At 06:03 24/11/2011, Ray wrote:
(REH) I guess I couldn't just let it go at that.
(KH) I guess you couldn't! But as to your other message, thank you
and the same to you. Instead of Thanksgiving here we're going to have
to listen to our Chancellor. We're already warned that he'll say we
face even more austerity, and for many more years, too.
(REH) From where I sit, the Artistic Culture of Europe including
Russia is one entity with many specialties. I could never have
forgiven the Europeans if they hadn't given us their Art as a
statement about their potential and quality. The same with the Christians.
(KH) It's an interesting point. How much longer would four-part
harmony been delayed if it wasn't for the monks in Western European
monasteries? (But where did Russian Orthodox four-part singing come
from? That's always puzzled me. To hear a basso profundo RO priest
work his congregation up to full volume with their responses has got
to be the most sublime musical experience possible (except to take
part in it -- if only one could!).
. . . and then, of course . . . .
(REH) It is always Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Verdi,
Faure, Britten etc., etc.
No matter how nationalistic you get nor how local is the art, it can
still be read and played all across Europe from England to China.
(KH) China was the surprise -- at least to me -- when Handlo Music
was asked for sheet music about ten years ago. The Chinese couldn't
pay because they didn't have credit cards in those days, so I simply
sent them PDFs gratis. And they liked Tudor madrigals and early
church music by Byrd and so forth! There must be several dozen
choirs (in the Tianjin/Beijing area) still singing it. I often
wondered they realized the sexual double entendres in many of the
seemingly innocent madrigals!
(REH) The languages are the most provincial and limited of the
arts. It is music and that patterning skills of music that are
shared visually with Math that make a common ground and hold a
common promise. The answer is the elevation of consciousness beyond
the course and the greedy that would try to own that which cannot be
owned except by all.
(KH) I disagree with you there. My own theory is that the rhythmic,
melodic poem came first and the musical voice (and instruments) came later.
Keith
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Keith Hudson
Sent: Wednesday, November 23, 2011 11:12 PM
To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, , EDUCATION
Subject: [Futurework] Why a United Europe can never be
It's ominous indeed for the Eurozone (and the European Union behind
it) that German-originated bonds failed to be fully taken up
yesterday. Slightly more than a third of a modest auction ($8
billion) of the economically strongest nation in the Eurozone failed
to find buyers. On Tuesday, this would have been so unimaginable
that a bookie could have offered 100:1 against this happening and,
probably, no-one would have taken the bet. This surely is the most
significant event yet in the history of this grand Napoleonic
reprise (because, initiated by the French, this is what the European
Union and the Eurozone was meant to be). It is nothing to do with
lack of confidence in Germany per se; it is a realistic assessment
by objective investors that even Germany can't keep on sustaining
the Eurozone as it has been doing.
The attempt at a United Europe was, in truth, a French-led attempt
at a new nation-state which, with a consumer base of 400 million,
could serve as a powerful economic counterweight to America. This,
however, can never be because it would contradict one of the
plainest facts of human history. This is that any successful
nation-state needs to have a predominant, and widely similar,
culture within it. At the very least, it has to impose a common
language as soon as possible. It's a sine qua non.
As to language, examples abound. Two obvious ones are the United
Kingdom where Scottish, Welsh and Irish Gaelic were ruthlessly
persecuted, and the United States of America, where many Native
Indian languages and French and Spanish were expunged. The apparent
anomaly of China, in which 20 or 30 different languages are still
spoken, has, nevertheless, been held together for 2,200 years with
one written language imposed by Emperor Qin.
Hilariously (if it weren't so tragic), the very bureaucratic centre
of a putative United Europe, Brussels, lies in a country which has
two cultures so different (each with its own language), that it
hasn't had a government in over a year, and there's precious little
chance of one anytime soon from what one reads. (Curiously, Belgium
shares this distinction with Iraq. Now that the Kurds have removed
themselves from the country, the Sunni and Shia Muslims are even
more at each other's throats than they were before America invaded.)
Well, I've written all that I intended to say this morning. However,
there's another curiosity which might be added as a postscript.
Business-wise, scientifically, artistically -- culturally, if you
like -- the world is becoming a vast spider's web of many different
specializations where territorial boundaries are gradually becoming
increasingly exiguous. And all these lateral networks are
increasingly speaking one common language -- the accidental cause
being the birthplace of the industrial revolution.
Keith
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
<http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/11/>http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/11/
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/11/
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