A key assumption of the current cultural metaphysics is that
new is better.
This is easy to believe as long as we remain isolated from the
negative side-effects of, say, the digital technology revolution.
Given all the happy talk on the diversity of the long tail of digital
commerce, it is hard not to be swept up in one big glorious
wave of excitement and energy. Without wanting to pull the
plug on the party lights, I would only say that it is important to
regularly pause and consider things from a wider perspective.
Consider the above beautifully illuminated manuscript—from
the Latin manus, ‘that which can be held in the hand,’ or ‘is made
by hand.’ It’s about 500 years old. So in Bach’s time, it would
have already seemed quite old.
I think we need to remember that this was a time when Aristotle’s
idea from the POLITICS, that charging interest on loaned money
is unethical, was still considered true. “Money parenting money,”
as he put it. As I’ve written elsewhere, I agree.
SEE ALSO my essays,
WHEN GROWTH IF ‘FALSE COMPARE.’&
OUT OF CONTROL—the runaway economies
of systemic imbalance
The Chigi Codex era of 500 years ago is also a time when Music—
literally, ‘that which is given to us by the Muses,’—still stood at the
very center of culture. Hamonia mundi. Harmony of the spheres.
For me, this is still the case, or how I experience music in the world.
So, if conservation is about dealing in a measured way with Nature
and Culture’s fundamental asymmetry—
that creation is slow, and
destruction fast—
then we might do well to be mindful of what is
being lost in creative traditions around the world. Like languages.
Like the traditional knowledge of the healing plants. Or like the
sense of real, living, acoustic sound, and not the mechanical
noise and merely 2nd-hand synthetic artifacts like synthesizers
or drum computers with which we in Western culture have
surrounded ourselves.
My view is very simple: Music, like peace, like religion,
is its own end, its own reward. Music is in this view not a
commodity, although. like eros, we can and do easily turn it
into one.
But don’t take my word for it. Find out for yourself. Learn to play
an instrument. Like learning to simply walk again in the wilds,
there’s no better way to protect than through discovering what
is best of both Culture and Nature
“Music?
The one thing we humans do
that makes the rest of Nature jealous.”