Klarinet Archive - Posting 000702.txt from 2003/06

From: "LARISA DUFFY & DAVID DOW" <DUFFYL@-----.CA>
Subj: Re: [kl] Political postings - ON topic?
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2003 14:29:47 -0400

If one looks at the amount of voters who turn out in the free world you
sometimes wonder whether there is an election or not. I always vote and
assert my democratic right....the West has more hang ups and political woes
than some people care to admit to....but there is nothing like the joy of a
materialist society to make me realize every Iraq citizen needs 2.5 kids and
a Lincoln continental and to sing on American Idol and to deal with traffic
jams on scorching hot days and cope with Urban Sprawl..

or worse to have to listen to the Dixie chicks on every corner while
shopping with a credit card and by JOE asserting my God given right as a
consumer to spread the Gospel of free Market Economics during a
Recession.......----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Gresham" <mgresham@-----.com>
Subject: Re: [kl] Political postings - ON topic?

>
> Feodor wrote:
> > This strikes me... The totalitarian regimes always tried to persuade
> > people that "...politics is not what you need. Don't talk or think about
> > politics and you will be OK". This works in China. Looks like it works
> > in the US too.
>
> Totalitarian regimes tell you that "the only purpose of music is in
> the service of social change (politics)" of their own persuasion.
> Witness the experiences of Shostakovitch and Prokofiev, amongst others.
> Totalitarian regimes fear the arts so much that they desperately want
> to control them, to convince us that there is no reason for arts except
> to serve politics.
>
> > Politics is an integral part of our lives. You may be more or less
> > effected by it, but you ARE effected. Next time somebody will tell you
> > that clarinet pieces written by Iraqi composers are politically
> > incorrect and you will turn around and say OK???
>
> No, if you mean assessing an "Iraqi" as a class of political position
> rather than a citizenship or a national origin. (And in the US, at
> least, what is considered "political correctness" would generally work
> on the *other* side of that political equation anyway.)
>
> One of the composers I represent (and his father) had to escape the
> Soviet tanks that rolled into Prague in 1968.
> I have both had music banned for socio-political reasons, and had it
> performed for socio-political causes with which I do not agree.
> Nevertheless, in neither case was the purpose of the music or texts
> to there defend, support, or attack a political position.
> Politics may indeed affect all of us, but we need not be creatively
> subservient to politics, nor hang all of our judgements and decisions
> upon political criteria. It is politics that wishes to control us by
> demanding we judge all experiences by its terms and criteria.
> You question about Iraqi composers begs the concept that a decision
> about their music that can only be based upon the terms of politics.
> That is very wrong.
> Hopefully most readers of this list can conceive of the idea that
> politics is not the only cause of life experiences, and definitely not
> the only reason for creative expression.
> When you base all human decisions on political criteria, then you
> have become the slave of politics itself -- the most totalitarian regime
> of all.
>
> --
> Mark Gresham, composer
> mgresham@-----.com/
> Lux Nova Press http://www.luxnova.com/
> LNP Retail Webstore http://www.luxnova.com/lnpwebstore/
>
>
>
>
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