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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
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.
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.
I don't agree with this at all! How many of these kids who may have grown up to enjoy classical music are turned off by it forever? How many children will avoid their school music programs now, which have positive effects on everything from social development to grades? This makes me so angry.
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!
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
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.
"Youths" don't stay young forever. Before very long they'll be adults, with legitimate reasons to be at stores and train stations and bus stops, but they still won't like the music. Any place that continues to play it will be driving away a whole lot of customers.
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
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
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. :)
Why do Brits keep reading dystopian fiction to get ideas? Why aren't we bombing them for it?
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.
The operators of a shopping centre near my home have started doing this in an area where teenagers tend to hang around outside. The thing is the spot the kids are using is ideal for the purpose. Its out of the way and a bit dirty. Nobody else goes there and its not really a place people walk through. So I don't really see a point beyond a vague "we don't like them" sentiment.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Classical music is quite enjoyable. You can point to plenty of musical/acoustic reasons why this is the case, as in the songs feature things that people find pleasing to hear. It is not the sort of thing that you require intense training to appreciate because it is all intellectual or something, and the actual sound is awful, it is simply nice to listen to.
The primary reason that youth seems not to like it is a cool factor thing, not because the music itself is in some way offensive. When you grow up, you hopefully realize that is pretty stupid, and can enjoy it.
When did our kids becomes our enemies? It seems the UK do about everything in their power to alienate their youth. I 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?
What sadist comes up with those things? And why do I have the gut feeling that the only reason this is targeted at kids is just that they can't vote and thus can't kick the bastard off his comfy chair?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
blasting death metal
You mean shrapnel, right? Or perhaps that would be "blasting metal death"...
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.
Absolutely correct. I'm nearly 60 but this also means that I can remember the 60s (vaguely, if you know all those jokes) when we were 'allowed' (with guitars, sometimes) into public space.
The current UK trend is to deny youth any use of public space (we've just locked a churchyard because of the occasional bit of trouble), remove benches and exert social control on all gathering youth. Where are these guys and gals supposed to go? Oh, I know, to McDonalds or some place where they spend money, that's OK.
We badly need to get back to a mixture of tolerance, being less fearful and, on the other side making kids aware of how to use and co-exist in public space (we managed, with on/off brushes with the police) with the 'olds'. All this repression is idiotic, ineffective and counterproductive (because it alienates rather than teaches).
On y va, qui mal y pense!
Yes, and when Tchaikovsky wrote 1812 he intended the canons to be about as loud as the triangle.
Anyway, if you do not like wide dynamic range in a recording, you can get a player that has integrated compressor or get an external compressor. It is much easier to compress than to expand, meaning that while I have an expander (dbx 3BX-DS) I cannot restore the dynamic range back to original if I have a crappy compressed CD.
While we will never know how Mozart intended his compositions to sound (unless someone invents a time machine, goes back in time and asks him) I prefer higher dynamic range over lower. Yes, when you are listening to music as a background while doing something else it may be better to compress the dynamic range and play a a consistent, but low level, but if you are listening to music not as a background, wide dynamic range is much better.
Tricking me into cranking up the volume with quiet parts just so that you can hurt my ears with other parts is childish.
See, the quiet parts are supposed to be quiet. You have to set the volume so that the quiet parts can be heard, but not be loud, then your ears won't hurt when the loud part comes. The dynamic range of human hearing is 120dB, the theoretical CD dynamic range is 96dB, tape and records have lower dynamic range and CDs usually are recorded with lower dynamic range too, so it shouldn't hurt your ears.
These Brit hooligans should be thankful. At least they're not being subjected to Metallica. Oh the humanity!
http://www.object404.com
It moves the problem, it doesn't solve it.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Trust New Labour to turn Art into a means of oppression.
A lot of people here argue that somehow, people will be people, young and old, and if you're going to ruin it for them now, you'll have ruined it for them forever. A lot of this commentary is made from the preconception that the youths targeted here are of the sort that will eventually land on their feet, live in the adult world, and be responsible citizens. I would like to point out (much in contrast with my own ideas on how society ought to function) that this is Britain we're talking about. I know this is difficult to imagine for someone not from the Perfid Albion itself, but there you have it. So no, these youngsters aren't innocent, just a bit under-educated little angels otherwise full of promise - these are wilfully malevolent, purposely stupid little monsters, only good for the dole and the pub. They will not have a job that pays taxes in their lives and they will probably die from something crime-, smoke- or alcohol-related. Sure, someone let them down along the way: their parents, the government, their infrastructure, whatever, but by the time that these boys start hanging out on street-corners, it's already way to late to do anything about it. They're a lost cause, and they know it, and the people who play classical music in order to get rid of them, know it. So stop arguing like they're being treated too harshly - if you want them treated with a pussy-glove, it should have been done years, years ago. Considering the alternatives, playing classical music to them *is* treating them softly.
Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
General social mores in the United States may give you 'fascist right-wing wackos', but they also give you kids who aren't feral.
Hardly. Vast swathes of the south side of Chicago, Eastern LA, Salt Lake City, Baltimore, Washington D.C., Miami, New York, Philadelphia, etc. etc. have "ferel youth" running rampent. The middle class doesn't acknowledge this as they are safely tucked away in their gated communities, but anyone who has lived downtown knows this, even without seeing newscasts of this or that drive-by shooting.
And that doesn't even begin to touch the spate of school and university killings in the middle and upper class campuses that have blighted the US, usually in the heart of these so-called "moral" communities you talk about (and the so-called "gun rights" they support).
I do prefer the government in the UK over that of the US (the country is, by and large, more governable, and better governed, than the US) ... but the country here is by no means perfect, and out-of-control youth are a big problem. Too many of them watching the wire and trying to mimic American kids they think are cool, perhaps. What is telling is that they have found an effective, non-violent solution to the problem (playing classical music), and folks are comparing it to the Marquis de Sade for crying out loud -- probably some of the same folks who would favour calling in the police to crack heads if it were happening on their side of the pond, or in their neighbourhood. And then go to church on Sunday and expound on America's "moral superiority" while decrying any kind of sane healthcare system and lamenting the current administration's reversal on the use of torture against "foreign combatants."
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
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!