Robert Peters <[log in to unmask]>:

>These days I read a lot about Tao and Zen and I came across a very fine
>Chinese poem which says (obviously provocatingly):
>
>Every way the world goes,
>every way the wind blows
>is alright with me.

I could read the poem in this way:  the author gives actually a farthing
for the entire Universe, which he considers an illusion just as himself.
"Every way the world goes is alright with me" seems a sort of cynic credo
(or a masochist manifesto, depending on the occasion).

>I read this and saw my increasing CD collection with music of all epochs,
>tonal, atonal, calm, furious, deep and shallow and thought: What a
>privilege to have all these different kinds of music at hand!

Sure.  It's a privilege.  But your CD collection is the result of many
little acts of exclusion (selection) as well as the result of your
aecumenical sense of acceptance.

>how strange to condemn any kind of music, to call some music a "plague"!
>For me every music is a necessary expression of an individual way of seeing
>the world.

A rabbit is a rabbit; two rabbits are a plague.  There's a natural
consequence of this:  Reaction, which is a sign of life, at least in
medical terms.  I respect people who reacts against music that they don't
like (as soon as this reaction is not too agressive or leads them to say
things that are not true).  I could call Ricky Martin "a plague", since
I've been bombarded from every angle (and without my authorization) by the
almost entire production of this guy.  That's what I propoerly call a
plague.

>How strange to say that a composer had a chance to compose
>differently when he wants to express hinmself through his music.  Maybe I
>dislike the way some bird sings - but this one bird has to sing his (or
>her!) song in exactly this way - it can't help me.  And to see is offered
>the wonderful chance to find the beauty of this individual way of singing.

I don't always want to find the beauty of music.  Sometimes I prefer the
opposite.

>(Besides, no matter what I do, if I call this singing a plague: I won't
>change the way this bird sings.)

To call it "a plague" is just the first step.  The second is buying a cat.

>What a pity for the people who condemn certain kinds of music:  they rob
>themselves of the possibility to learn something, to see the world from a
>different, new perspective.  They are given a wonderful invitation and they
>say No.  Hard to understand.

Some invitations are not so wonderful.  Your position leads to the
impossibility of election, which is the main element of freedom.  Those
who claims that the music of, say, XVII century is "a plague" (suposing
that they don't know it really) and those who claims that "every music
is alright to me" are both discarding the right to choose.

>Or the Taoist would just write a little poem:
>
>Every song of every bird,
>every music of every composer
>is alright with me.

My granny used to say: "don't trust someone who is friend of everybody".

Pablo Massa
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