The Music Issue

The following is a bit from someone on the topic of music and its moral affect.

---------
"After studying Psychology and Philosophy, I came to the decision that there was alot more at stake than just "listening for the sake of pleasure." I made the break--which was anything but easy--and in retrospect all the effects stand out in great contrast.

Before the world was materialist, the philosophers were all unanimous in asserting that Music was a force to be reckoned with. Boethius wrote that "the association of music with man is a natural one; music can, moreover, both establish and destroy morality...For no path is more open to the soul for the formation thereof than through the ears." Plato takes it further:

For a change to a new type of music is something to beware of as a hazard of all our fortunes. For the modes of music are never disturbed without unsettling of the most fundamental political and social conventions . . . It is certain, he said, that this is the kind of lawlessness that easily insinuates itself unobserved.

Yes, said I, because it is supposed to be only a form of play and to work no harm. (that was my rationale exactly.)

Nor does it work any, he said, except that by gradual infiltration it softly overflows upon the characters and pursuits of men and from these issues forth grown greater to attack their business dealings, and from these relations it proceeds against the laws and constitution with wanton license, Socrates, till finally it overthrows all things public and private.

It is not the lyrics that are the main problem--it is something intrinsic in the nature of the music itself. All of the ancients understood this. All modern philosophers who are worth the name understand this. Josef Pieper, the great modern Thomistic Philosopher, continually lamented the decline in music as one of the principle sources of decadance in our modern culture. Benedict XVI, even though he is not a Thomist Philosopher, asserts that modern music is one of the main catalysts for the decadance in the world. Indeed, his words have struck a nerve with many. In Spirit of the Liturgy, he wrote:

Rock" [music]. . . is the expression of elemental passions, and at rock festivals it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship. People are, so to speak, released from themselves by the experience of being part of a crowd and by the emotional shock of rhythm, noise, and special lighting effects. However, in the ecstasy of having all their defenses torn down, the participants sink, as it were, beneath the elemental force of the universe."

He pulled no punches in what he thought about it back in 1986--even independant of the concert settings that he refers to above. He calls it "the decisive vehicle of a counter-religion. ... Rock music is completely antithetical to the Christian concept of redemption and freedom, indeed its exact opposite.”

Music has a power and the power can be utilized for good and for evil. The Angels sing their praises to God on high--the highest forms of worship that can be rendered to God by humans are given in song. There is obviously a form of mystery here. This power can be used for good or ill, given its direct effect upon the human soul. Would it not seem logical that in our world of modern decadance, the music that is proposed to the youth would be just as evil and harmful as all the other cultural disasters that most youth dive into? A bad tree cannot bring forth good fruit. Why should we expect something good, or even harmless, from a culture that has as its very end the destruction of all that is good and all that is true. Namely, the obliteration from God in the world and in the souls of man.

According to the philosophers this type of thing is the equivalent of psychological narcotics. Modern music has just as much of an effect--unfortuntely, it just cannot be quanitfied or proved with charts and graphs. Spiritual realities cannot be expressed in so primitive a manner as charts or numeric values. We simply cannot gauge them perfectly--but we can see many of them. Unfortunetely, as Pieper observes, the music itself works against this abilitiy to see the spiritual--and eventually, even to see the natural. This was exactly the case with me when I was plunged in it."
----------

I can't quite bring myself to agree with him completely. Mind you, he used to listen to the likes of Linkin Park, Evanescence, The Calling, and other similarities. Perhaps I'm just not seeing something in particular right now. One should be careful as to what is being listened to, but I don't quite know how rock, rap, or the like is intrinstically bad.