[Kevin Drum] If you hate the culture wars, blame liberals

Im not sure how to even address this any further. Europeans made European music wow what a concept. Who specifically wasn’t elevated? What is the real issue here? It sounds to me like a manufactured inferiority complex to account for why there were specifically no singular African musicians, painters or philosophers among other things during this time that are remembered by people. No one of any other race cares how they were represented in European music.

Instead of lumping all of Europe together, consider why Germans and Russians were elevated more than any other culture in this period. You still seem to think people in every country in Europe were benefited the same. Assuming all Europeans had the same experience because of the color of their skin is RACIST. Germany and Russia had the best pedagogy and institutions at the time. So what. Europeans invented classical music and invented written music. Not everything has to be about inclusiveness. Not every country in every century is the USA in 2021. What kind of society is this where we can’t even appreciate the foundation of art without imposing our own limited belief systems into music. This is music. It doesn’t belong in this stupid bullshit. Music theory is addressing the physical nature of sound. It’s a science. European music came from the overtone series which was created by Pythagorus who was not a musician. It is a science revealing all partials contained in a note. Every composer innovated based on this scientific principle that aligns our ears with NATURE. Geometry follows the natural order of the universe and the foundations of music are no different. Americans have completely lost what this means in their souls and hearts. Completely lost.

I don’t get mad often. I’m certainly not prone to outrage. I’m very reserved. You won’t see me in this part of the forum except for rarely making fun of a conservative because I think it’s funny. I looked over those articles again with a cooler head for only the second time. None of this is by Republicans. Do you really think classicfm is Republican propaganda? You are lost. Classicfm is a website that is very popular among classical musicians. They have tons and tons of diversity initiatives and grants. They were extremely political against Trump. They are constantly trying to bring African Americans into the arts. A classical music website can't have an opinion about classical music? You just assume it’s Republican propaganda because the arts are above cancel culture.

The last article entitled “Beethoven is above average at best” or something of that nature was written by Ewell himself. It says it under the title and his biography which I found quite illuminating is at the end of the “essay”. So in fact there are essays being written by cancel culture or whatever you want to call this particular sickness pervading our society and I have every right to question that. I can’t make sense of the article. It’s an unintelligible mess littered with catchphrases and a factually inaccurate and intentionally misleading account of history. I can’t bring myself to even finish something so poorly thought out, tedious and bad. Not everyone is going to fall for that. The essay is such a confusing mess with no tangible point about anything that you labeled it as Republican propaganda and now I guess you’ll go back to supporting it for the third time. You literally called the guy you are defending a propagandist for the Republican Party.

I refrain from doing this ever in my life but this has become personal. Ewell teaches at Hunter college. Please. No esteemed musician is going to take him seriously. He’s an absolute nobody. Schenker is offered at every university and conservatory. It is forced on no one. He specifically went after an well known theorist to build a name for himself. He couldn’t do it on his own since his whole musical methodology is whiteness and blackness. No academics take him seriously otherwise his thoughts on this issue would be peer reviewed. Instead he has to write think pieces which hold more weight than any academic paper to the general public because p*rnography is free in droves and you have to pay for academic research. Good job society. If he had anything at all of value to say he would answer the repeated calls from academics to sit down and talk about the issues but he refuses. He knows his ideas would not hold up for a second because academics actually know things. The only actual theorist in this whole pointless exercise won in the eyes of the law. I guess that the American justice system is a bad thing too. Ewell is a clown who conveniently chose to be educated in racist Russia, his expertise is on Russian classical music(he never studied anything to do with Beethoven) and plays an Italian instrument. I assumed that essay was written by a 17 year old. All he's done is hurt black people for his own good by keeping them from claiming their own culture. He's Ben Carson.

From the 1920s to 1980, African Americans were the dominant voice in American culture. Rich white people could not stand this. It doesn't mean these white people cared about the arts they simply didn't want black people to have power. African Americans had the worst hill to climb of any race without a doubt and they elevated themselves to be America's voice. The United States used African American music as a tool for diplomacy in the Cold War because that was our best music at the time. Every African American artist in this period of time knew their roots because it was passed from Africa through slavery to them and is present in their music.

Republicans are responsible for every question I've brought up. Reagan and Bush did everything they could to make African Americans lose their culture so that power could be restored to white people. With culture comes power. When did this trend of African American dominance end? You do the math. The worst two decades for jazz BY FAR happened because of 12 years of systemic suppression of African American culture. From 1981 to 2009 African Americans were kept from their own heritage by white people. A lot of damage can be done in 30 years. Obama knew exactly what to do. He wanted not only funding in the arts for African American neighborhoods which needed it BADLY but wanted the history of Jazz to be taught in schools. This is something we are still advocating for. What people might not realize is Obama knew a hell of a lot about music. He knew the history of Africa was in this African American art form. He knew that Republicans systematically prevented Black people from discovering and understanding their roots. People got lynched for playing African polyrhythms as slaves in an attempt to suppress their culture and Blacks were resilient enough to keep their own native traditions alive. The kind of resilience it takes to keep your tradition alive through slavery and 50 years after slavery those traditions were the voice of American culture is unbelievably special. Obama couldn't even really get what he wanted done because of Republicans. And why would that be? After that, everything he did was dismantled by Betsy Devos. Everything. For 8 years. No arts funding in African American communities, no Jazz history or African history taught in schools. We had an 8 year window in the last 40 years and Republicans fought every bit of those 8 years to keep African Americans from claiming the heritage that is theirs, suppress the understanding of their own roots and feed them with the lowest forms of propaganda. There has always been music used as propaganda. Its the main reason people wanted to cancel Wagner and if there was any person to cancel, he would be the guy. He made music that was used as propaganda for Nazi Germany not to mention his extreme level of sexism. He is universally known as the worst human being to come out of classical music and yet we still use his music in wedding ceremonies. What did Republicans do when Trump came in? Let's not just cut all funding and education toward black people regarding their culture, music and heritage, let's find strippers and make them rappers who rap to unedited generic stock beats from Apple that have nothing to do with Africa. Here's your African American role models. This is all you can achieve. It is propaganda helping to keep Blacks from understanding their roots and making them feel inferior in art and inferior as people. Blacks need to claim their roots because music was much better objectively when that was the case. It's a very large reason I'm a musician. Instead of addressing gun nut conspiracy theorist republicans who don't care about any music let alone Beethoven and just want to make sure Blacks are powerless, we go after a tool used in music theory 150 years ago that 99% of the population knows nothing about and will never use. Maybe if African Americans claimed their roots our society wouldn't need to belittle composers without even the slightest coherent argument or cancel things. Maybe they wouldn't constantly ask why they weren't included enough in 1700's Europe instead of just appreciating art for what it is like the rest of the entire world does. If they knew the power they have in their own lineage I doubt African Americans would care what anyone thinks of them, would not feel the need to belittle anything and would realize how important in history they actually are. If republicans actually allowed Black people to be one with their roots again, we wouldn't need to change the English language with pseudo catchphrases and buzzwords. I want Black music to be THE music of America. I genuinely want this. Nothing I said in anything I wrote is Black peoples fault. When it comes to culture, Republicans have systematically stifled them to the point that they can no longer identify their roots. I dont see how any of this helps them to reclaim it.

 

What are conservatives trying to "conserve"?

 

Literally no one here has said slavery had nothing do with the civil war. Even the argument that the motivation was economic is still about slavery.

The Constitution was written almost 80 years before secession, by people who were no longer alive. Also the purpose of the 3/5 compromise was to convince the south to join the Union in the first place, so they would have roughly electoral and legislative parity with the northern states. That is a political/economic reason for it's inclusion, not a moral one.

I doubt there are any pro-slavery people on ClutchFans. Certainly none who are going to admit it. I wouldn't characterize all of the slaveholders as monsters through. Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, most of the founding fathers owned slaves. It was a common practice at the time and the understanding of morality was different. Obviously, if they advocated for slavery in modern times they would be viewed as monsters, but taken in the context in which they lived, they were great but flawed men.

It is almost certain that the secession was political/economic and not based on the moral imperative that slavery of Africans continue.

Not only is every defense of the border wall primarily economic, you are even misconstruing Trump. Even he, clown that he was, did not believe every illegal immigrant from Mexico was a rapist or a murder. Even the speech you are quoting didn't suggest that.

He was wrong, of course. Our best data indicates native born people are more criminal than illegal immigrants (unless you include their unlawful border crossing, at which point 100% of that cohort would be criminals). That he was wrong doesn't mean he was advocating building the wall for fear of rapists. Nor does a single speech represent the entirety of the reasoning for building the wall. The wall was meant to combat illegal immigration, which has always had an economic component.

 

You make a lot of assumptions and strawman's hear, and you make a lot of weird factual mistatements.

I didn't say all Europeans are the same. I am not attacking western culture or western music, nor am I saying anything bad about Beethoven. All I am saying is that the idea the left is trying to cancel Beethoven IS propaganda. You still have not offered once inkling of evidence that people on the left want to cancel Beethoven. I am not saying anything about classicfm either.

And no, it wasn't just the German's and Russia's who contributed to the creation of great classical music. Italians, Greeks, and the English all played roles. Chopin was Polish.

No the Europeans did not invent written music - other cultures had done that before but it was lost. "Europeans" (ironic that you treat all Europeans the same here but not when it comes to classical music), invented modern musical notation. Just correcting your facts, sir.

This isn't about knocking European music. You act like all great music follows European musical theory based on science like it's universal mathematical principles. It's not. Look at Indian classical music. It's far older than Western classical music and breaks many of the rules. No chords, No 8 note scales, no harmony, etc. Had Indian colonized the world instead of the Europeans, you'd probably be singing the praises of Indian music as the greatest music and pushing back against people who asked, "what about European music".

 

FIFY

 

How the hell are you getting me defending slave holders?

And you have the nerve to say I am on unstable ground?

I,m out because you are just making **** up and not actually debating what I said and then in the last paragraph you try and use my own argument against me.

You are delusional.

 

white people

 

There it is.

We will PSA out of the 1000% wealth gap.

Black people. Be good fathers.

Problem solved. **** that was easy.

8f only this guy wasn't in a bubble and actually was curious about early childhood brain development and understood that the highest probabilistic route to create good parents is a nurtured environment from ages 0-10.

And this is also a strawman. Individually no one is saying don't personally responsible or don't try in school or just give up on life because everything is stacked against you. You loot, you get prosecuted. You abandon your child and don't pay child support, you get prosecuted. Yes, personal responsibility is important but to pretend changing the path of millions of people through PSAs akin to herding cats. It doesn't work. It never works.

 

Many many people have argued, as it has been suggested repeatedly here, that slavery was motivated more by the economic factors than any sense of superiority. Case in point: See your next paragraph.

The cornerstone speech outlines very clearly that white superiority is a moral issue. Granted, it's 80 years later ...but how does one even get to the point that only black people are counted as less than whole? There something deeper happening there. Again, it's not economics. To suggest the intentions behind the 3/5 rule are rooted in politics/economics is revisionist history. Whites felt morally superior to blacks or this concept is never even raised.

I'm not suggesting there are pro-slavery people on the BBS. I'm suggesting that anybody that believe the primary drivers were economic in nature are delusional and suffer revisionist history. It's not economic, it's white supremacy. Call a spade a spade.

The notion that our founding fathers were flawed men is very true. Some were outright monsters. Jefferson was a proud southerner and staunch supporter of the institution of slavery. Washington had some repentance later. Their words, "All men are created equal" was wise beyond even their own understanding. However, it speaks volumes that they did not view blacks as men.

Again, go read the corner-stone speech. He VERY clearly outlines the moral authority as says exactly that. It's not economic. The fact that we are debating if we should maintain confederate statues today is not economic. It's 99% white people that want to preserve these statues. Why is that?

Trump is a master at never saying exactly what he means but you clearly understand. Cohen is even on record stating that is his MO. He's smart enough to know he can't make declarative statements but he clearly makes the point. He walked that line as tight as he could when he told the Proud Pays to 'stand by, stand down'. He had plausible deniability but the message was received. So those that want to, can defend his statement while everybody on the inside winks at each other.

Seriously, America needs to stop justifying our horrific past. The fact that our founding father's ideals transcended far beyond anything they could imagine is amazing. America genuinely is one of history's greatest success stories. But we need to be honest with ourselves about our horrific history and that will enable us to move on.

Today in Germany, they have no Nazi statues in the streets. They openly acknowledge and are embarrassed by the dark stain on their history. They have moved on and are now the leader of the EU. Nobody tries to justify Hitler's behavior as just being a product of the times. In fact, Hitler literally studied how America managed to build a society built on white supremacy as a model and how he can implement systemic racism.

America was built on white supremacy. Until we acknowledge that, it will persist.

 

I think you need to use larger fonts.

 

It's an over simplification in typical western fashion ...presented as a binary situation.

Nobody is all liberal or all conservative. If you are a black liberal, you think opinions have changed much? Even if you do, what does "black" even mean? Conservatives loved to call Obama "half black".

All I can say is this, if you go back to the source/beginning, it was conservatives who started the culture war. Full stop.