beethoven, Protestant Bach, Mozart, Verdi, Wagner, etc. were all equally political, and are all going to hell in a hand-basket for their evil lack of social awareness or mistaken notions of ideology, or conversely, they are all riding to heaven in that same basket because they all made or consumed classical music.

One cursory glance at Beethoven's very pedestrian, emotional and visceral allegiances and 'political' beliefs reveals how completely 'average Joe' that artist was as to politics. He was a composer, not a politician: what politics he spoke of are smack talk from a rank amateur.

I question most, "what is all this sociopolitical fuss, to-do, kerfuffling about, and from where does it stem?" The artists comprise one of the tiniest minority segments of the population (far far less than 1% composing all the music for everybody The politicians and bureaucrats are from an near-equally small minority. The Bureaucrats are about as leaden souled and unimaginative about art as are most of the artists about politics.

*Yet we get these rather large hypothesis about art / politics / social mores, laying some weird responsibility or accountability on Beethoven's and Wagner's grave, as if either of them knew what was coming fifty years -- or that much later -- after their death. Clearly, that is going about it all wrong.

Taking a modernist perspective while looking back seems to me about as valid as trying to read Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and trying to find / put a feminist spin to it. If feminism did not exist, was on no one's mind in that time, then applying it to a look at Oedipus Rex is wildly off the track, and it is an application which wholly distorts, ergo, in itself is rather 'corrupt.[/I]*

*Most of those artists were just looking for a way to milk the society around them enough in order that the artist could make a living and 'do what they want to do.' Yes, most of them were that uncaring, that much a sociopath if you will. They just wanted to make stuff and would often nearly prostitute themselves one way or another to get those commissions.*

Collectively, that tiny percent of artists are responsible for ALL the classical music there is. Then and now, the most general audience for classical music is still a very 'elitist' 2% of the total populace; of those, many are using it as a mood enhancer, a relaxant, or a fan. With the influence, small as it is and only influencing a tiny minority of all peoples, I'm thinking that Aspirin, Tylenol, Advil, and the sort, are a far greater factor in 'making people and society better' than is all of classical music.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

I am listening to Schubert's _Deutsche Messe _right now. You know what, guys and gals? Classical music is *GREAT*. And *AWESOME*. And *BEAUTIFUL*. And if anyone wants to see it as something corrupted, sinister and dangerous... I guess let him listen to something else, (c)rap for example 
Have a good day, y'all!


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## Renaissance (Jul 10, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> *Sociopaths who like CM?* _Interesting_. I wonder what _Sid James_ thinks? Probably the same thing;
> 
> ...you poor guys are apparently surrounded by _sociopaths_ who mistakenly think that they can be "redeeemed" by classical music! "These derelicts and sociopaths don't need _CM;_ what they need is _rehab!_ Why are they bothering us!"


I think I said it wrong. There might also be some sociopaths listening to classical music, but I was not implying that all classical music listeners are sociopaths. It's obvious that there are all kinds of listeners, not only saints, but also people of a questionable morality.


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## Renaissance (Jul 10, 2012)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> But this doesn't exclude the "immoral" person, because they can appreciate beauty too, even just as well.


Very nice what you said here, but I think that you certainly need a bit of morality to realize that you are immoral...kind of a paradox here. A real immoral person may enjoy even Mass in B minor and not feeling the need to change himself. I think there is something deeper here, about perception. "Immoral" is something relative, not anyone sees himself as the others do... Some people may think that they are normal...while the others can state the opposite. It is more about your perception I think...because music can supply you with beautiful emotions, thoughts, images, but if you are spiritually blinded, or have no sense of empathy (empathy is important in self-help too, it is about understanding yourself from a detached point of view...is not different than what we call empathy, but something related to yourself) you are just contemplating some emotions, but nothing more. We all know people who act differently than what they think...or speak.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Arsakes said:


> millionrainbows, Huilunsoittaja and Renaissance said what must be told...Those other genres are mostly material (not necessarily as bad as what millionrainbows said though!), some are focusing on dirtier aspects of it ... But the Classical is mostly immaterial (with positive meaning), inspirational (in creativity) and motivational (in morality).
> Note: Some genres in music focus on insanity and shouting like freaks, they're absurd and nonsense and inhuman by default. They aren't worth even talking about them here.


...But I can easily begin to degrade and dismantle my previous "angel's advocate" argument, by pointing out the "return to roots" movement in popular music, as well as other significant societal changes.

*Country music:* the era of "honky-tonk" songs, exemplified by "classic" older artists has been largely forgotten by the CM industry, replaced with "good Christian boys" like Ricky Skaggs and Mark O'Connor, and a new interest in the "pure Appalachian roots" of bluegrass (developed in the 1930's by Bill Monroe). Country music has become more acoustic, eschewing the once-exclusive use of electric instruments, once preferred to drown-out and overpower the din of rowdy Bacchanalian partiers.
Subject matter in country music has changed as well; fewer songs celebrating alcohol, and more songs about healthy love, marriage, patriotism, and what it means to be a legitimate "good old boy" in today's society. Equal rights for females, too: more female singers. Artists are more carefully groomed for success nowadays, no longer exclusively having to "claw their way to the top" by paying "dues" on the "club circuit." Gone, gone are the "free-ranging" days of Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard.

This resurgence in bluegrass and acoustic "roots" music has also led to a resurgence in "folk" music, which started out with The Weavers, Woody Guthrie, and Pete Seeger as being aligned with liberalism and leftist sentiments: anti-war sentiment, the labor movement, racial equality, anti-militarism, and "good" causes which had nothing to do with drinking and partying.

*Jazz: *Jazz was basically killed-off by rock (as the main market genre) back in the late 1950's. Now it has been sanitized, "academicized," and turned into a kind of modern-day chamber music, as colleges and universities start academic "jazz programs" for upcoming youth. These new players will not have the previous infra-structure of jazz bars of New York, Chicago, Philly, or "organ trio" circuits as existed on the east coast.

*Rock:* Rock music has never really recognized its debt to its own history, continually moving forward with no thought for its own past; it was transformed in the 80's and 90's by the "punk" movement into a less hedonistic, more politically and socially conscious music, with "Rock Against Racism" and Bob Geldoff's "We Are The World" charity. The new crop of indie-rockers represent the "new parenting" influence: after we remove the "sex and drugs," what's left? Rock & roll? Not your grandpaw's rock & roll, by any stretch.
Now, rock has become a specialist cult with no real market influence except for major artists; rock is now an area for initiates, only understood and consumed by its expert adherents, who will argue definitions of emo-rock, death-metal, grunge, post-grunge, and goth until it becomes meaningless. Rock has "eclecticized itself" into an undefinable explosion of genres and sub-genres.

*Alcohol: *In fact, society's "war on drugs" has included alcohol use and bars as well. What once were dismissed as "college pranks" are now treated as serious breaches of proper behavior, and DUI arrests have increased, as well as harsh new penalties for intoxicated drivers. A new, general intolerance for alcohol-related incidents has resulted in what many characterize as *"The New Prohibition."*

So, popular music is reflecting a change of values in society; it has "cleaned itself up," with its sordid past having been forgotten or sanitized beyond recognition. We are now in an era of new "sacred" music, music which celebrates the good, moral, "safe" side of the human psyche, while stuffing the "bad stuff" away from sight.

Maybe *Theodor Adorno* was correct, although in a different way, which I see, but he would probably disagree with: now I can see his point about the consumer music mega-industry which churns-out "product" which is socially engineered towards the aims and goals of a more "efficient, cost-effective" society of drones, whose "folk" and popular musics no longer reflect a total picture of the human condition, but only reflect what the powers that be wish it to promote.


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## Wandering (Feb 27, 2012)

This is a loaded question. I think classical just about with anything else, can bring out both good and bad. In all honesty I think it can be beneficial for individuals to discover their nook and crannies musically, it could help then relieve stresses and such, not necessarily implying only classicial here, not at all. Music in the background of films can be horribly fitting. Midnight Cowboy for example is a hell of a depressing film, the music really hits the spot at fulfilling this, yet it isn't classical. Surely the exact same can be said of The Graduate. I don't think it helps humanity either, simply personal understandings, that is about it. 

Wagner has forever become linked with Hitler for instance, it is what it is. Just because something, a piece of music for instance is linked by many with a particular this or that culture, agenda, or whatever, does not make it so unless on a personal level you yourself have decided to also do so. I wouldn't put music or much else beyond the individual's ultimate connection, it is always on what it means to you and nothing more, unless you've luckily manage to find others with similar associations.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Clovis said:


> *Wagner has forever become linked with Hitler for instance*, it is what it is. Just because something, a piece of music for instance is linked by many with a particular this or that culture, agenda, or whatever, does not make it so unless on a personal level you yourself have decided to also do so. I wouldn't put music or much else beyond the individual's ultimate connection, it is always on what it means to you and nothing more, unless you've luckily manage to find others with similar associations.


I was going to say: "No way!" until I read the rest of your post. I guess those who perceive Wagner as forever linked with Nazism do so exactly because they have chosen to perceive him that way.

Today I have come across this comment about Schubert's _Deutsche Messe_ (on a different website): "Now I know where all those Nazi marches have come from". Kind of made me pity that poor individual who cannot see the beauty of that music any further than "Nazi marches"


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

I think the main problem with Sid James' assertions here (besides the fact that, as I said before, functional use is not the point), is that while classical music has been linked to, and in a few cases, complicit with, these injustices and atrocities, it is certainly not implicated in them. That is, Hitler could have found a way towards his inspiration without that performance of Rienzi, and artists typically had no influence over their far more wealthy and powerful patrons.

It does come from a specific time and place, and thus is not an immemorially existing white box, but a piece can be, and usually is, evaluated as music, not as a piece of social critique.


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## Hausmusik (May 13, 2012)

In every movie I have ever seen featuring a classical music enthusiast, that character is either a serial killer or supervillain. Therefore, classical music is immoral.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

^This is true, the only reason I began listening to classical in the first place was to take over the world and crush the sniveling minions of pop.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Hausmusik said:


> In every movie I have ever seen featuring a classical music enthusiast, that character is either a serial killer or supervillain.


But they are *smart* supervillains aren't they?


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

Music is a language that crosses geo/political and cultural boundaries. It is surely a specious question to ask whether or not classical music "improves" humanity. Obviously, any additional language spoken or played, or in this case understood, improves human cognizance - ergo humanity. What a silly question, Sid! And who cares from whence or from whom the music comes? Artists of any size, shape or genre are often unpleasant people. The drive to create is seldom pretty. But what is produced (sometimes from the rankest depths of human consciousness) can sometimes ascend to the heights of aesthetic perfection. Many a successful musical harvest has it roots nourished in a metaphorical rich and pungent manure. Music in general certainly - classical music no less.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

PetrB said:


> Most of those artists were just looking for a way to milk the society around them enough in order that the artist could make a living and 'do what they want to do.' Yes, most of them were that uncaring, that much a sociopath if you will. They just wanted to make stuff and would often nearly prostitute themselves one way or another to get those commissions.
> 
> Collectively, that tiny percent of artists are responsible for ALL the classical music there is. Then and now, the most general audience for classical music is still a very 'elitist' 2% of the total populace; of those, many are using it as a mood enhancer, a relaxant, or a fan. With the influence, small as it is and only influencing a tiny minority of all peoples, I'm thinking that Aspirin, Tylenol, Advil, and the sort, are a far greater factor in 'making people and society better' than is all of classical music.


Man, I do not like what you are saying here. What authority do you have on composers being like sociopaths or prostitutes? I really doubt that many great composers were society's parasites, and were they to become aware of such a tendency in themselves, I bet they would have been mortified.

Methinks the sacred cow of "anti sacred cows" is getting way too big around here.

Also, you can't possibly say that drugs are the same as music. I don't feel so mentally and emotionally altered by music these days, drugs are much better and more direct. What I do appreciate is just how beautiful it can be. Even though music is not natural, just the fact that man can create something so beautiful, it is inspiring. I don't get to have the same fascination about the chemical structure of tylonol as my body unravels it in a sensory way.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> I think the main problem with Sid James' assertions here (besides the fact that, as I said before, functional use is not the point), is that while classical music has been linked to, and in a few cases, complicit with, these injustices and atrocities, it is certainly not implicated in them. That is, Hitler could have found a way towards his inspiration without that performance of Rienzi, and artists typically had no influence over their far more wealthy and powerful patrons. It does come from a specific time and place, and thus is not an immemorially existing white box, but a piece can be, and usually is, evaluated as music, not as a piece of social critique.


CM doesn't need an apologist here; it's preaching to the choir. The association of Hitler with Wagner, etc, just shows how Adorno was correct: classical music has become just another commodity which can be used by the consumer music industry machine. The important question should be, does CM represent anything different than it did before today?



PetrB said:


> *Most of those artists were just looking for a way to milk the society around them enough in order that the artist could make a living and 'do what they want to do.' Yes, most of them were that uncaring, that much a sociopath if you will. They just wanted to make stuff and would often nearly prostitute themselves one way or another to get those commissions.*...Collectively, that tiny percent of artists are responsible for ALL the classical music there is. Then and now, the most general audience for classical music is still a very 'elitist' 2% of the total populace; of those, many are using it as a mood enhancer, a relaxant, or a fan. With the influence, small as it is and only influencing a tiny minority of all peoples, I'm thinking that Aspirin, Tylenol, Advil, and the sort, are a far greater factor in 'making people and society better' than is all of classical music.


Agreed, as it is today with the likes of John Williams, etc: same as it ever was, same as it ever was.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

Hausmusik said:


> In every movie I have ever seen featuring a classical music enthusiast, that character is either a serial killer or supervillain. Therefore, classical music is immoral.


That's because hollywood movie people are jerks. They love to typecast. Smart people with intellectual interests, especially those in the arts, must be creepy or something.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

PetrB said:


> I do greatly wonder about what seems to me an extraordinarily strong and wrongly focused magnifying glass set to gaze upon the...sociological relative to art, and well after the fact of the art itself and the context within it was made...


_You're trying to isolate art from its context...big mistake. Art always reflects its own sociological epoch, and resonates with our own (if different) epoch of "feminism,", etc._



PetrB said:


> It is evidence of a people who hungrily, and perhaps superficially, sought entertainment. And that Vienna is, like many a capitol city, often filled with tourists and non-national temporary residents.


_You make "entertainment" sound trivial, but it is the key to the true nature of art.
_


PetrB said:


> ..."what is all this sociopolitical fuss, to-do, kerfuffling about, and from where does it stem?" The artists comprise one of the tiniest minority segments of the population...


_Quantity is irrelevant; resonance creates "sunami-waves" of influence on society, as Wagner & German nationalism triggered archetypes which precipitated WW's I & II._



PetrB said:


> ...Yet we get these rather large hypothesis about art / politics / social mores, laying some weird responsibility or accountability on Beethoven's and Wagner's grave, as if either of them knew what was coming fifty years -- or that much later -- after their death...


_They didn't have to know. Artists are "clairvoyant" seers. They read & predict unconscious undercurrents.
_


PetrB said:


> Taking a modernist perspective while looking back seems to me about as valid as trying to read Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and trying to find/put a feminist spin to it. If feminism did not exist, was on no one's mind in that time, then applying it to a look at Oedipus Rex is wildly off the track, and it is an application which wholly distorts, ergo, in itself is rather 'corrupt...


_As I said, art always reflects its own sociological epoch, and resonates with our own (if different) epoch of "feminism,", etc._



PetrB said:


> ...Most of those artists were just looking for a way to milk the society around them enough in order that the artist could make a living and 'do what they want to do.' Yes, most of them were that uncaring, that much a sociopath if you will. They just wanted to make stuff and would often nearly prostitute themselves one way or another to get those commissions...


_But that doesn't make them "harmless utilitarian worker/hacks." It does not remove them as "definers of meaning" and claivoyant "seers" and shamans._



PetrB said:


> ...Collectively, that tiny percent of artists are responsible for ALL the classical music there is. Then and now, the most general audience for classical music is still a very 'elitist' 2% of the total populace; of those, many are using it as a mood enhancer, a relaxant, or a fan. With the influence, small as it is and only influencing a tiny minority of all peoples, I'm thinking that Aspirin, Tylenol, Advil, and the sort, are a far greater factor in 'making people and society better' than is all of classical music.


_That's not because of CM itself; CM is now just another commodity, fulfilling the agenda of Adorno's "consumer machine."_


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## Rentach (Dec 9, 2012)

I think no music can make you better. But maybe some of it can at least make you think deeper. Bach's Art of Fugue and Beethoven's late quartets cross my mind. Or maybe that's just me.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Rentach said:


> I think no music can make you better. But maybe some of it can at least make you think deeper. Bach's Art of Fugue and Beethoven's late quartets cross my mind. Or maybe that's just me.


Yeah, man; I agree. For my criterion of "pure musical meaning," nothing can beat those guys.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

KRoad said:


> Music is a language that crosses geo/political and cultural boundaries. It is surely a specious question to ask whether or not classical music "improves" humanity. Obviously, any additional language spoken or played, or in this case understood, improves human cognizance - ergo humanity. What a silly question, Sid! And who cares from whence or from whom the music comes? Artists of any size, shape or genre are often unpleasant people. The drive to create is seldom pretty. But what is produced (sometimes from the rankest depths of human consciousness) can sometimes ascend to the heights of aesthetic perfection. Many a successful musical harvest has it roots nourished in a metaphorical rich and pungent manure. Music in general certainly - classical music no less.


"...and from the manure shall rise...The Ubermensh!" Wasn't it Nietzsche who said that? While I agree, I must clarify that what is produced (sometimes from the rankest depths of human consciousness) is not always art, and "rank origin" is not one of my criteria for great art. Also, I don't believe that"...any additional language spoken or played, or in this case understood, improves human cognizance," any more than I believe that watching hockey and drinking beer "makes a better Canadian."

I think what we are really dealing with here is what Carl Jung called "the shadow" side of humanity's psyche.
As Brian Eno said: "The problem with New Age music is that there's no evil in it."


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

KRoad said:


> Music is a language that crosses geo/political and cultural boundaries. It is surely a specious question to ask whether or not classical music "improves" humanity. Obviously, any additional language spoken or played, or in this case understood, improves human cognizance - ergo humanity. What a silly question, Sid! And who cares from whence or from whom the music comes? Artists of any size, shape or genre are often unpleasant people. The drive to create is seldom pretty. But what is produced (sometimes from the rankest depths of human consciousness) can sometimes ascend to the heights of aesthetic perfection. Many a successful musical harvest has it roots nourished in a metaphorical rich and pungent manure. Music in general certainly - classical music no less.


Agree, a very specious question. It is just excessive and very naive politicalization of music (mainly on 20th century music), reading names like Hitler and Stalin get thrown all over this thread as if these dictators were using "music of mass destruction".


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> As Brian Eno said: "The problem with New Age music is that there's no evil in it."


It's quite comical that it is exactly classical fans and classical musicians out of all people who see some sort of evil in classical music. Has anyone ever felt pangs of conscience for listening to it?


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

SiegendesLicht said:


> It's quite comical that it is exactly classical fans and classical musicians out of all people who see some sort of evil in classical music. Has anyone ever felt pangs of conscience for listening to it?


I am almost sure the vast majority of classical music listeners do not see the devils horns and fangs in classical music. We just enjoy music as it is.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

SiegendesLicht said:


> It's quite comical that it is exactly classical fans and classical musicians out of all people who see some sort of evil in classical music. Has anyone ever felt pangs of conscience for listening to it?


No, o sacred harbinger of Holy German Art. Go listen to some Furtwangler, guilt-free. :lol:


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> No, o sacred harbinger of Holy German Art. Go listen to some Furtwangler, guilt-free. :lol:


I do that regularly. And von Karajan too


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Rapide said:


> I am almost sure the vast majority of classical music listeners do not see the devils horns and fangs in classical music. We just enjoy music as it is.


No, you two are getting "inside" mixed-up with "outside." You just said that you listen to Wagner as "just sounds," so stick with your argument.

Like John Cage said, and which you just agreed with, "music is just sounds." Every sound is music. There's nothing "in" music except sound.

*But,* if ten thousand people see "devils horns and fangs in classical music," you're outnumbered, and the argument becomes irrelevant.

That's the difference between "inner" and "outer." Complicated, isn't it?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

"It's documented that Hitler claimed to have attended no less than 110 performances of Wagner's 'Die Gotterdammerung'..."

But on his birthday they played him Beethoven's 9th! Stalin seems to have liked Mozart a lot. Anyway, I'm sure both were better people for it.


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> No, you two are getting "inside" mixed-up with "outside." You just said that you listen to Wagner as "just sounds," so stick with your argument.
> 
> Like John Cage said, and which you just agreed with, "music is just sounds." Every sound is music. There's nothing "in" music except sound.
> 
> ...


I don't get it.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

SiegendesLicht said:


> I do that regularly. And von Karajan too


I love Carl Orff, and Wagner (without the words and dramatic trappings) as well. My point is, the "evil" that people see is never going to be "in" the music totally, but nonetheless, the music is a two-way code: it is a catalyst which triggers "memes" in people. Whether or not you wish to consider these triggers is up to you, but it doesn't mean that these works are not catalysts as well, even if they are operating on unconscious archetypal levels, even beyond the composer's conscious intent.

Of course, this is art, not science, so neither your view, or mine, is "objectively true" absolutely.


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## Illuminatedtoiletpaper (Apr 12, 2012)

Learning to play music will improve you/your neural system.

Concerning morality... let's just say it's more flexible than a 12 note system.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Rapide said:


> I don't get it.


Well, you said:



Rapide said:


> I am almost sure the vast majority of classical music listeners do not see the devils horns and fangs in classical music. We just enjoy music as it is.


My point is, there cannot be "music just as it is," because people are experiencing it. _A tree fell over in the woods? Anybody hear it?_


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

PetrB said:


> ...
> 
> *Most of those artists were just looking for a way to milk the society around them enough in order that the artist could make a living and 'do what they want to do.' Yes, most of them were that uncaring, that much a sociopath if you will. They just wanted to make stuff and would often nearly prostitute themselves one way or another to get those commissions.*
> 
> Collectively, that tiny percent of artists are responsible for ALL the classical music there is. ...I'm thinking that Aspirin, Tylenol, Advil, and the sort, are a far greater factor in 'making people and society better' than is all of classical music.


I think that there is much truth in these opinions and thoughts for me. I'm also reflecting on Mahlerian's post too. Basic fact is that composers and the 'classical music industry' down through the ages have been same as other people in less 'noble' pursuits, that is having the same human instinct for survival. & sometimes that shows them in a bad light, sometimes its neutral, and sometimes (rarely?) composers have gone beyond mere survival and thought of others ahead of themselves. That's on the thread I recently did on humanitarians in classical music.

On a lot of threads I've made on this forum, I've presented issues to do with the history of music, its politics, ideologies and so on. These things interest me, and in some cases (like this thread) have sparked what I think is worthwhile debate. But it doesn't have to interest everyone. & as I am not a professional musicologist, of course some of my threads have been meant more as starters of discussion than anything else. I've got bias just like anybody else. But I'm glad that this thread has not resulted in people targeting me or getting nasty with me or others. That's good.

What I'd add is that no ideology is without its bad bits, and most if not all ideologies in music are related to political ideologies in some way. Adorno, whom millionrainbows mentioned, was obviously influenced heavily by Marxist ideology. & we all know how that ideology has been critiqued, how its played out in reality. It has had its fair share of advantages and also disadvantages. I don't see Adorno as being good for example in saying Sibelius was the worst composer. It seems connected with suspicions about the bourgeois (the middle class). After 1945, it became worse with this 'ivory tower' mentality affecting music and the arts. I don't know why music is better if its aimed at a small elite of academia and their students and hangers on. Its only ideology that makes that better than classical music that appeals to a wider audience (eg. film music) or better than non-classical music. & its ironic that most composers come from the bourgeois anyway, very few come from poor backgrounds. So what was the avant-garde fighting against? Itself?

I am spending less time on this forum now than before for various reasons. One of the reasons is that I feel that I'm in the minority here. So be it. That's how it is. I will not fight against that. All I will fight for is a right to express myself without the likes of a minority of members obecting to that simple right, as they have often done in the past, accusing me of bias and not looking themselves in the mirror. These admittedly few people to me are tangible examples of how classical music does not necessarily make you better at communicating, a thing I've ranted on here for ages as well now. Its about attitude.

But re the 'white box' thing, the decontextualised view of classical music, it too can have its uses. Not in an extreme way, eg. whitewashing composers or the often brutal political and social contexts in which they worked. But more for musicians playing pieces. Eg. I have been listening to a cellist who is based in Australia (he came here from the USA decades ago) Michael Goldschlager play Bach's cello suites. Before making these recordings, he said he consciously avoided listening to other cellists' recordings of these works. He wanted to make his own interpretation and for it not to be affected by those of others. This is an example of how a more detached view of a piece of music can be useful for a musician. & it can be extended to listeners as well, those listeners who unlike me don't care about the history or politics of classical music. It's fine, I'm just saying that to me classical is in itself not better (or worse) than other types of music. & whether we blame various scaepegoats like the bourgeois or not, 'grubby' and 'tainted' things like making money and securing some type of prestige (eg. being in the 'good books' of a certain regime, or just plain and simple surviving it) are often not far away from those symphonies and concertos we listen to, whether composed more recently or in the distant mists of time.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> My point is, there cannot be "music just as it is," because people are experiencing it.


Absolutely. Music is what we hear. And what we hear, we hear through our mental filters, which we can't avoid. These filters are (among other things) our values, and thus we respond to the values carried along in the music. That music is value-ridden has been recognized since the earliest times (the ancient Greeks and Chinese, for instance). And our values -- the ones we really hold, not those we intellectually adhere to -- are what determine our politics. That's why I say we always politicize music. It doesn't matter how a composer behaved, what his views on race were, what pamphlets he wrote -- the music has its own values that we react to, willingly or not.

A recent post mentioned a dislike of Haydn because of the social implications of his music, evidently apparent in the music. I thought that was an excellent example. I have a similar reaction to Elgar, for the same terribly unjust reasons. Everything I hear reminds me of slightly moldy dark wainscotting, elegant clothes too long unwashed, the insufferable smell of pipe dottle still wet...


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

KenOC said:


> ...That music is value-ridden has been recognized sine the earliest times (the ancient Greeks and Chinese, for instance). And our values -- the ones we really hold, not those we intellectually adhere to -- are what determine our politics. That's why I say we always politicize music. It doesn't matter how a composer behaved, what his views on race were, what pamphlets he wrote -- the music has its own values that we react to, willingly or not....


I'd add to that that even ideologies like Modernism, that indeed tried to present themselves as value free, well they where far from it. Look at architecture like by Le Corbusier or Mies van de Rohe, you literally have variations on the cube, rectangles, pure geometry, all that stuff. But try as they may, these things are not without ideologies attached. I mentioned Marxism and Adorno before, and you find that architects like this with their utopian visions for humanity where heavily influenced by Marx. They where also just as suspicious of the bourgeois influence on the arts as Adorno was. But of course they could not get away from the old ways of thinking.

Take Le Corbusier's design which was actually built for the Indian city of Chandigarh, for instance. Its just another example of Eurocentrism, these modernist buildings that have little or nothing to do with India, plonked there. Not much different from the designs of British trained architects who built New Delhi in the days of the British empire. What I'm saying is no product of a culture is without values, its ideologies, its ways of thinking. Fact is, we all have our biases, including composers or architects for that matter. The main thing is to expose these biases and put them on the table, then we can have a dialogue about the music at hand, or the piece of architecture at hand or whatever.

Some people may praise Le Corbusier's designs for Chandigarh as being appropriate for that context. But I see them as an example of ideology riding over pragmatism and a more transparent and more contextualised way of doing things. Its the same old cultural imprerialism parading as Modernism. An emperor's new clothes. American architect Frank Lloyd Wright made a comment once that Le Corbusier hardly got any of his buildings actually built, but when he did build them, he followed them up with a whole lot of books, articles and interviews. In other words, it was architecture pitched at the academy, not really meant to serve the people that lived in these buildings (or even just people living in the same city having to look at these slabs of concrete and glass). Wright was bitter in how these European gods of Modernism invaded the USA with the rise of the Nazis and ended up putting up their decontextualised eyesores all over the place.

Parallels can be drawn with music, but I'll leave it there. I don't expect to get one like with this post. I think that once one digs beneath the fancy words of ideology, some truths are uncovered, which I understand are hard to accept if we like a composer or architect or whatever. But music is not religion as I always say here, we can accept some things of a movement or ideology or not others. Total allegiance is not necessary. Who says so?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Sid James said:


> Parallels can be drawn with music, but I'll leave it there. I don't expect to get one like with this post.


Well, I won't (and I gave you a like too!) A good parallel is Wagner's music dramas and Albert Speer's plans for the "new Berlin" prepared for Hitler. The purpose of both was to reduce common human experience to nothingness beside the works of one super-man. My professed values cause me to react to both with repulsion. But when I hear Wagner's music, or look at Speer's plans, I can't help thinking, "Hey, grandiose is good!"

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=141374


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

^^Speer's plans look very much like Ceausescu's Bucharest, which did become a reality unfortunately. But I would stress that these extreme totalitarian regimes are different from the likes of Le Corbusier. He was seeking to improve things compared to the old ways of building. He did move things forward, but in terms of the hindisght that we have now, of course that line of thinking had its pitfalls. But I'd say he was not as extreme or serving an ideology of pure evil like Nazism or Stalinism as the examples of Speer or Ceausescu. All I'm saying is Modernism is not empty of ideology, it in itself is not a 'white box.' You try to move humanity forward, some will inevitably be left behind not in the least because these ways of thinking tend to see things as 'one size fits all.' Corbu's modulor scale comes to mind here strongly.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Author deleted. Apologies to one and all: I should have waited until I was more awake before I opened my cybermouth.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

PetrB said:


> ...
> 2.) Again, in response to the OP, which I find conflated beyond credibility regarding all its (I think) insupportable points.
> 
> ...


Treachery! I thought you agreed with me! At least a little bit... :lol:


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Sid James said:


> Treachery! I thought you agreed with me! At least a little bit... :lol:


LOL. I went a bit overboard, but deleted it. What I had first written here was to take my pal and colleague 'Chlavicorder' to task for literally misreading a post of mine which was 'arch' in reaction to what I thought were exaggerated points in your OP.

But since you mention treachery, I really do think you are seeing forests where there is, instead, just average native greenery, 'normal trees.' You're spanning centuries, connecting things just too far so that the cable of logic, or your links of cause and effect, 'just snap.'

That old saw "It has always been thus" is of course no reason to not criticize or wish things to change. But, you really do look at these things with a set of lenses which seem heavily tinted by the subject you find most interesting - and it seems to me that primary subject is not music.

Perhaps you have made some connectivity with corrupt Vienna and Mozart which no historian or musicologist has yet unearthed. I seriously doubt, other than in a hypothetical theoretic 'Marxist' point of view text as mentioned in this thread, that anything more concrete as to politics, Vienna and Mozart have come to light or could be proven as per your apparent point of view.

Perhaps you are so moved by what some artists have made that you resent they too, were "just average souls trying to get by with the means available to them in their own times." and find yourself more than a little disappointed in those artists as far as their political integrity. I do recall you are very big on getting all sorts of context about the composer and the piece. In response to yours and other posts, I recall consistently 'informing' that much or most of the time, the artist is not their work.

If you really intimately knew as close friends, or as a bud you hung out with, a handful of composers, or could time travel and have Bach or Beethoven as intimate cronies, you might find yourself bitterly disappointed in their lack of political savvy and 'awareness of their obligations to society as artists.' They were as stuck with finding work and keeping themselves and their families afloat as anyone else, ya know. Maybe you've projected the ideals which you were given an impression of through their music onto the composers themselves.

Yes, Bach did take that commission you mentioned, from that reviled ruler. If you were an everyday citizen of the time and the King commissions a work from you, DARE you say "I'm sorry, majesty, I'm booked up with commissions for several years" or do you say flat out, "No." or do you take the commission, because the king's money will be spent on something else if not on the commission you accept? Yeah, J.S. holy revered 'I write it all to the Glory of God' Bach did just that, and probably without a moment's hesitation and without a scintilla of compunction.

I'm in full agreement that one should know both history and the context of an era to best understand it, cultural or the more mundane acts and conditions of politics. But you are politicizing or 'social relevantizing' to such a degree I can only call it a massive projection on your part. An iota of what you say applies to the situations or each era, or the works from it.

What I do not see, and really wonder 'where it comes from' is what I perceive as a greatly exaggerated politicizing of all things related to the arts as - it seems to me -- you see it. That makes me think your genuine interest in all which is sociopolitical has you making postulations in that same suite, relative to the arts, as more pedant than real. A lot seems 'projected on' to, say, Bach's accepting that commission from the reviled ruler.

I also perceive a lot of your thrust as treating art as the least tiny and ancillary part of another main area of interest -- that leaves discussion on the art itself out in the cold. (Citing Benny Goodman placing a black musician on stage is a far second as being about music 

I think you've projected "ideologies" on composers who had none, or if they did their ideology was more one by osmosis of the times they lived in. I think you're looking at the 19th and 18th centuries with a 20th /21st century neopolitnik and somewhat weirdly "Politically Correct" lens, and that bothers me more than just a little. Why? Because something as seemingly consistent and near zealous as your general drift from one post to the other cannot be merely the spontaneous animation of one individual, but rather, something taught or conditioned in reaction to a circumstance or as catalyzed by the individual's reaction to specific events in their personal life. I really do wonder 'where that comes from.'

So, more than any huge 'betrayal' or disagreement, I wonder most of your all such posts you make, what you are really about, and why, really, you are addressing this all in an arts forum. That is of course more from my perspective which has me believing wholly that most artists are not, or are only very barely, 'political' ... at least when they are being artists. Artists are, like many a Hungarian or (former) Yugoslavian citizen, quite used to going around and about whatever political regime they happen to exist in in order to simply go about their business as they feel they need to do.

Is it fair, then, to ask what catalyzed your interest in the sociopolitical as related to classical music, and too what makes you bring that to a forum dedicated to the discussion of classical music?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

YES, music can make you better! It's propaganda for goodness. It will manipulate you into submitting to the light side, eschewing the darkness.

The Zen saying, the mind is a mirror; if it just sits, it will collect dust and become cloudy. You have to actively do something to "polish" it, like put good music into it. Kinda like Privatia Boni.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

Anything that makes you feel is a good thing. We live in an age of desensitization. We watch atrocities on the news with a passivity that would horrify our grandparents. The world needs the arts to bring us back to being human.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

bigshot said:


> Anything that makes you feel is a good thing. We live in an age of desensitization. We watch atrocities on the news with a passivity that would horrify our grandparents. The world needs the arts to bring us back to being human.


Yes, Ain't it the truth! Give me beauty! The 21st century often sux!


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## SottoVoce (Jul 29, 2011)

I hope this helps. It did a lot to me. I'm actually studying under this man, he has a lot of good things to say about these kind of things.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I like the name Gideon.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> The Zen saying, the mind is a mirror; if it just sits, it will collect dust and become cloudy. You have to actively do something to "polish" it, like put good music into it.


Shenxiu wrote:

The body is a Bodhi tree,
The mind a standing mirror bright.
At all times polish it diligently,
And let no dust alight

Huineng, the sixth patriarch, responded:

The Bodhi Tree has no roots,
The bright mirror also has no platform;
Fundamentally there is not one thing,
From where can any dust arise?


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

This thread is messing with my head man...


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

PetrB said:


> LOL. I went a bit overboard, but deleted it. What I had first written here was to take my pal and colleague 'Chlavicorder' to task for literally misreading a post of mine which was 'arch' in reaction to what I thought were exaggerated points in your OP.
> 
> But since you mention treachery, I really do think you are seeing forests where there is, instead, just average native greenery, 'normal trees.' You're spanning centuries, connecting things just too far so that the cable of logic, or your links of cause and effect, 'just snap.'
> 
> ...


I'm curious... but where do you (and Sid for that matter) find the time to conduct such debates?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

SottoVoce said:


> I hope this helps. It did a lot to me. I'm actually studying under this man, he has a lot of good things to say about these kind of things.


Hmm...I don't like it.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

take a rag and get to work right now.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

clavichorder said:


> I like the name Gideon.


Its just a name: you can adopt it and start using it if you like.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KRoad said:


> I'm curious... but where do you (and Sid for that matter) find the time to conduct such debates?


Oh, for me, anyway, well out of school, past the age for a full time job, and less interested in cleaning my flat than engaging in some dialogue with folk....


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> Apparently, Huineng is speaking from a perspective of "I'm already being enlightened so I don't need that advice."


Not so. Both poems were written at the behest of Hungren, who was looking for a successor. He chose Huineng, an illiterate temple worker, on the basis of his poem (which he had somebody else write out for him). Then he brought Huineng to enlightenment and advised him to flee in the night to escape being murdered by angry partisans of Shenxiu.

Huineng became the leader of the Southern or "sudden enlightenment" school of Zen, while Shenxiu then led the Northern or "mirror-polishing" school. Essentially all Zen sects and monasteries today owe their teachings to the Southern school.

This famous story is from the Platform Sutra. The details are probably apocryphal. Huineng later wrote another poem criticizing the "mirror-polishing" school:

"When alive, one keeps sitting without lying down.
When dead, one lies without sitting up.
In both cases, a set of stinking bones!
What has it to do with the great lesson of life?"


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

Fair enough, PetrB. I enjoy your posts.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

millions said: Apparently, Huineng is speaking from a perspective of "I'm already being enlightened so I don't need that advice."



KenOC said:


> Not so. Both poems were written at the behest of Hungren, who was looking for a successor.


I disagree, and stand by my interpretation. These are not "poems" but are answers to koans. Since they are both "competing" for succession with their respective answers to a koan, Huineng is most certainly saying that he is enlightened, and the other guy is not. He's saying that the mirror-polishing method (sitting) will not lead to enlightenment.

So what's your point with this contradiction of my post, KenOC? I wish you'd stop bothering me, unless you have something positive to say to me.

I noticed that bald-headed old geezer in your ever-changing avatar. It's either Bruckner, Sibelius, a zen master, or you've done that clever switch again. Apparently you is an expert on Eastern thought now.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

bigshot said:


> Anything that makes you feel is a good thing. We live in an age of desensitization. We watch atrocities on the news with a passivity that would horrify our grandparents. The world needs the arts to bring us back to being human.


Lol. for a moment I forgot there are monitors.... so,

I'll just say I'm very much thinking without your having been more specific, you've left this far too open to be of any real meaning, let alone the well-intended meaning I'm sure you had in mind.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> I noticed that bald-headed old geezer in your ever-changing avatar. It's either Bruckner, or a zen master.


Uh, it is (was) Sibelius...


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

PetrB said:


> Lol. for a moment I forgot there are monitors....


Yes, they are the largest lizards on earth.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

PetrB said:


> ...
> 
> So, more than any huge 'betrayal' or disagreement, I wonder most of your all such posts you make, what you are really about, and why, really, you are addressing this all in an arts forum. That is of course more from my perspective which has me believing wholly that most artists are not, or are only very barely, 'political' ... at least when they are being artists. Artists are, like many a Hungarian or (former) Yugoslavian citizen, quite used to going around and about whatever political regime they happen to exist in in order to simply go about their business as they feel they need to do.
> 
> Is it fair, then, to ask what catalyzed your interest in the sociopolitical as related to classical music, and too what makes you bring that to a forum dedicated to the discussion of classical music?


There is a lot of truth in what you say in your whole post & quite honestly I don't know what I believe in anymore. After over 3 years on this forum, I think a lot of the time I end up ranting on ideology, because basically that's what I see as the at the core of what many members say here, esp. very active members who take part in these types of debates. & I do read books on music and my area is modern history, so that butresses all this. Fact is I have recently been reading critiques of things like Modernism, also critiques of European culture and culture, power structures in general, and also just modern history (eg. the Holocaust and Apartheid regime in South AFrica). These have made me make these realisations, and in some cases, these things have confirmed what I've believed in for a long time, but was kind of afraid to say it, or thought nobody else thought like that, esp. 'scholarly' people. But there it is.

But I am loathe to reveal my exact sources on this forum, because in the past after doing that I have been ridiculed (in the usual gutless underhand manner of course, by people who for example know all the jargon and gobbledigook of semantics and semiotics theory like a religion, and apply it like a sledgehammer demolishing others on the forum). So there you go. Sometimes I think (often, actually) why did people fight those wars against tyranny and oppression? What's the result if in modern society you have people who cannot conduct an argument without resorting to the same things but in verbal form. That makes it alright, doesn't it? I am well educated myself but I am now becoming very sick and tired of subterfuge, not only from politicans, but also from intellectuals in general who distort reality and in many cases underpin the worst of worst forms of tangible oppression.

Music is connected to this, no doubt. But anyone can think what they think. I only aim to discuss these things out in the open. With the recent absence of a certain member in particular, I feel I've been able to do this and come out of my shell a bit. My take is that thoughts and opinions are not facts. That applies to my thoughts and opinions, or anybodys. I dislike it when someone takes the high moral ground and then proceeds to demolish me, discredit me and my source and play these games.

Anyway I have enjoyed reading your and others posts here and on other threads I make, there has been little or no nastiness as we've had at times on this forum (by a minority of members I must stress, but a few rotten apples can spoil the bunch).

In any case I am spending less time on this forum and I aim to take a break from too heavy activity until after Christmas. Hope everyone has a good holiday season, but I will be here but more sporadically than before.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Sid James said:


> After over 3 years on this forum, I think a lot of the time I end up ranting on ideology, because basically *that's what I see as the at the core of what many members say here, esp. very active members who take part in these types of debates....**I have been ridiculed (in the usual gutless underhand manner of course, by people who for example know all the jargon and gobbledigook of semantics and semiotics theory like a religion, and apply it like a sledgehammer demolishing others on the forum)...*why did people fight those wars against tyranny and oppression? What's the result if in modern society you have*people who cannot conduct an argument without resorting to the same things *but in verbal form. That makes it alright, doesn't it? I am well educated myself but* I am now becoming very sick and tired* of subterfuge, not only from politicans, but also *from intellectuals in general who distort reality **and *in many cases *underpin the worst of worst forms of tangible oppression.....*Music is connected to this, no doubt. But anyone can think what they think. I only aim to discuss these things out in the open. With the recent absence of *a certain member in particular,* I feel I've been able to do this and come out of my shell a bit. My take is that thoughts and opinions are not facts. That applies to my thoughts and opinions, or anybodys. *I dislike it when someone takes the high moral ground and then proceeds to demolish me, discredit me* and my source and play these games.
> 
> Anyway *I have enjoyed reading your and others posts here and on other threads I make*, *there has been little or no nastiness as we've had at times on this forum (by a minority of members I must stress, but a few rotten apples can spoil the bunch)....*In any case I am spending less time on this forum and *I aim to take a break from too heavy activity until after Christmas.* *Hope everyone has a good holiday season*, but I will be here but more sporadically than before.


I can't tell if Sidney is being naughty or nice; I suppose Santa will have to figure that one out.


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## Ondine (Aug 24, 2012)

Sid James said:


> In any case I am spending less time on this forum and I aim to take a break from too heavy activity until after Christmas.


You are a very nice person Sid. I don't spent too much time here because job but when I have some time I like to come here and have a good time. I want to say that I enjoy your posts and the things you issue. I have never been a good argumentative so I prefer just to read those posts that have good stuff.



> Hope everyone has a good holiday season.


The same for you, Sid! Hugs.


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## Kevin Pearson (Aug 14, 2009)

Renaissance said:


> Classical music doesn't make you better, but it helps you so, if you are willing to. Nothing can change you without your own permission. For me, CM did a lot, lot more than I would like to tell here. There are sociopaths who likes classical music and see in it nothing more than aesthetics, but one can't deny its power... If you look for statistical evidence, you won't probably find it (well, aside from those "classical music played in X city reduced criminality with 20%") because there are too many variables in changing the human behavior. too many causes, that I doubt someone can organize these things into an empirical experiment. But, if one is willing to change, and need some help, classical music is just fine. It works, if you know how to listen to it.


This reminds me of when I was younger in the 90s and worked in the downtown area of Dallas, TX and in the heart of it was a McDonald's. For whatever reason its location attracted hooligans and thugs, and there were many incidents of criminal activity from drug use, and dealing, to outright murders on the property. One day the manager of the store came up with a brilliant idea to start playing "classical" music 24/7 in the store and through the outdoor speakers. Well, guess what happened? All of a sudden the criminal element stopped patronizing his store and even though there was an initial decline in sales his sales eventually rose when normal/moral and law abiding citizens discovered it was now safe to eat there. As a result many other downtown establishments started playing classical music and guess what? Downtown crime dropped. Did it change the nature of the criminals? Probably not at all but when they couldn't hang and listen to their rap crap all day they went elsewhere and the downtown area was better for it.

I can say with certainty that in my life I have found people who listen to classical music much more agreeable company than other types of music listeners and less likely to be of the criminal types. I have been to biker rallys and the atmosphere with the hard rock and WWF feel makes me uncomfortable and it is real and tangible. That's not to say that all bikers are bad immoral people but the attitude and atmosphere is closer to a prison lifestyle than classical music will ever be. I've also been at rap concerts and feared for my life so music does have something to do with morality. It may not shape it but quite often the kind of music a person listens to can identify where their morality lies.

Kevin


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Mr. Pearson makes a very good point, but I wonder... 

Would you rather be robbed at gunpoint of a wallet, or lose your job because the economy was crushed by bankers taking foolish risks, risks that they were able to take legally because they bribed politicians to change laws enabling them to do so? And what kind of music would you guess such bankers and politicians enjoy in their limos? 

My point is, our stereotypes (which often have at least a tenuous relation to reality) associate different kinds of wrongs with different kinds of music.

And now is a good time to speak out in favor of debauchery. The drunk guy stumbling home singing country music off-key - oh, yes, friends, it is possible and I myself am even capable of doing so - has probably done a lot less harm in the world than the senator attending the opera courtesy of the former general who now collects a handsome salary in the military industry. The drunk might've wrecked his family; the others have probably done so as well, and to boot they consider killing dozens of civilians as mere collateral damage, unfortunate in this world but the bottom line is the bottom line and taxpayers aren't going to just give their money away. 

I don't blame the musicians or the music, but I'm in the camp that doesn't see classical music associated with greater morality than other genres. We're a pretty nasty lot all round; the music is about the best thing we have to show for ourselves.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Kevin Pearson said:


> This reminds me of when I was younger in the 90s and worked in the downtown area of Dallas, TX and in the heart of it was a McDonald's. For whatever reason its location attracted *hooligans and thugs,* and there were many incidents of criminal activity from drug use, and dealing, to outright murders on the property. One day the manager of the store came up with a brilliant idea to start playing "classical" music 24/7 in the store and through the outdoor speakers. Well, guess what happened? All of a sudden the criminal element stopped patronizing his store and even though there was an initial decline in sales his sales eventually rose when normal/moral and law abiding citizens discovered it was now safe to eat there. As a result many other downtown establishments started playing classical music and guess what? Downtown crime dropped. Did it change the nature of the criminals? Probably not at all but *when they couldn't hang and listen to their rap crap all day they went elsewhere* and the downtown area was better for it.
> 
> I can say with certainty that in my life I have found people who listen to classical music much more agreeable company than other types of music listeners and less likely to be of the criminal types. I have been to *biker* rallys and the atmosphere with the *hard rock *and WWF feel makes me uncomfortable and it is real and tangible. *That's not to say that all bikers are bad immoral people *but the attitude and atmosphere is closer to a *prison lifestyle* than classical music will ever be. I've also been at *rap concerts* and *feared for my life* so *music does have something to do with morality.* It may not shape it but quite often *the kind of music a person listens to can identify where their morality lies.*
> 
> Kevin


Gosh Kevin, perhaps you had better examine your McDonald's story there a little more closely, because, on the surface of it, *it sounds like you might be substituting the term "criminal types listening to their rap crap" for black or latino urban youths.*

I feel compelled to further answer this, since I actually installed and ran the wire to such an installation when I worked for Muzak. The location was on a corner, downtown, directly by a bus-stop, at an Eckerd Drug store. There was a covered outdoor area which had lights; these were removed, and speakers were installed (I got a brief 120-volt shock removing the lights). There had been guys with loud "ghetto blasters" which were becoming a nuisance, so Muzak was thought to be the solution, and it worked. *BUT*, it worked only because the Muzak interfered with their music on the blasters, not because it was "uplifting" and "repelled evil." BTW, the guys with the "ghetto blasters" appeared to be black males. Just sayin'.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

science said:


> And what kind of music would you guess such bankers and politicians enjoy in their limos?


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> Yes, they are the largest lizards on earth.


oh, you ....


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

science said:


> And what kind of music would you guess such bankers and politicians enjoy in their limos?


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## Kevin Pearson (Aug 14, 2009)

millionrainbows said:


> Gosh Kevin, perhaps you had better examine your McDonald's story there a little more closely, because, on the surface of it, *it sounds like you might be substituting the term "criminal types listening to their rap crap" for black or latino urban youths.*
> 
> I feel compelled to further answer this, since I actually installed and ran the wire to such an installation when I worked for Muzak. The location was on a corner, downtown, directly by a bus-stop, at an Eckerd Drug store. There was a covered outdoor area which had lights; these were removed, and speakers were installed (I got a brief 120-volt shock removing the lights). There had been guys with loud "ghetto blasters" which were becoming a nuisance, so Muzak was thought to be the solution, and it worked. *BUT*, it worked only because the Muzak interfered with their music on the blasters, not because it was "uplifting" and "repelled evil." BTW, the guys with the "ghetto blasters" appeared to be black males. Just sayin'.


Draw whatever conclusions you like but all I'll say is that McDonald's was one store I would not have gone into after dark. And I'll say that although there were many black and hispanic youth who hung out at that store there were also as many white urban youth as well. Just sayin'....


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Politicians seem to listen to everything nowadays. Obama likes a lot of pop and rap, I remember reading Bill Clinton likes Lil' Wayne, so I think the stereotype that all politicians and upper classes listen to classical music is pretty out-dated. If you look at how much funding and support goes to local orchestras it kind of supports the idea that the modern corporate bankster and their minions don't really give much of a crap about classical music.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

PetrB said:


> oh, you ....


*PetrB, you're beautiful, baby, let's do lunch...*:lol:


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Like everything else music can be used for good or evil. Sport can be a great force for good as when nations get together to compete. It can also be a force for evil when football hooligans start fighting each other. Similarly science can be a force for good as we see with the improvements in our society through science including reading this blog. However science can be used for colossal evil such as the making of weapons. In such cases it is not the thing itself but human nature. Hence music can be used for totalitarian propaganda such as Beethoven's ninth symphony was during Hitler's time. Stalin also used music for his own vicious purposes. But that was no fault of the music. But we all know that Beethoven's ninth can also be used as a means of bringing people together with its ideals of the brotherhood of mankind. We also know that some musicians such as Barenboim are actually trying to bring young people together through music. In most cases is not the music or its composers which are a force for good or evil but rather human nature.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Kevin Pearson said:


> Draw whatever conclusions you like but all I'll say is that McDonald's was one store I would not have gone into after dark. And I'll say that although there were many black and hispanic youth who hung out at that store there were also as many white urban youth as well. Just sayin'....


Hey, it's OK, Kevin from Denton, we're both Texans, and we both know what the score is. We're all racists, it's how we deal with it that counts, and I think Tavis Smiley would agree with this.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

DavidA said:


> Like everything else music can be used for good or evil. Sport can be a great force for good as when nations get together to compete. It can also be a force for evil when football hooligans start fighting each other. Similarly science can be a force for good as we see with the improvements in our society through science including reading this blog. However science can be used for colossal evil such as the making of weapons. In such cases it is not the thing itself but human nature.


There is a serious flaw in your metaphor. Music, esp. popular musics, and art _naturally reflect culture, social identity, ethnic origins, etc._ while scientific innovations like refrigeration do not. _It may very well be that "rap" music, at least some of it, is designed to instill fear in white people and their institutions. _For example, some of the earliest rap was "Public Enemy," the group which featured "Ice-T" (now a successful actor on _Law and Order_). Their song "Cop Killer" was a malevolent attack on policemen, a historically white institution. *This fact is pretty much ingrained into the DNA of the song, not just "used" in that way. In this case, the song "Cop Killer" is in itself the embodiment of the malevolence which you say is not "in" the music but only "in" people.*


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> There is a serious flaw in your metaphor. Music, esp. popular musics, and art _naturally reflect culture, social identity, ethnic origins, etc._ while scientific innovations like refrigeration do not. _It may very well be that "rap" music, at least some of it, is designed to instill fear in white people and their institutions. _For example, some of the earliest rap was "Public Enemy," the group which featured "Ice-T" (now a successful actor on _Law and Order_). Their song "Cop Killer" was a malevolent attack on policemen, a historically white institution. *This fact is pretty much ingrained into the DNA of the song, not just "used" in that way. In this case, the song "Cop Killer" is in itself the embodiment of the malevolence which you say is not "in" the music but only "in" people.*


There was no flaw in my metaphor - just the way you read it. Of course there is music which is in itself evil as you point out. But that evil comes from human nature. Such music doesn't merely reflect our culture but go some way towards changing our culture for the worst. The 60s were a huge time of culture change in which music played its part in changing the culture. But the music was driven by human beings who in themselves wanted to change the culture. Science of course also plays its part in changing our culture has just the fact that we are communicating over the Internet reflects. But science comes from the minds of human beings. As Oppenheimer said when he designed the atomic bomb, "I am become death the destroyer of worlds."


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## Kevin Pearson (Aug 14, 2009)

I would agree that music itself is not intrinsically evil. The people who write and listen to the music give character to it. I like to think that music, like any field of art, can bring out the highest and noblest within humans, but it also can express what is debase and degenerate. It can also be said that a person could listen to music that is expressively base and degenerate and not be so themselves but I think it's unlikely if they do so habitually. We are what we eat physically, mentally and spiritually. Music can also be taken hostage for purposes not originally intended by the composer and given context it was never meant to have.

Kevin


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

tdc said:


> Politicians seem to listen to everything nowadays. Obama likes a lot of pop and rap, I remember reading Bill Clinton likes Lil' Wayne, so I think the stereotype that all politicians and upper classes listen to classical music is pretty out-dated. If you look at how much funding and support goes to local orchestras it kind of supports the idea that the modern corporate bankster and their minions don't really give much of a crap about classical music.


I don't think the class/music association is outdated, though there does seem to me to be a likely relationship between the fall of the Eurocentric "Establishment" in the 70s and the decline in the cultural cachet of classical music.

These days the culturally elite broadcast our (let's admit who we are here) social station most effectively not by single-minded devotion to the European upper class music of the common practice period. Old-fashioned highbrow is now petty bourgeois (indistinguishable now from what used to be "middle-brow"), roughly equivalent to New Age hippie-ness though a bit more pretentious in the ordinary sense of "pretentious." To be fair to the hippie values, I'd guess they're nearly normative among the Silicon Valley crowd, but that is a much smaller piece of the elite than we usually realize.

One contemporary form of high class must distinguish itself from that by appreciating jazz, blues, folk, rock (especially classic rock), traditional country music, hip-hop, Indian classical music, gamelan, as well as (of course) classical music, including not only Beethoven but Babbit and Glass and Zelenka and Josquin. (Sorry, there was an ambiguity here. "World music" as a crossover or fusion genre should probably be put in with the hippies; the point is to flaunt openness and nonchalance. Manhattan style demands a higher standard of authenticity.) This strategy amounts to a multicultural extension of the former Establishment's values. Under examination both Obama and Clinton would probably be found to have adopted this strategy - following their leaders in Wall Street and Hollywood.

The other contemporary high class cultural strategy rejects the old Establishment's values more explicitly by embracing, most often, working class forms of art and music: new country music, Christian contemporary music, top-40 - and explicitly opposing public funding for "elitist" forms of art. However, I'd guess that this strategy is much less widespread than the first, pretty much confined to defense and fossil fuel barons, most common in the southwest, and is mostly an affectation, for they'd really prefer to take a position closer to the old Establishment's.

This is from a North American perspective of course. I could only guess what is going on in Western or Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Africa, South America, India, Southeast Asia....

In East Asia, however, it appears that the contemporary elite essentially aspires to be WASPS of America's yesteryear. The orchestras and operas are well-attended and well-funded, and every family who aspires to upward mobility will have their kid learn an instrument - and not a daegeum or a pipa or a sax or even a guitar: must be the piano or violin or cello or flute or clarinet, or at least a French horn. Of course they also plan to pack up Brooks Brothers shirts in their Luis Vuitton luggage to fly over to drop their kids off in an Ivy League school.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Kevin Pearson said:


> I like to think that music, like any field of art, can bring out the highest and noblest within humans, but it also can express what is debase and degenerate. It can also be said that a person could listen to music that is expressively base and degenerate and not be so themselves but I think it's unlikely if they do so habitually. We are what we eat physically, mentally and spiritually.


Both Plato and Confucius would agree with you, at least the music part. "I care not who makes the laws of a state, just let me write its songs."


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

DavidA said:


> There was no flaw in my metaphor - just the way you read it. Of course there is music which is in itself evil as you point out. But that evil comes from human nature. Such music doesn't merely reflect our culture but go some way towards changing our culture for the worst.


You are referring to the song "Cop Killer," and agreeing with my assertion that it "embodies a malevolent attitude towards the police." But there is more to it than that; you have allowed me to lead you into thinking "Cop Killer" is _simply evil,_ but there is more to it than that. The song "Cop Killer" can teach us a great lesson, if we are able to look past our immediate, visceral, knee-jerk reaction to it.

The police, esp. in the South, were used after the Civil War to arrest and incarcerate blacks during the "Jim Crow" era, an era which is now finally coming to light. They were arrested on bogus "vagrancy" and "loitering" charges, and placed in prison labor camps.

Also, many black people are, to this day, afraid of dogs, because of the history of their use by police and prison officials in hunting down escaped prisoners from these camps, as well as their use in the 1960's civil rights uprising, and urban riots.

*So, is it any wonder that "Cop Killer" exists? As such, let us not disparage it, but let us learn from it. Let us learn that perhaps it is WE, the "righteous," who are, in reality, EVIL.*


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> You are referring to the song "Cop Killer," and agreeing with my assertion that it "embodies a malevolent attitude towards the police." But there is more to it than that; you have allowed me to lead you into thinking "Cop Killer" is _simply evil,_ but there is more to it than that. The song "Cop Killer" can teach us a great lesson, if we are able to look past our immediate, visceral, knee-jerk reaction to it.
> 
> The police, esp. in the South, were used after the Civil War to arrest and incarcerate blacks during the "Jim Crow" era, an era which is now finally coming to light. They were arrested on bogus "vagrancy" and "loitering" charges, and placed in prison labor camps.
> 
> ...


I was not in general referring to the song cop killer as I haven't the faintest idea as to what it is having never heard it. My point was that is human beings who use music for evil or good. Human beings may also write music which is intrinsically evil. But the evil is not coming from the music itself it is coming from human beings.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> You are referring to the song "Cop Killer," and agreeing with my assertion that it "embodies a malevolent attitude towards the police." But there is more to it than that; you have allowed me to lead you into thinking "Cop Killer" is _simply evil,_ but there is more to it than that. The song "Cop Killer" can teach us a great lesson, if we are able to look past our immediate, visceral, knee-jerk reaction to it.
> 
> The police, esp. in the South, were used after the Civil War to arrest and incarcerate blacks during the "Jim Crow" era, an era which is now finally coming to light. They were arrested on bogus "vagrancy" and "loitering" charges, and placed in prison labor camps.
> 
> ...


Evil or not, there's always going to be either some order or complete disorder. Wherever there's order, whatever racial or religious or otherwise forms it takes, it's going to have to be enforced at some point and in some way; and the forces of both order and of disorder are going to have cultural expression. It's perfectly possible - and might even have happened somewhere or other, maybe in Eastern Europe under communism - for classical music to be on the side of the disorder.

The great source of modernity's stability is that we can commodify disorder, and thus assimilate it. As you say, Ice-T is now on _Law and Order_; Dr. Dre is on Forbes' list. Much better result for almost everyone involved (including the banks and cops) than if the two were simply two more residents of our gigantic prison system (though the prison industry is not among the winners). It'd be the same story with different names if you were a disfranchised Southern white ******* or a former labor activist in South Korea. Fortunately more of the world is learning tricks like these, and we're blowing each other up a little less often.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> The police, esp. in the South, were used after the Civil War to arrest and incarcerate blacks during the "Jim Crow" era, an era which is now finally coming to light. They were arrested on bogus "vagrancy" and "loitering" charges, and placed in prison labor camps.
> 
> Also, many black people are, to this day, afraid of dogs, because of the history of their use by police and prison officials in hunting down escaped prisoners from these camps, as well as their use in the 1960's civil rights uprising, and urban riots.
> 
> *So, is it any wonder that "Cop Killer" exists? As such, let us not disparage it, but let us learn from it. Let us learn that perhaps it is WE, the "righteous," who are, in reality, EVIL.*


OMG authentic 1960s guilt-wallowing! And here I thought we lived in a time where people were supposed to be responsible for their own behavior -- guess I was wrong. Well, as far as I can tell my ancestors never owned slaves and didn't turn the dogs on anyone. So I'll leave you to pay reparations. Hope your bank account is fat.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

When you say: " Fortunately more of the world is learning tricks like these, and we're blowing each other up a little less often." Are you really say that we haven't noticed the bloodbath of the 20th century with the slaughter of millions? Or what is going on in too many places of the world today?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

DavidA said:


> When you say: " Fortunately more of the world is learning tricks like these, and we're blowing each other up a little less often." Are you really say that we haven't noticed the bloodbath of the 20th century with the slaughter of millions? Or what is going on in too many places of the world today?


David, you might enjoy the book "The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined." A very good and well-researched case that violence of all types (others, children, women, animals) has declined dramatically over the last few hundred years. Yes, we have some 20th century spikes. The author believes these are passing, but in an increasingly crowded world I'm not so sure.

http://www.amazon.com/Better-Angels...=1-1&keywords=the+better+angels+of+our+nature


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

DavidA said:


> When you say: " Fortunately more of the world is learning tricks like these, and we're blowing each other up a little less often." Are you really say that we haven't noticed the bloodbath of the 20th century with the slaughter of millions? Or what is going on in too many places of the world today?


KenOC's response is almost exactly what mine would be. (Though I'd guess the world is on its way to being less crowded as women even in the poorest countries are getting more educated and more opportunities.) I am persuaded by almost everything Pinker writes, in that book or in any other. Were I Anne of Green Gables, I would deem him a kindred spirit indeed. Only Paul Krugman and Michael Shermer are as kindred to me; of course if Sagan were still among the living, he'd be the kindredest. One thing they all have in common is that they're much smarter than I am.

I would add to KenOC's response that I would not be in the least surprised by a full on nuclear war in my lifetime that would make WWII look like a civilized dispute. Of course I hope it doesn't happen, and as long as it doesn't, then the decline in violence theory seems to be accurate and has a chance of continuing to be.

Given that we've discovered such abundant new sources of oil and that alternative energy technologies and energy efficient technologies look so promising (to me), and given the ideological rejection of terrorism by the overwhelming majority of Muslims in the world, and finally given the improvement in the male/female birth ratios in East Asia, what had seemed to me to be the most likely causes of such a war have disappeared, or at least removed themselves into the distant future. The next issue is whether China can stabilize itself politically, and if that goes well then the issue is how it does so and what influences its political techniques will have on our own: we might have more to fear from our own governments than from others', after all.

I wanted to reply to you and to acknowledge KenOC's point, but this, I fear is too far off topic and we'd probably move to the "Politically Speaking" group if you want to continue it. (I wouldn't mind at all!)

Just to bring it back to the OP - the elegant opportunism of the segue pleases me - whether we face such wars or oppressions or emerge into an even more peaceful and stable world, I don't think anyone listening to classical music or not listening to classical music is going to prove an important factor. But come ever greater freedom or the rebirth of serfdom, I will love the music while I can!


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## Rapide (Oct 11, 2011)

science said:


> KenOC's response is almost exactly what mine would be. (Though I'd guess the world is on its way to being less crowded as women even in the poorest countries are getting more educated and more opportunities.) I am persuaded by almost everything Pinker writes, in that book or in any other. Were I Anne of Green Gables, I would deem him a kindred spirit indeed. Only Paul Krugman and Michael Shermer are as kindred to me; of course if Sagan were still among the living, he'd be the kindredest. One thing they all have in common is that they're much smarter than I am.
> 
> I would add to KenOC's response that I would not be in the least surprised by a full on nuclear war in my lifetime that would make WWII look like a civilized dispute. Of course I hope it doesn't happen, and as long as it doesn't, then the decline in violence theory seems to be accurate and has a chance of continuing to be.
> 
> ...


Lots of very, very high level overview of the world ...

I would be more concerned about whether my young children come back from school safely without getting shot dead like what happened in America yesterday (and the insane laws about guns ownership, that's why American children are paying for it with their lifes). Luckily classical music is not to be blamed in this instance.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

KenOC said:


> David, you might enjoy the book "The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined." A very good and well-researched case that violence of all types (others, children, women, animals) has declined dramatically over the last few hundred years. Yes, we have some 20th century spikes. The author believes these are passing, but in an increasingly crowded world I'm not so sure.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/Better-Angels...=1-1&keywords=the+better+angels+of+our+nature


I have not read Pinker's book and so I cannot comment on the case that he makes. I would point out that the carnage we have seen in the 20th century does not amount to 'some spikes' but rather a whole Everest of slaughter. Interestingly at the beginning of the 20th century certain writers like Bertrand Russell were predicting that science was leaders into a golden age. Sadly it is not worked out that way. The problem is that human nature remains the same no matter how advanced our knowledge. But as someone has said this discussion is taking us beyond the remit of this particular thread.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

DavidA said:


> I was not in general referring to the song cop killer as I haven't the faintest idea as to what it is having never heard it. My point was that is human beings who use music for evil or good. Human beings may also write music which is intrinsically evil. But the evil is not coming from the music itself it is coming from human beings.


_You don't need to hear the song *"Cop Killer" *to get my point: usually, the "righteous" CM fans who accuse other people & music of being or invoking "evil" need to look at their own shadow first._



DavidA said:


> But the evil is not coming from the music itself it is coming from human beings.


*Music is not an "object" like you say it is, but a "mapping of experience" between artist (represented by his art) and viewer.*

You need to think about this some more. _Art, including music, is a two-way symbolic communication language. It has agreed-upon general meanings and universal meanings common to all humans. *These meanings MUST be transmitted via the art itself; they are intrinsic to its form and manifestation.* _ If it has lyrics, that makes it even more obviously explicit.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Rapide said:


> I would be more concerned about whether my young children come back from school safely without getting shot dead like what happened in America yesterday...


I haven't looked at the numbers, but your young children probably have a FAR higher probability of being struck by a car walking to or from school, or dying in a school bus accident. The nature and availability of "news" has a tremendous effect on how we perceive things. I read of one study that found an almost exact correlation between fear of walking the streets at night and hours of TV watched each day...


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

KenOC said:


> OMG authentic 1960s guilt-wallowing! And here I thought we lived in a time where people were supposed to be responsible for their own behavior -- guess I was wrong. Well, as far as I can tell my ancestors never owned slaves and didn't turn the dogs on anyone. So I'll leave you to pay reparations. Hope your bank account is fat.


We, as citizens, _should_ feel guilty, and at least acknowledge that our society has been shaped by its sordid past of slavery. Why is this "Jim Crow Southern Prison Camp" history just now coming to light (on the NY Times bestseller list)?

We all, as responsible citizens, need to listen to what Obama said, paraphrase: "We are never 'self-made;' if we are successful, we need to acknowledge our debt to other people."

Of course, there are many right-wingers who disagree with everything this President has ever said, or stood for.

Instead of monetary reparation, I think a better solution would be to actually get down on your knees to every African-American you meet, and apologize, using these words:

*"I did not actually own slaves, but America has a history of doing so; so, as an American citizen, I would like to apologize to you and to every African American I meet. I am truly sorry for what my fellow Americans did to your people for so many years, and I ask for your forgiveness."
*
How's that?


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> _You don't need to hear the song *"Cop Killer" *to get my point: usually, the "righteous" CM fans who accuse other people & music of being or invoking "evil" need to look at their own shadow first._


I have just looked up the lyrics for "Cop Killer".  Well, classical music may or may not move an individual to become a better person, but there is no way *that* sort of stuff will do it.

Isn't there enough violence in the world already, that it must also be promoted with that sort of rubbish?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

SiegendesLicht said:


> I have just looked up the lyrics for "Cop Killer".  Well, classical music may or may not move an individual to become a better person, but there is no way *that* sort of stuff will do it.
> 
> Isn't there enough violence in the world already, that it must also be promoted with that sort of rubbish?


You missed the point entirely. The song itself is not "violent." Violence is not "in" the song, it's just a song. So, it appears that you actually think music can cause violence. That means you think that Wagner's music promotes violence as well. Who would have guessed it, especially from a "SiegendesLicht."


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## lukecubed (Nov 27, 2011)

SiegendesLicht said:


> Isn't there enough violence in the world already, that it must also be promoted with that sort of rubbish?


I hate to play the spoiler, but what are you advocating? Censorship? Who draws the line and where? Do young black men not have a right to feel intense anger at both their marginalization in American society and they way they perceive the police force to be one of the most complicit institutions in that marginalization and repression? If something is truly and hatefully wrong, is violent resistance an invalid response to it? (And I am not saying that it is a valid response--just raising the question. I don't really know the answer.)

I should add that I am no fan of that song or Ice-T or rap in general--but I do like some, including some with inflammatory and violent lyrics (Public Enemy, NWA, Wu-Tang Clan). It should also be remembered that hip-hop is about storytelling and in that sense is not much different than country or folk music, which often has lyrics detailing ghastly violence, depravity, and suffering, yet no one seems to think murder ballads are worthy of censorship and condemnation. Sometimes to explore something you have to adopt its POV, which isn't the same thing as promoting it.

Hell, Wagner's ring cycle draws directly on Icelandic and Germanic stories that feature rape, murder, incest, and deal with the wholesale murder of groups of people. Is Viking myth to blame for Anders Behring Brevik? Or is it his beloved Christian Bible, which of course has chapters advocating genocide, genital mutilation, women as property, the displacement and destruction of entire ethnic groups, treating the natural world like a possession, etc. Violence is part of the world and artists will always choose to confront it. You may not like the music or their interpretations of the issue, but singling out stuff like that song is hilariously selective, IMO.

/rant


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

lukecubed said:


> I hate to play the spoiler, but what are you advocating? Censorship? Who draws the line and where? Do young black men not have a right to feel intense anger at both their marginalization in American society and they way they perceive the police force to be one of the most complicit institutions in that marginalization and repression? If something is truly and hatefully wrong, is violent resistance an invalid response to it? (And I am not saying that it is a valid response--just raising the question. I don't really know the answer.)
> 
> I should add that I am no fan of that song or Ice-T or rap in general--but I do like some, including some with inflammatory and violent lyrics (Public Enemy, NWA, Wu-Tang Clan). It should also be remembered that hip-hop is about storytelling and in that sense is not much different than country or folk music, which often has lyrics detailing ghastly violence, depravity, and suffering, yet no one seems to think murder ballads are worthy of censorship and condemnation. Sometimes to explore something you have to adopt its POV, which isn't the same thing as promoting it.
> 
> ...


That's right, my point exactly! To prove my point even further, I'm going to put out a song with lyrics that say "FIRE! FIRE! THIS BUILDING'S ON FIRE!!"

Uh-oh...have I opened a Pandora's box here? Where do we draw the line, if there is one?

If it were a case of "hate music" towards blacks, lukecubed might not agree with me.

Who, or what, determines if expressions of anger, or hate, are justified? New laws are already in place; a recording of a song could be considered a form of "speech." 
Are only young black men justified in expressing anger? Nobody here knows, nor would they tolerate or justify a complete freedom of expression.


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## Guest (Dec 15, 2012)

PetrB said:


> This whole notion of improving and ennoblement via art came about as a vogue in the mid-late 1800's


Sorry, perhaps someone's already picked this up (but I can't be bothered to go back through all 9 pages) but this idea is much older than the 1800s. It was certainly alive and well during the Renaissance and I'm sure the Ancient Greeks were quite keen on the improving qualities of the arts too.


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## lukecubed (Nov 27, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> If it were a case of "hate music" towards blacks, lukecubed might not agree with me.


No I will never advocate censorship. There is tons of white supremacist rock and I do not listen to it but I would defend its right to exist. I love alot of black metal but stay the heck away from the Nazi stuff. But I would defend that stuff's right to exist to. Wagner's opinions about people like Mendelssohn and Hanslick were abhorrent and I am not at all convinced that his music is utterly separate from his deplorable opinions about Germanness and Jewishness and so forth, but I love much of his music and would of course defend its right to exist. The only form of "censorship" I would ever advocate is when the actual process of making the art harms someone or something.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

DavidA said:


> When you say: " Fortunately more of the world is learning tricks like these, and we're blowing each other up a little less often." Are you really say that we haven't noticed the bloodbath of the 20th century with the slaughter of millions? Or what is going on in too many places of the world today?


I'm sure those historic occurrences were all, in real time, underscored with Wagner, and 'Cop Killer.' Indeed, they were each the forerunner catalyst for the recent mass shooting in the classrooms of a primary school school in the eastern U.S.

I hold Wagner and Iced Tea liable for that event, and think we should file a class-action suit conjointly against the Wagner estate and Iced Tea.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

I would not advocate censorship either, rather "voting with our credit cards" and simply not purchasing such stuff. Actually I listen to some black metal too (mostly German nature-/pagan-, not satanism- and not Nazi-themed) and other styles of metal where the lyrics can be quite violent, but their violence is more in a historical or fictional context and none of them advocate going out and killing the police. The actions of Varg Vikernes (church burning and murder) are as deplorable for me as the actions of those who are inspired by gangsta rap to commit real violent acts.



lukecubed said:


> *Do young black men not have a right to feel intense anger* at both their marginalization in American society and they way they perceive the police force to be one of the most complicit institutions in that marginalization and repression? *If something is truly and hatefully wrong, is violent resistance an invalid response to it?* (And I am not saying that it is a valid response--just raising the question. I don't really know the answer.)


So, it seems like you are implying that such music, being an expression of intense anger does promote violent action.

Anyway, this thread is about classical music. Where in classical music are there operas or Lieder with texts which directly advocate violence and where pretty much every second word is an f-word?

And yes, I admit I am biased against rap. It's horrible music, mostly no less horrible lyrics plus there are some people who will make you out to be a racist if you admit not liking it. Is that so wrong? I'd rather go listen to Richard Strauss some more.


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## lukecubed (Nov 27, 2011)

^It sounds like we like alot of the same black metal, probably. Varg's actions were deplorable--but I do like his music. (except for that latest album--just terrible!)

As for classical music promoting violence--I dunno, the "march" is primarily a military act so... Beethoven dedicated the 'Eroica' to Napoleon before he didn't, Shosty composed lots of patriotic music for the Great Patriotic War, etc. I'm much more ignorant when it comes to opera so I can't speak with any authority there, but I have no doubt there are many in which a violent or military outcome is regarded as a good or even the best one, where victors and conquerors are depicted as heroic, etc. No?


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## Hayze (Jul 4, 2012)

lukecubed said:


> No I will never advocate censorship. There is tons of white supremacist rock and I do not listen to it but I would defend its right to exist. I love alot of black metal but stay the heck away from the Nazi stuff. But I would defend that stuff's right to exist to.


I have to disagree with this point. How is a Nazi song different from a Nazi essay or speech? How is it different from someone voicing their Nazi opinions out in public, even if no physical action is taken? I'm all for freedom of expression, but censorship definitely has its place among other protective laws.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> So, it appears that you actually think music can cause violence.


Not directly, but in some cases it can incite people to it.



> That means you think that Wagner's music promotes violence as well.


There is a big difference between Wagner and the music in question.



> Who would have guessed it, especially from a "SiegendesLicht."


What's wrong with my handle now?


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## cwarchc (Apr 28, 2012)

The Op is interesting and thought provoking
Sid you have to acknowledge that this could/would provoke controversial/inflammatory responses
It makes an interesting philosophical discussion
BUT passions and beliefs intrude 
I would love to get involved in a political discussion on this.


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## lukecubed (Nov 27, 2011)

Hayze said:


> I have to disagree with this point. How is a Nazi song different from a Nazi essay or speech? How is it different from someone voicing their Nazi opinions out in public, even if no physical action is taken?


It is no different; I would absolutely defend the right of a racist or Nazi to express his or her opinion in an essay or speech, though I would disagree with that opinion. A free society has no business regulating the thoughts and expressions of others. The same people who would seek to prevent a racist from speaking his or her mind might be back next year to complain about something you said. I would much rather live in a society that allows all, even those with deplorable opinions, to speak their minds, than one which seeks to define and regulate thought crimes and improper speech.

A great pianist--Fazil Say--is currently on trial in his home country for the "crime" of expressing an unsanctioned opinion about a religion. And this in a nation that aspires to be viewed as part of the progressive west. I find this outrageous, but that's me...


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## Hayze (Jul 4, 2012)

lukecubed said:


> It is no different; I would absolutely defend the right of a racist or Nazi to express his or her opinion in an essay or speech, though I would disagree with that opinion. A free society has no business regulating the thoughts and expressions of others. The same people who would seek to prevent a racist from speaking his or her mind might be back next year to complain about something you said. I would much rather live in a society that allows all, even those with deplorable opinions, to speak their minds, than one which seeks to define and regulate thought crimes and improper speech.
> 
> A great pianist--Fazil Say--is currently on trial in his home country for the "crime" of expressing an unsanctioned opinion about a religion. And this in a nation that aspires to be viewed as part of the progressive west. I find this outrageous, but that's me...


There's a difference between expressing your opinion, different and controversial as it may be, and calling out to kill an entire race of human beings. So yes, the latter should be disallowed.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Hayze said:


> There's a difference between expressing your opinion, different and controversial as it may be, and calling out to kill an entire race of human beings. So yes, the latter should be disallowed.


Slippery slope there. It's a short step from outlawing "hate speech" to including in that definition "speech promoting hatred of our beloved leader."


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## lukecubed (Nov 27, 2011)

So--how about a guy like Pentti Linkola? He's an environmental philosopher who argues for a radical reduction in human numbers and has expressed admiration for policies that others might consider genocidal. He's not racially motivated, but still--should he be censored? Or is in only in cases of racial/ethnic opinions?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentti_Linkola


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Slippery slope there. It's a short step from outlawing "hate speech" to including in that definition "speech promoting hatred of our beloved leader."


It's _*not*_ such a slippery slope from "hatred of an entire race of human beings" to identifying that hatred with "our leader," unless _*that*_ is also up for debate.

Everybody here should be cognizant of the nature of speech. It is a "class of action:"

1. Intent
2. Speech (or printing, writing, etc)
3. Action

So, you can see that "speech" is in the grey area between "intent" (which can be hidden) and "action" (the actual act of doing something).

That's why speech which "incites action" is discouraged. Speech is an indicator of possible action. This is becoming more "common sense" in today's violent world.

_*Context, context, context.*_ Would the person who "supports the free speech of Nazis" also support "a student who says he is going to go on a shooting rampage"? I hope not, and if he were a teacher, he'd be told the opposite. Use some common sense, people.

Similarly, I have "freedom of speech," but I would not dare tell the manager at my job that I think (s)he's "a dehumanizing, micro-managing control freak" unless I was willing to suffer the consequences.

"Free speech" is becoming less important nowadays. Who cares? If it's "counter-productive" to the new American corporate agenda, it won't be allowed.

*"You have the right to remain silent."* That's more important than "free speech."


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> So, you can see that "speech" is in the grey area between "intent" (which can be hidden) and "action" (the actual act of doing something).That's why speech which "incites action" is discouraged.


Uh, like asking your kid to clean up his room, ordering something by phone, calling a tow truck, etc. etc. etc.?

Most speech that isn't totally idle is intended to "incite action" and isn't discouraged last time I checked. We couldn't even suggest listening to a piece of music! :lol:


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

millionrainbows said:


> That's why speech which "incites action" is discouraged. Speech is an indicator of possible action. This is becoming more "common sense" in today's violent world.
> 
> Would the person who "supports the free speech of Nazis" also support "a student who says he is going to go on a shooting rampage"? I hope not, and if he were a teacher, he'd be told the opposite. Use some common sense, people.


What about gangsta rap then? According to you it should be discouraged too, since songs like "Cop Killer" call to violence in the most straightforward terms possible.

To be honest, I am not sure about my own position on "total freedom of speech". European countries do not seem to have lost a lot with banning "Mein Kampf" and stuff like this. But in this case there has to be fairness. Either white supremacist rock AND gangsta rap get banned or neither of them.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

What about separating 'words / text' from absolute music? Every citation in this thread about 'music being political,' whatever the genre, is fundamentally about a Text Set To Music.... which would put all such discussion at least at the far border's edge of 'music.' (pshaw....)

Very little 'absolute' has ever been banned, one glaring exception Mao's "Cultural Revolution" in China, all western music, classical 'absolute' or other, having been banned.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

KenOC said:


> Uh, like asking your kid to clean up his room, ordering something by phone, calling a tow truck, etc. etc. etc.?
> 
> Most speech that isn't totally idle is intended to "incite action" and isn't discouraged last time I checked. We couldn't even suggest listening to a piece of music! :lol:


As I said, "Context, context, context."

Plus, you must be prepared to suffer the consequences of speech: if you order a pizza and don't pay for it, if you threaten someone, if you slander someone; all of these forms of speech have consequences, so "freedom of speech" is not absolute.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

SiegendesLicht said:


> What about gangsta rap then? According to you it should be discouraged too, since songs like "Cop Killer" call to violence in the most straightforward terms possible.
> 
> To be honest, I am not sure about my own position on "total freedom of speech". European countries do not seem to have lost a lot with banning "Mein Kampf" and stuff like this. But in this case there has to be fairness. Either white supremacist rock AND gangsta rap get banned or neither of them.


I'm sure that if I were a cop, I'd have reservations about a song which advocates this.

I'm just saying that the stated opinions of members here concerning "rap" music, must be defined more clearly in order for me to let them pass. Otherwise, these types of statements will ring of racism. This is true of any music.

Notice what an effective "equalizer" the mention of white-supremacist music is. That's the sort of thing we must consider before making off-the wall statements about "rap."


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

PetrB said:


> I hold Wagner and *Iced Tea* liable for that event, and think we should file a class-action suit conjointly against the Wagner estate and *Iced Tea.*


Ha ha! Hilarois!

BTW, welcome to the "Ten Pagers" club.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> Plus, you must be prepared to suffer the consequences of speech: if you order a pizza and don't pay for it, if you threaten someone, if you slander someone; all of these forms of speech have consequences, so "freedom of speech" is not absolute.


Not paying for a pizza isn't "speech," simply theft. The other examples are provided for in law. There is also a very broad area of prohibited speech within the conspiracy laws. No, freedom of speech isn't absolute. But speech "inciting action" is required simply to live.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

With the internet it's pretty much impossible to ban anything that can be shared electronically anyway.
Your C.O.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Kevin Pearson said:


> This reminds me of when I was younger in the 90s and worked in the downtown area of Dallas, TX and in the heart of it was a McDonald's. For whatever reason its location attracted hooligans and thugs, and there were many incidents of criminal activity from drug use, and dealing, to outright murders on the property. One day the manager of the store came up with a brilliant idea to start playing "classical" music 24/7 in the store and through the outdoor speakers. Well, guess what happened? All of a sudden the criminal element stopped patronizing his store and even though there was an initial decline in sales his sales eventually rose when normal/moral and law abiding citizens discovered it was now safe to eat there. As a result many other downtown establishments started playing classical music and guess what? Downtown crime dropped. Did it change the nature of the criminals? Probably not at all but when they couldn't hang and listen to their rap crap all day they went elsewhere and the downtown area was better for it.
> 
> I can say with certainty that in my life I have found people who listen to classical music much more agreeable company than other types of music listeners and less likely to be of the criminal types. I have been to biker rallys and the atmosphere with the hard rock and WWF feel makes me uncomfortable and it is real and tangible. That's not to say that all bikers are bad immoral people but the attitude and atmosphere is closer to a prison lifestyle than classical music will ever be. I've also been at rap concerts and feared for my life so music does have something to do with morality. It may not shape it but quite often the kind of music a person listens to can identify where their morality lies.
> 
> Kevin


My impression of this kind of use of classical music is that its good music to move people on. It was used in our main train station here for a while, but now its stopped. Maybe it was a trial. Homeless congregate there. Another case was a local council playing Barry Manilow and Frank Sinatra (crooners) in parking lots where youth would congregate and do burn outs with their cars at night. It isn't classical but similar to what you're saying, it worked, it stopped the 'hooning.'

Of course this has a darker side. The Nazis played classical music on speakers to 'greet' arrivals at Auschwitz and other death camps. I have read of the music of Beethoven and J. Strauss (whose family was ironically of Jewish ancestry) being played in this way. Its to calm people and move them on, in that case to suffering and death.

In my school, we had a large yard/playground, and every time before we went back to class (after lunch, or in the morning), before school they played marching music on speakers. & we marched off in 'orderly fashion' to class.

I can go on. Of course as people have suggested, its not the music itself, its how you use it. In other words context, both historical and what its being used for, by whom, for what.

It does not suggest to me any guiding principal about all this. Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy' is a piece originally done in the context of the Enlightenment. In the 20th century, it was used by the Nazis, when the Berlin wall came down, Lenny did a concert under the Brandenburg Gate, he changed the words to 'Ode to Freedom.' Today, it is the official anthem of the European Union. Same music, different uses.

All I'm arguing now is for people not to negate the importance of history. Of just being aware of it for a start. & I'd say all members here are knowledgeable about music, so I'm trying to link it up to history, build a context or provenance of the music we know and love.

Georg Solti, the conductor, said that he thought Central-East Europe was the most anti Semitic place he knew. Of course he was a Jew from Hungary, most of his family killed in the Holocaust. He may have had these questions and struggles in his mind as he conducted the music that was used to oppress his people by the Nazis. In any case, he worked in Vienna and made great recordings there, but in saying that about the cutlure of the place he was able to separate what he valued from his assessment of it as being not all rosy. So its what I'm saying, there is no shame in admitting these things. None at all.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Re what science said in these two posts:
http://www.talkclassical.com/22784-classical-music-its-so-7.html#post393007
http://www.talkclassical.com/22784-classical-music-its-so-8.html#post393039

Yes, there are differences between what elites listen to now. Of course there are different elites as you suggest. In Australia, not many politicians for example profess a big interest in classical music. We had some earlier Prime Ministers who did, but it was in the 1990's and earlier. We don't have such a long history of this after all.

Interesting how you talk of the elites of Asia being like WASP wannabes (WASP is a White Anglo Saxon Person, for those unfamiliar with this term). Its like the Hungarian and Czech elites being Habsburg wannabes, aping the Austrian culture. Or the Russians under Tsarism, aping the French (eg. importing ballet). Maybe same as Australia and America before, we had this 'cultural cringe' always comparing our arts to that of Europe, and developing this inferiority complex. Of course in recent times this has changed. Yet on this forum, I do remember reading American members saying that none of their composers are as great as those of Europe's. I think that its an assessment that's clearly misguided, at least in terms of 20th century music, when the USA produced a good number of great composers.

So the grass is greener on the other side, maybe? & the roses smell better too?...


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

KenOC said:


> *Not paying for a pizza isn't "speech," simply theft. The other examples are provided for in law. There is also a very broad area of prohibited speech within the conspiracy laws. No, freedom of speech isn't absolute. But speech "inciting action" is required simply to live.*




No, I mean ordering a pizza (by phone, etc.), then refusing it. That would be "theft of services," but the crime was conveyed verbally, so in court this would be a factor.

Just because slander and threats have specific laws simply reinforces my argument; freedom of speech is not, cannot be, and never was "absolute."

_*I question your interpretation of the term "incite," usually applied to riots or "stirred-up" action, exhorting people, instigating evil acts, etc. The majority of people with common sense will agree with me, probably 99% at least. *_


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

millionrainbows said:


> _*The majority of people with common sense will agree with me, probably 99% at least. *_


I'm sure that right-minded people everywhere will back you up 100%. But geez, can you fix that font???


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

KenOC said:


> I'm sure that right-minded people everywhere will back you up 100%. But geez, can you fix that font???


No, not the enlarged font in #151. Sorry. If that shrinks, I'll consider it.


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## Ralfy (Jul 19, 2010)

The reference to McDonald's reminds me of this article:

"Weaponizing Mozart"

http://reason.com/archives/2010/02/24/weoponizing-mozart

as well as books like _Clockwork Orange_ and television programs like _Playing for Time_. Another event involving McDonald's is mentioned here:

"McDonald's plays classicial music to calm down unruly youngsters in Newport"

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mcdonalds-plays-classicial-music-to-calm-144672

But in other cases leads to opposite results:

"Co-op's attempts to drive Cove teens away with classical music backfires"

http://www.manchestercamerata.co.uk...ove-teens-away-with-classical-music-backfires

There are, of course, various ways to use not only music or sound to generate particular behavior:

"Teens and young adults aren't mosquitoes"

http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/7008/teens-and-young-adults-arent-mosquitoes/

if not through music therapy and other programs, but none of these exactly reveal show how music, or classical music, makes one "better".

As for Pinker, his views should probably be re-assessed, as I explained in another thread months ago.


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