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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."
from A Clockwork Orange:
Alex: No. No! NO! Stop it! Stop it, please! I beg you! This is sin! This is sin! This is sin! It's a sin, it's a sin, it's a sin!
Dr. Brodsky: Sin? What's all this about sin?
Alex: That! Using Ludwig van like that! He did no harm to anyone. Beethoven just wrote music!
Dr. Branom: Are you referring to the background score?
Alex: Yes.
Dr. Branom: You've heard Beethoven before?
Alex: Yes!
Dr. Brodsky: So, you're keen on music?
Alex: YES!
Dr. Brodsky: Can't be helped. Here's the punishment element perhaps.
One might ask what the artists would think of this usage?
Fortunately, we have a pretty similar situation with more current music being used a torture device against Guantanamo detainess, and the rock musicians who protested against that usage:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,672177,00.html
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Where I live there is a notorious corner for crack cocain, prostitution, bloody fights, and anything you can imagine.
Despite constant city owned surveillance equipment the activity continues.
The local Diner installed speakers and pipes out jazz, classical, etc. I find it to be kind of nice mood music, for an elevator.
It has cut down on the drug dealers, kids hanging out, street performers, and the homeless who are normally sitting on the sidewalk asking for change. Apparently the softly played music is enough of an annoyance that they go away.
Miles Davis - 1
Bach - 1
Panoptic sort - 0
I've been living in a flat at a park near a train station (Bielefeld, Germany, if anyone cares) for over a year. All kinds of shady people hung out there day in and day out, drinking tons of alcohol, taking drugs, on sunny days it must've been 150 people and still around 10-20 regulars when it rained. Worst thing, when it rained they used to hang directly before my house because it had a small porch, with the result of having one or two of those dunkards stumble into my house each time I opened the front door because they leaned against it. Well, annoying, but I didn't pay too much and the proximity to everything in inner city was excellent (it basically was at the midst of inner city), so I didn't care.
One day the town officials decided that it would be a *great* idea to shun away the bums with classic music, so they played Beethoven's Für Elise in an infinite loop. Worst. Idea. Ever. The drunks didn't care at all, nothing in their numbers changed, they even seemed to like it. On a lot of occasions one could hear them loudly bawling the piano refrain melody of the song, but even more of the time you would just see them standing there, eyes all empty and being heavily drugged. They just did not care. I, on the other hand, got pretty annoyed after a few weeks. Even today I can't stand the Für Elise melody, pretty bad, considering it's one of his most popular works. I assume the only people annoyed by that were the sober people who had to pass there every day to go to work, shop, et cetera.
really don't know about the UK, but is there really such a big problem with "unruly youths" that you have to bombard them with "deterrents" that seem to come from the privy closet of Marquis de Sade?
Yes.
(I say this as an American living over here who has to listen to these gangs of kids roaming the neighbourhood all night, smashing things and vandalising the place, and I happen to live in a very good neighbourhood not far from our erstwhile prime minister. It was even worse when I lived on the South Bank.)
I don't know what happened in UK society (it was obviuosly before I lived here)...hell, I don't understand what went wrong in American society to bring our fascist right-wing wackos out like postnuclear cockroaches, so I certainly cannot begin to divine what happened on this side of the pond. Certainly basic politeness, for which the UK was known for so long, has all but vanished, replaced by belligerance and in-your-face animosity as a default greeting that makes us Americans look downright polite by comparison (go figure). Whether it is down to this, or some more fundamental cultural misfiring I really don't know. What I do know, from personal experience, is that there are a bunch of kids over here (a small minority, but still more than enough) that are completely out of control and downright dangerous, and unlike the US, they don't stay tucked away in "the bad part of town", they roam everywhere and wreak havoc all over the place. If you're extremely unlucky, you own a house worth less than your mortgage in an area they like to roam, in which case you're pretty much finished (thank [deity] I didn't buy during the boom years).
Playing classical music is hardly out of the Marquis de Sade playbook, and if it pushes the yobs on down the road, then I'm all for it. Beats having the police around to crack heads...which was Chicago's solution to a similar problem.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
There was a study done by the german computer magazine c't some years ago.
Result: While all participants were music semiprofessionals, their rate of correct attribution to the right source was only slightly above random chance, with the best one being someone with impaired hearing and thus a different reception than a normal person, who was pretty good in spotting the MP3. With higher bitrates for MP3, they even got worse than random chance.