# Time to Turn the Music Off



## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

An enlightening read...

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34801885


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

Scruton is a colossal moron: this fella is a pseudo-intellectual, conservative hack (mere reactionary). He will be happily forgotten in history. I wouldn't even let him tie my shoe, let alone take his advice on culture.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Klassic said:


> Scruton is a colossal moron: this fella is a pseudo-intellectual, conservative hack (mere reactionary). He will be happily forgotten in history. I wouldn't even let him tie my shoe, let alone take his advice on culture.


Is your opinion based on reading a variety of his essays or on this one?

I thought this particular one has some positive points. His statement, "I suspect that the increasing inarticulateness of the young, their inability to complete their sentences, to find telling phrases or images, or to say anything at all without calling upon the word "like" to help them out, has something to do with the fact that their ears are constantly stuffed with cotton wool" is a bit much, but teaching music performance almost certainly affects one's musical sensitivity in a positive way.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

If the Leonard Bernstein estate isn't getting royalties for that piece, they should sue. https://books.google.com/books?id=iUcyva1FEz4C&pg=PA19#v=onepage&q&f=false


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

If you don't want the crappy music to follow you everywhere you go or shop, don't do business with corporate/chain retailers. Patronize local businesses and restaurants.

This guy Scruton is a bit of a snob. There is good pop music, and you don't have to listen to Brahms or Beethoven to have a deep musical experience.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

The local restaurant here likes Sinatra. I should itemize how much business they've lost from occasions when I decided I just wasn't up to it.


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## Iean (Nov 17, 2015)

starthrower said:


> If you don't want the crappy music to follow you everywhere you go or shop, don't do business with corporate/chain retailers. Patronize local businesses and restaurants.
> 
> This guy Scruton is a bit of a snob. *There is good pop music, and you don't have to listen to Brahms or Beethoven to have a deep musical experience*.


Amen! Why do people who obviously listens to very few pop music always equate pop music to garbage? In as much as there are definitely bad pop records, there are also thousands of horrible classical music:angel:


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## D Smith (Sep 13, 2014)

starthrower said:


> If you don't want the crappy music to follow you everywhere you go or shop, don't do business with corporate/chain retailers. Patronize local businesses and restaurants.
> 
> This guy Scruton is a bit of a snob. There is good pop music, and you don't have to listen to Brahms or Beethoven to have a deep musical experience.


I agree with this 100%. Avoiding muzak and obnoxious tunes is not that hard. His larger point of the importance of music education is of course quite true and I wish every kid had the opportunity to learn music and the chance to perform. However to blame a generation's inarticulateness on iPods and boy bands was one of the funniest things I've read in a long time. Too bad the essay was not meant to be satirical.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

There are some compelling points, but it seems to be more of a traditionalist mentality afraid of the disintegration of its ideologies.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

This was not as interesting as the title promised. I thought it was going to be about the dangers of having music of all kinds available for listening all the time - i.e., I can listen to Bach on my way to work every day. What does this do to our experience of music? I'm not sure it's all positive.

Complaining about Muzak is hardly original or insightful.


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## GKC (Jun 2, 2011)

Anybody who is against the current fashion (whatever form it may take) is always considered a snob. And what is the current fashion will be "traditional" and "reactionary" in the not-too-distant future. The only people who will not be considered such are people who are constantly changing their opinions.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

My slant on Scruton's essay is that I should not be forced by rude people to be assaulted by their music, from boom boxes, Muzak, or, much worse, cars fitted with monster speakers that blast ear-crushing bass for miles in all directions. That applies to Lady Gaga, Gangsta Rap, or Bach (this is rare). The iPod represented a welcome step forward from the boom box, in that people were into their music privately, and thus freed me from the duty of condemning their taste as well as their manners. But, unlike his just criticisms of pictorial arts, his strictures concerning pop music are without merit. Without much merit, anyway.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Klassic said:


> Scruton is a colossal moron: this fella is a pseudo-intellectual, conservative hack (mere reactionary). He will be happily forgotten in history. I wouldn't even let him tie my shoe, let alone take his advice on culture.


This is a fabulous piece of critical analysis.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

I never turn my music off, fore no one


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## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

========== 23:00 pm ==========


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

I can appreciate music if and only if there is silence before and after.
In my listening experience, that silence is a (or even the) main feature of music.

Besides Muzak, I do not understand those music "lovers" who live 24/7 exposed to the music they play.


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

Wow, that author's style of writing is irritating. 

Nothing wrong with advocating music education and appreciation; anyone will benefit from that. And I don't mean that they would then reject pop music, but they would then become interested in and come to appreciate (hopefully) music they would've otherwise not known or cared about. But his constant bashing of pop music doesn't help his case. I like "Poker Face" as well as the music of Messiaen. I wouldn't pretend that they are equal, but I can appreciate them for different reasons. So that to me just comes off as another hackneyed "kids these days" rant that frankly, I'm sick to death of hearing.


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

^^^ Well, this article is not about bashing pop music imo, at least not only...


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

It's a religious thing. Votaries used to chant throughout the day as an act of devotion to the gods. We listen to our iPods all day as an act of devotion to the Jobs.


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

GioCar said:


> ^^^ Well, this article is not about bashing pop music imo, at least not only...


He has something negative to say about popular music in almost every paragraph, so it seems pretty central to the case he's making. If he were just speaking of being oversaturated with music and not actually taking time and focus to appreciate it, sure, I could see that as valid, but he isn't just saying that. There's a specific anti-pop undercurrent through the whole article.

The other points he was making didn't elude me, as I said, I agree with encouraging music appreciation and education. But the pop-bashing didn't elude me either.

It's just frustrating to me, because the same point can be made without demonizing popular music. It's the kind of thing that causes a valid point about musical education to be obscured in accusations of snobbery.


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

and I agree on many points mentioned in this article and I have to say I liked it. Am I a snob? I don't care....
_"music is not a blanket with which to shut out communication, but a form of communication in itself"
"These are no longer social events, but experiments in endurance, as you shout at each other over the deadly noise."_
This guy is not exaggerating , in some places it's exactly as he describes, and not just about pop music, but what disturbs me more is when classical music is played at restaurants or at some social events as a background music....why classical music should serve as an accompaniment? It's definitely not for listening since people come to eat , to talk ,to socialize, etc it's hard to believe that people come to a restaurant to listen to some classical music   or may be for some it's really the only place where they are exposed to classical music ??? ( he doesn't speak about it in the article, he is just en contra pop music tendencies)

and the most important point of the article is that instead of noise ban we have a silence ban in modern society....unfortunately....people became so completely "musical" where there is no room for silence any more . simply "wow"!


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

The only enlightening thing here is the realisation that people are still commissioning articles from Roger Scruton, who never has anything to say besides platitudes which, no matter how well he may word them, rarely amount to anything greater than the imploration of the poor sap whose eyes and brain have been ─ through some cruel twist of fate ─ subjected to them to "stop liking what I don't like."

I'm not even going to laugh at his suggestion that Metallica is somehow beyond the banality he ascribes to other pop groups and artists he mentions, but it illustrates a point. Scruton can never say "I like this" or "I do not like this," he can only ever say "this is good" or "this is bad," can only ever speak in absolutes. He has nothing of importance to say, and he is saying it as loud as he can, becoming ironically a sort of Muzak system of arch reactionary rhetoric, doomed to repeat the same old set of insubstantial tunes until it fades into total obsolescence.


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## dzc4627 (Apr 23, 2015)

Snob alert. Although I can agree with him on some points. But I don't want everyone else to start listening to classical music- It'll take away my own self righteousness I feel when listening to it while everyone else is listening to the top 10 hits


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## Guest (Jan 24, 2016)

Setting aside the issue of snobbery, or hackneyed criticism of the youth, the article doesn't stand up as argument. For example,

After his opening rant, he begins his analysis:



> There are two reasons why this vacuous music has flown into every public space. One is the vast change in the human ear brought about by the mass production of sound. The other is the failure of the law to protect us from the result.


But he fails to establish that either of these things is true. Scruton offers no evidence of a "vast change in the human ear", nor of the failure of the law. He does elaborate on a change of listening habits, and he makes clear his views on the quality of the music that he objects to, but then offers solutions that tackle neither a change to the human ear, nor the law, nor listening habits.



> Is there a remedy? Yes, I think there is. [...] By teaching children to play musical instruments, we acquaint them with the roots of music in human life. The next step is to introduce the idea of judgment.


So nothing about changing listening habits - although the idea of teaching children to play might indeed have a consequent effect on listening - and nothing about the law.

Actually, the law can and does protect.

http://www.harlow.gov.uk/pr14-36



> A persistent noisy neighbour in Harlow has been ordered to pay a total of just over £3,000 in fines, costs, and victim surcharges, and had their music equipment seized after being found guilty of breaching a noise abatement notice for the second time in three months.


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

Now I am curious...
This guy has been getting a lot of scorn by most of us here.
Who's he? I think I've never heard of him before. His article may not be a masterpiece but is not so terrible.


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## Guest (Jan 24, 2016)

GioCar said:


> Now I am curious...
> This guy has been getting a lot of scorn by most of us here.
> Who's he? I think I've never heard of him before. His article may not be a masterpiece but is not so terrible.


He's well known in the UK for his journalism, philosophy and media commentary. He likes to provoke, but I've read little by him in the media that I thought was worth the read; the article in the OP is a case in point. Perhaps his books are better - I've not read them.


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

Scruton's controversial, and I don't agree with everything he says, but automatically writing him off is at least as extreme an attitude as anything he himself comes out with. There *are* good points in that article, and the kind of tribalism which makes agreeing with them a taboo is every bit as unhelpful as Scruton's own exaggerations.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Klassic said:


> Scruton is a colossal moron: this fella is a pseudo-intellectual, conservative hack (mere reactionary). He will be happily forgotten in history. I wouldn't even let him tie my shoe, let alone take his advice on culture.


Did you actually read what he said in this article? I would have thought many in TC would agree with a lot of what he says. It is annoying when all the while you are surrounded by banal piped music which gives the listener no opt-out option. Whatever this fella might be I do agree with most of his points. I hardly think that writing against banal, piped music that constantly assaults our ears is being a pseudo-intellectual, conservative hack (mere reactionary).


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

MacLeod said:


> Scruton offers no evidence of a "vast change in the human ear", nor of the failure of the law.


I believe that when Scruton writes of a "vast change in the human ear", he is indulging in an obvious metaphor. He is not proposing that the human ear has actually physically metamorphosed quite suddenly and quite recently, but that we have come to expect constant sound, much of it labeled "music", as a normal component of everyday life. He, though, regards this culturally rather recent explosion of public exposure to "music"--both imposed and voluntary--as a form of public pollution, auditory pollution, if you will, that ought to have been checked by law. People often complain of visual pollution--unregulated graffiti, omnipresent billboards, strip-mall architecture, etc.; they also condemn light pollution whereby the star-filled skies of even the recent past are turned to milky nothingness. These trends can therefore be thus spoken of as indications of a "vast change in the human eye".

If one can somehow throttle back the reflexive compulsion to instantly denounce Scruton as an antediluvian reactionary, one can then see that he may just have a point or two. But that may be a lot to ask.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

I know a number of pieces with dramatic pauses or sections with pedal tones and faiding resonance landscapes,

But Is there a decent piece that takes advantage of vast expanses of silence?


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> But Is there a decent piece that takes advantage of vast expanses of silence?


Yes. It is by Anonymous, and is entitled Untitled. I listen to it most often while I am reading.


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## Guest (Jan 24, 2016)

Strange Magic said:


> If one can somehow throttle back the reflexive compulsion to instantly denounce Scruton as an antediluvian reactionary, one can then see that he may just have a point or two. But that may be a lot to ask.


Which is why I took the trouble to engage with the article, not indulge in reflexive denunciation. I can accept that I have misread the metaphor, but not that my post was a knee-jerk reaction to a commenter whose writing I dislike.

[add]
Let's look further at what he wrote...



> In almost every public place today the ears are assailed by the sound of pop music.


Presumably, some of those who like pop music might not think that their ears are 'assailed'. I'm not clear whether his objection is to 'pop' itself or simply to the ubiquity of music of all types.



> For the most part, however, the prevailing music is of an astounding banality - it is there in order not to be really there. It is a background to the business of consuming things, a surrounding nothingness on which we scribble the graffiti of our desires.


Ah, so it's the banality he objects to...or is it the fact of our consumer society? I'm sure it's both, but perhaps it's the music he should stick to.



> Rhythm, which is the sound of life, has been largely replaced by electrical pulses, produced by a machine programmed to repeat itself ad infinitum, and to thrust its booming bass notes into the very bones of the victim.


Largely? I suggest he should stop shopping in places where the muzak he objects to is so prevalent. Besides, he's surely cutting back on the consumer habit?



> For our ancestors music was something that you sat down to listen to, or which you made for yourself. It was a ceremonial event, in which you participated, either as a passive listener or as an active performer. Either way you were giving and receiving life, sharing in something of great social significance.


Is he advocating a return to the practices of our ancestors? I'm very happy to participate in sharing music, but I'm also grateful to be able to listen to it in the comfort of my own home without it being an act of social significance.

I don't think I need to analyse further. If anyone would like to help out (and not be as reflexively defensive of a poorly constructed article from a 'grumpy old man') with a similar analysis in his defence, then we have the basis for a debate.


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## Mal (Jan 1, 2016)

Klassic said:


> Scruton is a colossal moron: this fella is a pseudo-intellectual, conservative hack (mere reactionary). He will be happily forgotten in history. I wouldn't even let him tie my shoe, let alone take his advice on culture.


Too right!

Where's he going to suffer all these robot invented noises? There's very little of it around where I live.

Why does he let his "gramaphone" follow him around when he doesn't want to listen? (Spooky!) Mine stays where it is and *I* sit down and listen to it.

Why did the BBC let him onto "Points of View"? There as so many worthy people they could have chosen. It used to be a good way to spend ten minutes over a coffee break until the advent of Scruton.


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## Mal (Jan 1, 2016)

mmsbls said:


> I suspect that the increasing inarticulateness of the young, their inability to complete their sentences, to find telling phrases or images, or to say anything at all without calling upon the word "like" to help them out, has something to do with the fact that their ears are constantly stuffed with cotton wool" ...


Pure snobbery, and an attack on the young. The guy is an idiot, don't read him! In my experience, young working class people don't say "like" all the time. Some may insert it now and again as a space filler, usually in a charming manner. Posh types might use "ya" or "don't you know" instead - but Scruton wouldn't attack those phrases as his chums in the local hunt would kick him off his high horse.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

I doubt that simplified speech patterns are influenced much by the consumption of pop music. I do think it's contributing to significant hearing loss in many young people, however. I even think it's a serious enough problem to warrant the occasional pedantic screed in a newspaper magazine. 

Btw, maybe headphone commercials should have to have health warnings like you see for medications, cigarettes, and so forth.


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

British journalism is blighted by posh men and women who convert minor bugbears of their daily lives into fatuous articles in the media. This is another depressing example, and is another form of 'noise'.


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## Guest (Jan 24, 2016)

I got as far as the opinion that music in a restaurant is "far worse" than tobacco smoke.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Iean said:


> Amen! Why do people who obviously listens to very few pop music always equate pop music to garbage? In as much as there are definitely bad pop records, there are also thousands of horrible classical music:angel:


It seems to be an "elitist" thing. For some reason, some folks feel they are superior human beings because they listen to classical music. This very behavior, however, proves they are not.


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## Dr Johnson (Jun 26, 2015)

Perhaps Scruton is still smarting from his dust-up with the Pet Shop Boys:

*In 1999, Scruton was successfully sued for libel by the Pet Shop Boys, a pop group, for suggesting that they did not contribute to writing or producing their own songs. Writing for Salon, culture journalist Stephanie Zacharek commented that "[Group members] Tennant and Lowe are so well-known as producers in their own right that it's obvious Scruton is completely ignorant of the genre he's gassing on about."[47]
*


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Thank you to MacLeod for reading all the way through the piece so I don't have to.

Since Scruton seems to basically agree with Stockhausen - on Aphex Twin: "immediately stop with all these post-African repetitions, and... look for changing tempi and changing rhythms" - I suggest we pool our resources to allow him to attend performances of der Meister's work - by physical force, if necessary. I'm sure he'll love it!


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## Guest (Jan 24, 2016)

Dr Johnson said:


> Perhaps Scruton is still smarting from his dust-up with the Pet Shop Boys:
> 
> *In 1999, Scruton was successfully sued for libel by the Pet Shop Boys, a pop group, for suggesting that they did not contribute to writing or producing their own songs. Writing for Salon, culture journalist Stephanie Zacharek commented that "[Group members] Tennant and Lowe are so well-known as producers in their own right that it's obvious Scruton is completely ignorant of the genre he's gassing on about."[47]
> *


How utterly idiotic. He could have picked lots of targets but the PSB? I just took out one of my PSB CDs for some detailed research...yep..." All songs written by Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe." 
Ignorance and arrogance. Fatal.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

I will cheerfully affirm, from the evidence presented, that Scruton was in error regarding the Pet Shop Boys (_Love Comes Quickly_ is my favorite PSB effort). But it does not follow from this that Scruton's ideas and opinions are unworthy of consideration. Is he really a colossal moron, a pseudo-intellectual, a conservative hack, a mere reactionary? I especially enjoyed Mal's spasm: "Pure snobbery, and an attack on the young. The guy is an idiot, don't read him!" I'm sure that there are things that many posters don't like--certain musics, art, ideas, customs, attitudes. What would it be like for them to be denounced as colossal morons if they expressed their antipathies and their reasons for those antipathies with the clarity and tenacity of a Scruton? We may actually be thigh-deep in morons.


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

hpowders said:


> It seems to be an "elitist" thing. For some reason, some folks feel they are superior human beings because they listen to classical music. This very behavior, however, proves they are not.


Agreed. And to me, it's disappointing, because there is no rule that you cannot listen to both classical _and_ pop (as I do, and I'm sure many other users here do). It just furthers this stereotype that classical music listeners are stuffy elitists who spend their time not listening to classical berating other genres and the people who listen to them. That friend of mine who called classical music "irrelevant"; _he's_ the type of person we need to go after


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Too many generalizations. He acts as if people no longer go to concerts, that all venues are banal machines, that men and women 'round the world aren't putting all their hours into perfecting their technique with their instruments. Or that no one listens to music thats on at these stores/restaurants! I can't count how many times my sister and I tap our toes when we're at the mall and some pop hit is playing. Or when we talk about the music that's playing over the restaurant speaker ["Hey, that's Moonlight sonata right? Beethoven?" "Yes, it is!"] Even pop or electronica or house music involves craftsmanship and production. Sadly, it does fall under another "I don't like pop music, and since everyone likes it, it's a problem" or as the Simpsons put it "Old man yells at cloud"


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## Guest (Jan 24, 2016)

Strange Magic said:


> I will cheerfully affirm, from the evidence presented, that Scruton was in error regarding the Pet Shop Boys (_Love Comes Quickly_ is my favorite PSB effort). But it does not follow from this that Scruton's ideas and opinions are unworthy of consideration. Is he really a colossal moron, a pseudo-intellectual, a conservative hack, a mere reactionary? I especially enjoyed Mal's spasm: "Pure snobbery, and an attack on the young. The guy is an idiot, don't read him!" I'm sure that there are things that many posters don't like--certain musics, art, ideas, customs, attitudes. What would it be like for them to be denounced as colossal morons if they expressed their antipathies and their reasons for those antipathies with the clarity and tenacity of a Scruton? We may actually be thigh-deep in morons.


We may! I am confident, however, that if I declared on TC that Beethoven didn't write his own stuff and carcinogenic fumes were not as bad as Romantic era music, a lot of TCers would be struggling not to break the ToS in their efforts to correct me.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

*Newsflash!* It is not only possible, but actually quite reasonable, to simultaneously hold two ideas about esthetics. These may seem to the overeager to be at variance with one another, but this is not the case. Idea #1 states that anybody can enjoy, or loathe, whatever suits them in art or the arts, and that one's personal tastes are the final arbiter of what we should hold near and dear.

Idea #2 states that each individual can (and usually does) erect an intellectual scaffolding, based on their experience, reading, consultation with others, that serves as a template or spine or thread that helps them understand what they like/loathe, and why this is so. They may feel the strength of this scaffolding enough to declare it publicly, in hopes of persuading others (or even themselves) of their convictions. We all do this, even the reviled Scruton. But we remain free to accept or reject all or parts of one another's attempts at esthetic justification. But denouncing our adversaries as morons, tiny or colossal, or as idiots not to be read under any circumstances, is just plain silly. That's my opinion.


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## Guest (Jan 24, 2016)

Newsflash! Not having heard of the man, I made free to check him out. Oh god, he's a complete tory ******. I need know no more about him. He really is an elitist, reactionary, homophobic windbag.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

dogen said:


> Newsflash! Not having heard of the man, I made free to check him out. Oh god, he's a complete tory ******. I need know no more about him. He really is an elitist, reactionary, homophobic windbag.


I love it! You have made my day.


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## Guest (Jan 24, 2016)

Strange Magic said:


> denouncing our adversaries as morons, tiny or colossal, or as idiots not to be read under any circumstances, is just plain silly.


Curious then that you make so much of this point, yet so little of the article in question. Could it be that you don't think it worthy of proper consideration? Or that the man may be more worthy of defending than his words?


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Awhile back I went to a favorite restaurant and instead of the usual cheesy pop music they were--to my astonishment--playing Bach's Art of Fugue. I mentioned this to the waiter and he said it was because the usual guy was sick and the substitute picked the music. I'll admit it was really nice.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

If you guys were truly relativist, you would embrace this person for his specific beliefs for himself. He even has a right to belittle others different from him. Honestly, does he REALLY have power to impose his beliefs? You're all getting mad over hot air. It's an attack on your ego. Kinda like how would say your calling him a snob or other names would probably hurt his ego.

There is no such thing as pure relativity. Because none of you can give up trusting your own intuition too. At least be honest that you think yourself above this person for some reason. "Above" is an objective term. Accept your own self-oriented selective objectivity.

To me, he sounds like a guy truly fed up with life. Perhaps I share that in common with him, and so I sympathize. We all just don't know what to do with our frustrations. He would be interesting to converse with, to talk about "noise pollution" which I will objectively confess I believe exists.


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## Harold in Columbia (Jan 10, 2016)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> truly relativist


Now there's a contradiction in terms.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

I had no idea Scruton was a public figure of any kind until two days ago. I knew only his serious and fairly obscure work in musical aesthetics, with which I was never particularly impressed. Surprised me that anyone had any opinion about him at all!


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Right wing "intellectuals" always remind me of eight-year-olds putting on bowties and magic marker mustaches and playing Professor.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> He even has a right to belittle others different from him. ... You're all getting mad over hot air. It's an attack on your ego. ... At least be honest that you think yourself above this person for some reason. "Above" is an objective term. Accept your own self-oriented selective objectivity.


I've been reading through this thread, and I highly doubt anyone's actually mad over this. On the contrary, there's usually at least a hint of amusement in the "angriest" posts.

His "right" to belittle others is the right of free speech. But when he belittles others, no one has the obligation to defend him. We, in turn, have the same "right" to say that he's wrong.

Maybe you meant "self-oriented selective bias"? In any case, I'll exercise that mentioned right of free speech here and say that you're mistaken in denouncing all previous thread participators as egocentric borderline-narcissists with anger management issues.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

mstar said:


> We, in turn, have the same "right" to say that he's wrong.


You, in turn, have the same "right" to say that _*you think*_ he's wrong.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

Morimur said:


> You, in turn, have the same "right" to say that _*you think*_ he's wrong.


That's what I intended. I assumed it was implied.


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## Klassic (Dec 19, 2015)

EdwardBast said:


> I had no idea Scruton was a public figure of any kind until two days ago. I knew only his serious and fairly obscure work in musical aesthetics, with which I was never particularly impressed. Surprised me that anyone had any opinion about him at all!


My opinion of him is the most intelligent opinion one can have.


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

Morimur said:


> You, in turn, have the same "right" to say that _*you think*_ he's wrong.


Which people did. So why is that a problem?

That said, the author of the article didn't seem to qualify all his statements with "I think". So why is it necessary that everyone who criticizes him do so?



Huilunsoittaja said:


> He even has a right to belittle others different from him.


No one denied that. I don't think anyone's claiming he shouldn't be allowed to do what he's doing.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Dr Johnson said:


> Perhaps Scruton is still smarting from his dust-up with the Pet Shop Boys:
> 
> *In 1999, Scruton was successfully sued for libel by the Pet Shop Boys, a pop group, for suggesting that they did not contribute to writing or producing their own songs. Writing for Salon, culture journalist Stephanie Zacharek commented that "[Group members] Tennant and Lowe are so well-known as producers in their own right that it's obvious Scruton is completely ignorant of the genre he's gassing on about."[47]
> *


America, Land of the Sued.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> America, Land of the Sued.


England, surely?

In the U.S. you usually can't be sued for libel if you believed what you were writing at the time.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Tristan said:


> Which people did. So why is that a problem?
> 
> That said, the author of the article didn't seem to qualify all his statements with "I think". So why is it necessary that everyone who criticizes him do so?


Because I say so, Tristan. Because I say so. :tiphat:


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

isorhythm said:


> In the U.S. you usually can't be sued for libel if you believed what you were writing at the time.


Don't believe that's so. You can be sued (and will likely lose) if you write something that causes damage to another, regardless of your belief. However, you will not lose if you prove what you wrote was, indeed, true. The truth is considered the perfect defense against libel claims. But not your belief.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

isorhythm said:


> England, surely?
> 
> In the U.S. you usually can't be sued for libel if you believed what you were writing at the time.


Silly me.........................


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## Guest (Jan 25, 2016)

KenOC said:


> Don't believe that's so. You can be sued (and will likely lose) if you write something that causes damage to another, regardless of your belief. However, you will not lose if you prove what you wrote was, indeed, true. The truth is considered the perfect defense against libel claims. But not your belief.


Sounds about right. It is enacted around the world, obviously including both the US and UK. Libel: "to publish in print (including pictures), writing or broadcast through radio, television or film, an untruth about another which will do harm to that person or his/her reputation, by tending to bring the target into ridicule, hatred, scorn or contempt of others. Libel is the written or broadcast form of defamation, distinguished from slander, which is oral defamation. It is a tort (civil wrong) making the person or entity (like a newspaper, magazine or political organization) open to a lawsuit for damages by the person who can prove the statement about him/her was a lie."
- Law.com. Legal Dictionary.


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## Clairvoyance Enough (Jul 25, 2014)

So glad this thread isn't about how music causes ear cancer or something.


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Clairvoyance Enough said:


> So glad this thread isn't about how music causes ear cancer or something.


You're welcome.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

I stand corrected, good to know.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

isorhythm said:


> I stand corrected, good to know.


Quiet relieving, isn't it:lol:


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## kartikeys (Mar 16, 2013)

I read the first few paragraphs; I agree there is too much music. From a blog post I had written:

_"Music is overplayed now. There is too much music, constant music.

Music is not the ultimate relaxation. It is used these days to hide your real self. To ride over your soul. So you don't listen to your soul.

Music on radio, TV is bombardment on the senses. I would say you are made to like music through constant repetition; you get used to a certain rhythm, and then you want to listen to everything in that or closely related rhythm.

Someday, you may like the music you hate today because your senses are free from this bombardment."_

Then I agree that it is possible to escape the bombardment.


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

Tristan said:


> I don't think anyone's claiming he shouldn't be allowed to do what he's doing.


I don't believe that public funds should be used to pay him for this sort of thing.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Don't believe that's so. You can be sued (and will likely lose) if you write something that causes damage to another, regardless of your belief. However, you will not lose if you prove what you wrote was, indeed, true. The truth is considered the perfect defense against libel claims. But not your belief.


I believe this is wrong. Making a case for libel is much more difficult in the U.S. than in Great Britain precisely because it requires that the slanderer knew the information to be incorrect, at least in the case of journalistic writing. Quoting from Wikipedia:

"The 1964 case New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, however, radically changed the nature of libel law in the United States by establishing that public officials could win a suit for libel only when they could prove the media outlet in question knew either that the information was wholly and patently false or that it was published "with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not."


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

EdwardBast said:


> I believe this is wrong. Making a case for libel is much more difficult in the U.S. than in Great Britain precisely because it requires that the slanderer knew the information to be incorrect.


I thought this too, but I read up on it. Ken and dogen seem to be right. It appears "good faith belief" can be a defense in some jurisdictions, but it doesn't make you automatically immune.

This is interesting to me because I have worked as a journalist, and journalists, of course, make mistakes. But this never came up - if you make a mistake you correct/retract as fast as possible and that's the end. It never even occurred to me that someone could sue for libel anyway.


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## Guest (Jan 25, 2016)

This page breaks it down globally...(the Laws by Jurisdiction tab)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

isorhythm said:


> I thought this too, but I read up on it. Ken and dogen seem to be right. It appears "good faith belief" can be a defense in some jurisdictions, but it doesn't make you automatically immune.
> 
> This is interesting to me because I have worked as a journalist, and journalists, of course, make mistakes. But this never came up - if you make a mistake you correct/retract as fast as possible and that's the end. It never even occurred to me that someone could sue for libel anyway.


I just read the material posted by Dogen, so we must be interpreting the same words very differently: It seems that for politicians and other legitimate public figures in the U.S., winning a libel suit pretty much requires that the defendant knowingly published false statements - that is, actual malice.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

dogen said:


> Newsflash! Not having heard of the man, I made free to check him out. Oh god, he's a complete tory ******. I need know no more about him. He really is an elitist, reactionary, homophobic windbag.


Well that doesnt make him a ''New Hitler'' lol He is right on the spot on many ''issues''...Sadly today is more important ''who speaks'' and ''how (he) speaks'' than the essence ''what (he) speaks''!


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

He seems like a narrow thinker who makes some half-decent points. There is a lot of noise pollution, over-saturation and over-stimulated and I think its effects are more pervasive then we realize.


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## mstar (Aug 14, 2013)

Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> People these days are complacent and don't think critically, which is the same way they've probably always been, because the system benefits from them being that way. If it wants them to be over-saturated, over-stimulated, tolerant to noise pollution and dull to beauty, then godammit, they will be.


The fact that there is so much negative response to the article just within a single thread goes to show that many people do indeed "think critically" and are sensitive to beauty. I am sure that a good portion of those who do not listen to classical music are the same way.

Likewise, there are a good many who _are_ driven by "the system" and "dull to beauty", as you say. It's just not fair to generalize the vast majority as so.


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