On beauty wasted
A few days ago I had a discussion with a friend regarding the (by now) famous Joshua Bell experiment, in which the well-known (to some) and brilliant violinist played Bach on a Stradivarius violin, in plain street, incognito, and got what was probably the littlest attention in his entire life as a soloist, and an amount of money unbelievably smaller than the price of one single ticket to his usually fully sold concerts.
I told my friend that the result of this experiment was sad to me, but not unexpected, and I bet you don’t even have to ask me “why”, because you already know the answer. Look around us. The global development thread line appears to have this beautiful side effect of shutting most people’s minds to anything unrelated to money, so the simple theory goes that “if it doesn’t put money in my pockets, it’s not worth my time”. For some people this is a theory that twins their on-growing state of poverty and indigence, for others it’s just the motto of their arrant stolidity, and in both cases it generates a profound trend of heart-breaking ignorance. And while in the first situation I can somehow swallow the pill, although highly bitter-tasting, because I can understand how most people’s priorities are simply too related to the material side of living to allow them anymore space to think about spiritual things " classic music included ", in the second one, where money isn’t actually a problem but a supreme existential goal, please permit me a slice of lemon to ease off the nausea.
I had a similar discussion with a former school colleague this summer, and I was telling him how I don’t fancy a sort of music that is actually quite popular here in my country, Romania " I’m talking about “manele”, which no matter what other people would tell me, to me are nothing more than a tasteless musical manifestation colored with a rainbow of inflexions of various origins " gipsy, Greek, Indian, Arabic, and a few other cultures. When I said that I didn’t understand how so many people here can enjoy something of such a low quality, he replied with a smile that the core of interest is not represented by the music, but by the words, that are in most cases talking about life, love (lost or not), money, disappointments, things like that, mirroring in an exceptional manner the ordinary life of the listeners. The “manele” will never be complicated and require for the auditory to possess a high capacity of appreciation of their artistic qualities, because they don’t have such things " in exchange, they simply touch the listener’s daily pain and say “I know how you feel, I sympathize with you”. And the listener, having his soul ache somehow soothed by this message, tells himself “I’m not alone, others understand my strife” and prefers to allow his/her brain to slowly become ignorant. Shockingly enough, I had to agree with my friend. Bach, despite his genius, is not something for the common person to accept, simply because Bach cannot alleviate the common person’s social pain. Bach calls for detachment from the daily struggle, and people simply cannot detach themselves from that because they’re too deeply rooted in it.
As for Bell’s musical talent…I think you have watched at least one episode of that worldwide TV show called “[insert country name]’s got talent”. Tell me that you are not amazed of how many people out there, coming from the weirdest environments, have huge talents in so many areas. I know I may sound like a blasphemer when I’ll say this, but talent, in general, is NOT something uncommon. Many people have talent, and if you don’t believe me then just take a minute and think about the huge number of street artists, performing for a few cents at some corner of a boulevard. People are used to see sparks of talent all around them, on a daily basis, and they are slowly becoming immune to it. That’s why I said that talent is not uncommon. Unfortunately, uneducated ears and eyes and souls are not uncommon either. We are slowly drowning under thick layers of ignorance, and we accept that with serenity.
What should worry us though, related to this social study, is not the fact that we are becoming so blasé, but that we are forcing our children to adopt the same attitude, and to support this line I will quote from the above mentioned experiment:
“A 3-year old boy stopped, but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head the whole time. This action was repeated by several other children, but every parent - without exception - forced their children to move on quickly.”
Our lives may indeed not be easy, but perpetuating our species does not involve perpetuating ignorance. And under no circumstances should we forbid our children to notice beauty.
Perpetuating ignorance will not perpetuate our species. The experiment you recall occurred in the Washington Metro. I think Joshua netted $1.38 which is about what Washington prefers to spend on the arts as drones are so expensive. He should have brought his friend Josh Groban along. In America the family structure is disintegrating in the face of a grasping and seemingly all-powerful state
A sad but true write.
Thanks for sharing this very interesting write. That was so sad at the end where you mention of children trying to stop and listen to the music and parents dragging them away.
i agree with you !
Sad but true. We can but keep our minds open, one person at a time.