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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.
"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.
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
Why do Brits keep reading dystopian fiction to get ideas? Why aren't we bombing them for it?
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.
Strange. We're thinking of the children when we strip away the freedoms of the adults, and appearantly we're thinking of the adults when we're stripping away the freedoms of our kids. In other words, when we're taking away from everyone, we make everyone happy... or something like that must be the logic.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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!