Is it actually kind of good rich kids waste their life with music instead of doing anything material that adversely affects people? Yes, these people ruin any music scene they infiltrate but it feels like damage control compared to what they could have done otherwise.

I was poor and starting my freshman year at music conservatory at 22 years old, wasnt even a leftist, but even then I knew that music was kind of worthless. Music as a metaphysical healing force is neoliberal thought, music is the thread that knits communities but is essentially useless in a place without community.

But this kind of thought only serves to make libs feel good about themselves for choosing something entirely selfish rather than something useful like say be a doctor or teacher.

  • Poogona [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I think you just gotta accept the absurdity of it all. Music is pointless in the way that most of our weird emergent behaviors are pointless. I think you're wrong to suggest that music's "purpose" is that of some kind of social glue only. It can do that, but it can be deeply personal or just mechanically inventive without bringing people together around a bonfire.

    And yeah, seeing your other posts itt, I see you have some grievances about "proper" "artistic" music being exclusionary. Writing has the same annoying divide between genre fiction and capital L "Literature," but I don't think all artistic complexity is for the purpose of gatekeeping. Layers always get added to our fun for the purpose of novelty, or refinement, and good art exploits that new complexity to more effectively draw emotions out of people.

    Also good on you for being concerned with material effect, but poor as fuck people make and listen to new "fancy" music all the time. Inti Ilimani was instrumental (no pun intended) in getting Allende elected, and part of their success came from their incorporating the musical techniques they encountered in academia into Chilean folk songs to make something new out of them.

    Music seems pretty important to you and I think you shouldn't let your (admittedly rightful) annoyance with snobbery and disrespect for it trick you into disregarding it.

    This post is long and gross but I have seen a lot of art that would have made my own life better disappear because the artist got jaded thanks to our alienated society that turns all our behavior into cost-benefit equations of "worth" and "contribution." I hate it and this post sounds like the words of another muse starving to death.