|
richard barrett
|
 |
« Reply #105 on: 11:32:56, 10-08-2008 » |
|
When I was a child there were only two television networks in the Netherlands. Now there are many more. Technnology made it possible to create more networks, politics made it possible for those networks to receive a license.
By "politics", though, I mean something much wider in scope than "what the government does". It's the logic of the market (ie. politics) which dictates that (the government should be pressured into allowing that) there shall be dozens of TV broadcasters and that they should all prioritise profits over content. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
trained-pianist
|
|
« Reply #106 on: 12:03:09, 10-08-2008 » |
|
My post definitely will not belong to this thread, but here it is. I just want to talk about watching different channels.
Watching Russian station covering the situation in Osetia and American is like watching two different wars. I don't know what BBC is saying, but Irish are kind of uncommitted at the moment. I saw United Nation meeting a little bit unedited on Russian channel. Different countries have different agenda, the body language, the demeanor.
EU has its hands full now with new countries. For me it was painful to see how Estonia treats WWII veterans. They even put one veteran on trial for crimes committed during WWII, they also allowed Nazi's march. There is such a strong support for Nazis in all East Europe in general (and that list includes Russia). It is unthinkable to be pro Nazi in Russia (to me at least).
It is embarrassing to tell you, that when I came out of Russia back in 1976 I was on American side of the war in Vietnam. I could not understand protesters against Vietnam War (blush). One woman told me so well: Two wrongs don't make it right (or something like that).
What should one do? One can not help but take sides, one has his own biases and preferences, one can be manipulated by different opinions and influences, but Two wrongs don't make it right and who is the most righteous? It is like in a fairytale when a hero comes to cross roads and see signs: Go to the right and this and this will happen to you. Go to the left and the same things will happen in a different order, or go straight with approximately the same consequences.
Yet we have to make our personal choice and on the bigger scale humanity has to make its choices. With time there are nostalgic feelings for the past, at times one is glad we as humanity already went through this period of our development.
Each nation deserves their rulers, even if at times it doesn't feel this way. (Who said that?). At times government pays the bills (and orders the music), some times there is fashion from private profit making (then other people order the music).
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
richard barrett
|
|
« Reply #107 on: 12:06:37, 10-08-2008 » |
|
Each nation deserves their rulers, even if at times it doesn't feel this way. (Who said that?). Whoever it was, they were comprehensively wrong. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
time_is_now
|
|
« Reply #108 on: 12:15:40, 10-08-2008 » |
|
Each nation deserves their rulers, even if at times it doesn't feel this way. (Who said that?) I think it was in the last scene of Batman: The Dark Knight. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
|
|
|
|
Philidor
|
|
« Reply #109 on: 17:24:35, 10-08-2008 » |
|
I think you are touching on some important stuff, Phil, but you are sploshing about generalizations like they are going out of fashion. There are all sorts of nuances in cultures and political sympathies.
Agreed on the nuances bit, but the British left's retreat into a relativist ghetto is well worth laughing at. Western musical high culture centres largely on notation, or knowledge of notation so the ladder can be kicked away. To torpedo the next generation's access to that culture, by attacking the teaching of notation in schools, is the behaviour of a cultural vandal. The obvious conclusion to draw is that such a person hates the culture they're seeking to torpedo. Within leftist, postmodern, circles such hatred is commonplace. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Ron Dough
|
|
« Reply #110 on: 17:32:45, 10-08-2008 » |
|
That reads as if you believe that hatred is solely limited to what I think you're intending to read as those tending towards the leftward extremities, Philidor. Doesn't history suggest that it's quite as equally owned by extremists of any persuasion, be they on the right or left, or even in a religious field rather than a political one?
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
richard barrett
|
|
« Reply #111 on: 17:49:35, 10-08-2008 » |
|
Who are you actually arguing with here, Philidor? Not one single contributor to this thread (and certainly not the "leftists") has so far agreed with the exclusion of musical notation from GCSE teaching.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Morticia
|
|
« Reply #112 on: 18:07:46, 10-08-2008 » |
|
I have to agree with RB's post. I have so far seen no evidence of anyone here calling for or agreeing with the eradication of notation from the GCSE curriculum. You appear to be indicating this is a result of 'Leftist' policy. What is your reasoning behind that point of view? I am unclear about the reasoning behind what is clearly a matter you feel very strongly about.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Philidor
|
|
« Reply #113 on: 18:10:03, 10-08-2008 » |
|
Doesn't history suggest that it's quite as equally owned by extremists of any persuasion, be they on the right or left, or even in a religious field rather than a political one?
I don't agree. The British left used to be the handmaiden of Enlightenment values: from Welsh Methodists running the choirs, to local Communist Party branches making libraries and free newspapers available in working class districts, to the tradition of self-education fostered by socialist trade unions (I've had a constant stream of such people through my life, who educated themselves, say, between shifts in the merchant navy, or went to university as mature students from the coal mines) to the Workers' Education Association, to lefties in the Army Bureau of Current Affairs who drip fed the Beverage Report into soldiers' ears between battles in WW2, causing those who survived to come home and vote in the NHS. You simply have to flick through EP Thompson's 'Making of the English Working Class’ to see how deep such values penetrated into leftist culture. To be on the left was to value and evangelise high culture. Given that background, the current, widespread, leftist/postmodern embracing of a flaccid cultural relativism, is not only a huge ideological shift, but spits in the face of generations of working class people who wouldn’t dream for one second not to teach a child how to read a musical score. I think the British left's retreat into barbarism is shameful. I expect the political right to be hostile to culture, but it's shocking to see such attitudes on the left. I don’t think they should be allowed to get away with it. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
richard barrett
|
|
« Reply #114 on: 18:12:28, 10-08-2008 » |
|
the British left May I ask once more who you are actually intending to talk about with that phrase? |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
time_is_now
|
|
« Reply #115 on: 18:16:50, 10-08-2008 » |
|
What are these 'leftist, postmodern, circles'? Few of the leftists I know are particularly well acquainted with what I suspect people often have in mind when they use the word 'postmodernism'. It's true that some former political leftists seem to have moved to a centrist social position with a strong cultural-relativist component, although that's really not true of any of the leftists on this particular messageboard.
More importantly, the idea that postmodernism means relativism isn't really backed up by a close reading of any of the (relatively few) philosophers and cultural theorists who regularly use the term 'postmodern', and strikes me as being itself an example of sloppy thinking - the very thing that's being railed against with all this talk of 'Baudrillard rotting people's brains'.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
|
|
|
|
Ian Pace
|
|
« Reply #116 on: 18:32:51, 10-08-2008 » |
|
Philidor, I am aware of the phenomenon you're describing, but I think you'll find it's much more true of a certain number of metropolitan liberals (the types who preach multiculturalism but make sure that they live in as white an area as possible) then of the broader 'left' (including simply the left of Labour Party supporters) as exists in the wider country. Cultural relativism is a sham, I'm 100% with you there.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
|
|
|
|
Philidor
|
|
« Reply #117 on: 18:39:27, 10-08-2008 » |
|
Who are you actually arguing with here, Philidor?
You, and anyone who agrees with you.  Specifically this: Almost all cultures, certainly the Anglo/European and the Islamic, have produced both beauty and atrocity. One example of the latter is the idea of "superior" cultures. That's a direct rejection of Enlightenment values, which rest upon the idea of an 'enlightened' culture being superior, better, something to be aimed for, compared to an 'unenlightened' culture. That’s why it’s worth fighting for, and why the British left traditionally fought so hard. You go as far as to refer to the very idea of cultural superiority as an 'atrocity'. As Western high art is at the centre of the Enlightenment project, and as you reject the very notion of one culture being superior to another, it follows that there's little point in passing that cultural tradition from one generation to the next. Ergo musical notation can go to the wall. Anyway, I thought you didn’t want to discuss this. You got all huffy earlier in the thread. I was worried I’d spoken out of turn. But you seem now to have recovered your equanimity. Excellent!  |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
time_is_now
|
|
« Reply #118 on: 18:46:02, 10-08-2008 » |
|
Philidor, I do understand what you're opposing but you do seem hard-bent on setting yourself up in opposition to people who actually partially agree with you and are just asking you to cast the whole issue in a less black-and-white manner. Richard did say the things you quote, but he also said: I notice you now say "some cultural practices are better than others", with which I have already agreed, rather than drawing the specious conclusion that therefore some cultures are better than others I think that's a reasonable distinction. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
|
|
|
|
richard barrett
|
|
« Reply #119 on: 18:48:49, 10-08-2008 » |
|
as you reject the very notion of one culture being superior to another, it follows that there's little point in passing that cultural tradition from one generation to the next This does not "follow" in the least. I am happy to discuss this subject but this devious pretence of yours that by constantly using words like "therefore", "ergo", "it follows" etc. you are actually establishing logical connections is extremely tiresome and makes discussion virtually impossible. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
