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Using Classical Music As a Form of Social Control
cyberfringe writes "Classical music is being used increasingly in Great Britain as a tool for social control and a deterrent to bad behavior. One school district subjects badly behaving children to hours of Mozart in special detention. Unsurprisingly, some of these youth now find classical music unbearable. Recorded classical music is blared through speakers at bus stops, outside stores, train stations and elsewhere to drive away loitering youth. Apparently it works. Detentions are down, graffiti is reduced, and naughty youth flee because they find classical music repugnant."
You are aware that A Clockwork Orange was fiction, aren't you? It was a movie and not a documentary.
John
Groups of retired people, hanging around busstops.
Pestering innocent by-passers...
But it's attracting the Calculus Gang and the Bach Gang. They wrote 30,000 digits of pi all over the bus stop last week. Cost the city 20 grand to remove it all.
Table-ized A.I.
Don't worry. If this method is continued then, by natural selection, more and more young people will stop hating classical music and may even start liking it. The cool guys will be those who can finish the graffiti or whatever before running away.
graffiti was written in special glow in the dark compounds all over london tubes in klingon, ancient greek, hieroglyphics and linear-b soon after.
Fighting over religion is like seeing whose imaginary friend is best.
A new renaissance will be born!
Someday soon, we'll be blasting death metal in nursing homes...
Children perform the bad behaviors because of file sharing and disrespect of copyright. Playing music in the public for free only gets things worse.
Will someone please think of the children?
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
Most adults I know can't stand classical music either, so I doubt this will have a long term effect on listening habits; who knows, being exposed to it might actually get more kids interested in it. And as someone in their late 30's who can still hear frequencies up to 20kHz I'd much rather this than those buzz generators, as long as the sound quality isn't too bad and they don't play too much Satie (I don't want to fall asleep and miss my bus).
Blank until
Still, classical music as a weapon is far inferior a choice compared with The Funniest Joke in the World, especially considering its application history in the WWII.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
Easy there, that makes sense and this is the government we are talking about
Oh, if we're talking about the UK government, that's even easier. Just mention to a local official that the music contains lots of "sharp" notes. They'll spring into nanny mode, and require that all the speakers be entombed in Nerf so that nobody cuts themselves.
Whoops, didn't mean to post that as an anonymous coward...
As if that was YOU! You're just trying to take credit for my insightful comment. :)
[R]ecorded music is just a BAD thing to listen to ... /me posting this listening to Beethoven's Grosse Fuge op.133
You're posting during a live performance? Have some respect dude. ;)
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky, Op. 49. I'd like to hear them play that on the 5th of November at the Houses of Parliament...
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
There's only one solution. Bring a boom-box to the bus stops, and start blasting Dr. Dre like it's 1992.
Take that, old farts!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
off his comfy chair?
well I have to say, the chair is rather nice. I wasn't expecting that...
C'mon, could someone post the obvious Spanish Inquisition joke so we get it out of the way and can continue a sensible discussion? Please?
I'm usually the first to pick up a good punchline, but obvious jokes are boring.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Don't worry, he's posting by speaking silently into the phone. Now it's only a matter of time before he wreck a nation.
Oh, yes, thank God we are torturing other people so that we might learn how people feel about their music being used to torture.
Now, if we could only create a robotic toenail remover that was controlled entirely by emacs extensions, so we could get Richard Stallman's opinion on software freedom vs physical liberties and human rights.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
In my home town, about 10+ years ago, they tried the same tactic to get rid of the teenagers that were eternally hanging out in the town square. Trouble was, the teenagers in question were mostly goth/vampire types and they actually liked the classical music. It still makes me laugh...
Knowledge != Intelligence
You've got to think farther into the future. The next generation of British people is going to hate classical music. What happens when they have kids? An entire generation of teenagers obsessed with classical music. Just imagine the lulz.
I heard one youth on a London bus recently, encouraging his friend to play out loud some trip-hop piece with violins and a drumbeat. "They can't tell you to turn it off, because it's Classic, innit?"
But I don't think this is much to worry about. How many of us have instantly hated the music of our fathers when teenagers, only to discover its charms later in life?
Kids these days and their ASBOs. Back in your day the local constabulary just gave you a talking to, or maybe a quick swat upside the head. You didn't get any fancy bracelets, or an indefinitely recorded criminal record. Instead you had to create your own remembrances of youthful, disruptive behavior by painting stripes on the onions on your belt.
groups of retirees
loitering around bus stops
Vivaldi's bullies
Public Space?! Public Space?!? The young ones doan't know nought aboot the 'ardships of life these days. In my day, in my day, we; we 'ad to make do with the radio and telly and videyo games. We stayed indoors we did, playin' Super Mario and Sonic the we 'edgehog. Proper pastimes those! Taught us 'ow t'entertain ourselves they did.
'angin'g about in Public Space?! What kind've a pastime d'you call that?! Now'days with d'Internet and mobile phones, there's plenty 'nuff t'do indoars for the day without clatterin' about outside loitrin' on street coarners. Ger'roff of it ye layabouts!! Get a game handle!
May the Maths Be with you!
Kids have been doing this to adults ever since the invention of the transistor radio...