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Hi everyone, this is my first post in Creative Convention and I look forward to participating. I've written a goofy essay from the perspective of an extremely reactionary music teacher. The essay borders "teaching statement" and "fascist polemic," I suppose. It started as an "inside baseball" satirical essay about reactionary positions toward the music curriculum and classical music, and sort of spilled into a general caricature of a far-right professor just going fully off the rails (inspired by some TERFy stuff I recently learned about a professor of Medieval history). Its intended as that kind of satirical comedy where you are laughing at the unfolding right-wing lunacy of an already-stupid interlocutor, such as (potential spoilers for TV shows) the characters of Tim from 'On Cinema,' Alan Partridge, or Philomena Cunk. At the same time, I worry that this sort of parody might still be considered insensitive insofar as it just replicates racist, sexist, etc. tropes without really doing anything critical or meaningful to them. I appreciate your feedback both on that aspect and also in terms of general writing guidelines, or in terms of comedic timing, or whatever else seems relevant. Edit: And yes, I just finished Disco Elysium for the first time, why do you ask?  Word count = ~900 words Start: A wise soldier of the Imperium once observed, “an open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded.” In an age when the ever-encroaching hordes of bleating popular “music” enthusiasts threaten the stability of the True traditions of music education, this statement has never held greater truth and relevance. I trust, reader, that you have heard the calls to “decolonize” the canon, or for “no more dead white men” in the music classroom. While I do agree that the double-booking of the morgue and the music classroom was unfortunate and ill-advised, it should be acknowledged that this was a temporary arrangement due to the Covid pandemic. But now to decolonize the canon? And what next, I ask – shall it also be illegal to play a major scale, on the basis that common temperament is an Enlightenment-era patriarchal construct? And what next – I suppose you will say that women shall also be allowed into the music universities? But I digress; the field of music has probably been called “the highest of all arts,” and I will not sully it with reference to the low, so-called “art” practiced by those who have accepted jazz, hip-hop, Miley Cyrus, and their metaphorical offspring as “music.” There is but one “art” to which I can agree they adhere, namely the “art” of deception. It does not require elite education in the True art of music to recognize their foolishness, but it certainly helps. To proffer but one illustrative example, lest some popular “music” fan has somehow gained the ability to read and has come across this document with delusions of refutation and rebuttal; compare briefly two masterworks of their respective traditions, Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony of 1805 and Outkast’s “Hey Ya!” of 2003. Even the most cursory examinations of these two works reveals the inherent superiority of the True art of music over its pithy, malformed competitor; “Hey Ya!” is an effeminate 3 minutes and 56 seconds long, while Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony is firmly 45 minutes long. I can already hear the doltish protests of the blockheaded opponents of True Music; “Your focus is Eurocentric!” “The running time of a piece of music bears little to no relation to its quality, and is arguably one of the least relevant criteria for quality comparison, which itself is already a fraught concept!” I shall address these points one by one, with the exception of the last point, which is so preposterous as to bear no merit for further consideration here. To the first point, on the so called “Eurocentricity” of my focus, I respond with a simple appeal to history. Perhaps now would be a good time for these armchair “scholars” to pull up a simple history book. In case you haven’t noticed, Europe is the center of cultural history. Christopher Columbus did not sail from China to Europe – though I’m sure President Xi would love it if he had, because he is always scheming something or other, and he probably would have trapped the indigenous people in debt through so-called “infrastructure investments,” instead of delivering the benevolent guidance only capable of administration by a firm European hand. I regret that Christopher Columbus was not an Anglo, but the point stands in any case. In other words, of course the teaching of music is Eurocentric – the world started in Europe, as even the most cursory overview of history amply proves. The rational reader is at this point perhaps a bit frustrated by my long emphasis on the “identity politics” so beloved by trans advocates and those who in general wish to destroy the family and the national character which makes a people strong (ethnolinguistic unity, imprisonment of union leaders, etc.). With this in mind, I will now offer a few words on pedagogy. Those of you who have been forced to sit through the monotony of contemporary pedagogical enrichment seminars have no doubt heard that the time to consider students an “empty vessel” has passed. With certainty, you have heard that this is an era in which students are encouraged to “produce their own knowledge,” or to be “invited to participate in the process of knowledge production,” or, worst of all, to “produce their own knowledge.” My friend, if you wish to see “producing their own knowledge” in action, you need only look at the rear end of a pig approximately eight hours after it has eaten. By contrast, I model my teaching approach after well-known representations of inspirational pedagogical figures from the mid-to-late 20th century (so near that golden age which Fukuyama rightly designated as the “end of history”), such as that found in Pink Floyd’s The Wall. I refer to their well-known song about being a brick in the wall, in which the singer adopts a sarcastic, nihilistic antipathy toward the True art of teaching, in order that the listener, through their detachment from the singer’s bizarre and inexplicable feelings, comes to a greater appreciation for the necessity of strict education. Undoubtedly, this song expresses their frustration at an educational system which failed them in every way possible, as evidenced by the quality of their “artistic” output. While I can’t say I agree with those young men’s positions on the war, they got one thing absolutely right; without the harsh hand and demeaning words of a caring instructor, students will never reach their full potential of reinforcing the societal walls which hold up the structure of civilization. Pipboy 3000 fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Nov 11, 2022 |
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Nov 11, 2022 22:05
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