The semantic vigilantes of wokery are badgering Beethoven again, but this time their fragile woe extends to other composers, as well.
Sometimes, seeking relief from the laws of cause and effect, the oppression of reason and the truths that have sustained humankind for several millennia, I travel to the outer frontiers of Wokestan.
In that rare and strange dominion, the mind may roam free, unburdened by any strictures of logic or meaning. For example, not so long ago I offered readers the sad story of certain wokesters who saw Beethoven’s music as a symbol of white oppression.
Beethoven is one of the triad of classical music’s very greatest, most creative composers. The other two, known to all outside Wokestan, being Mozart and Bach. All three, as I noted then, and will again, carried the extreme disabilities of being white, male and dead.
I’m not really sure how the last of this triune — being dead — can ever be repaired, it being generally recognized as a condition that does not leave a lot of agency or initiative, and that certainly puts selfhelp squarely out of the question. And now that I have reflected on it, very much the same must be said — to the grief of critical race students and their senseis — of his being a white person of the male class.
The wokepersons were particularly upset with his immensely famous and instantly familiar Symphony No. 5. To the wokemeisters it was nothing more than “a reminder of classical music’s history of exclusion and elitism.” I’m not at all sure about the exclusion business here, for it is absolutely true that whole other nations outside Germany, and performers from every corner of the world, have embraced Beethoven’s music with passion and dedication.
As for him being elitist, well, I certainly hope so, just as Mount Everest is, being the greatest of its kind, or, to come off the mountain, Shakespeare is elitist because he is the sole sovereign master in the artistic deployment of the English language.
Well, the semantic vigilantes of wokery are badgering Beethoven again, but this time their fragile woe extends to other composers, as well. They deplore the habitual practice of referring to Beethoven as … Beethoven. And go on to include Mozart, Bach, Schumann and other greats. The agony they suffer comes from the habit of referring to these composers by their last names only: the actual and full complaint that “white male composers ( are) being introduced with only surnames, full names for everyone else, especially women and composers of colour,” as Chris White, an assistant professor of music theory at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, wrote in Slate magazine.
By the way, did you know that in Newfoundland we refer to cod as “fish,” but refer to halibut, herring, sculpins and capelin as halibut, herring, sculpins and capelin?
To my knowledge, there has been no complaint from either the halibut or any other finny friends. No charge of sexism either. This has its relevance.
But that’s a line in other waters. Our woke friends object to calling Beethoven or Mozart by their last names because the “musical field remains remarkably white” and male, and therefore exists in a “white privilege frame.” (A terrible thing this, whatever it is.)
First, let me note that we are talking about music, which is a species of art in the medium of sound alone. In so far as I can determine, and I have listened to a lot of classical music, the sound of a note is colourless, a theme or motif has no physical complexion or colour, and Symphony No. 5, whatever else it is, is not an arrangement of colours, i.e., a painting.
Second, referencing some composers by their last names is a product only of their near universal fame, and the fact that musicians themselves are well aware of who these people are. When asked to play, say, Rachmaninoff, the first violinist doesn’t jump up and ask, “Do you mean Sergei?” When Mozart’s 40th is referenced, the piccolo person doesn’t raise his hand to inquire, “Wolfgang Amadeus?” ( He knows there are other Mozarts, but when people say “Mozart,” they always mean the Mozart. Likewise with Johann Sebastian Bach. It’s that Bach; it’s always that Bach.
The three greats are known by their last names not for sex or race reasons, but because they are the mountain peaks of musical and artistic excellence. It is the same with Einstein and Newton, who are sovereign in their domain and universally spoken of by their surnames alone — and not because of some white privilege plot.
Orwell famously wrote about certain things that were so stupid only an intellectual could believe them. As a corollary to that fine observation, let me posit that there are some things so ridiculous, so petty, so odd and intellectually barren that they can only exist inside the borders of Wokestan. And among those silly things, moaning about using great composers last names only, and seeing in the practice some tincture of “white supremacy,” is not even an idea, but a feeble cartoon of pseudo-thought.
Wokesters of the world wake up. You have nothing to lose but strange jargon and very odd ideas.
known by their last names not for sex or race reasons.