The influence of artists' ideologies or non-musical behaviors

[AnotherSpin]

I think there's a truth there. In fact Greek modes seem similar to the ragas in Hindu classical music, which are also believed to be able to induce certain states of being in the listener.

I'm not going to say how that would apply to modern music but i wouldn't be surprised if there aren't some deleterious effects to certain type of melodies or modes employed in an age like ours where basically "everything goes".

The opposite is also true. The concepts of people, in particular of a musician or composer, influence the music he or she creates. Can we assume that a bad person makes bad music and a good person makes good music?

[Opus131]

How about killing enemy soldiers during war? Does moral maximalism (all murderers should be locked up fpr life) apply in this case too? Should John Doe, or Max Mustermann, or Ivan Ivanov, upon returning home in 1945, have been trialed for serial murder (it is reasonable to assume that each one of them killed dozens of people in combat)?

Actually, how about Napoleon? He was directly responsible for the death of hundred thousands people all across Europe. Is he a murderer or a hero?

According to traditional conceptions of "just war", such as the one espoused by Aquinas, soldiers must devote themselves to good and not evil. I estrapolate from this that "killing" is only justified between the men of war themselves, within the confines of a purely chivarlic contest.

The second you start cleansing civilians, even assuming that would give one a tactical advantage of some kind (though i cannot see that actually ever being the case), you have already violated whatever moral precept one agrees can be applicable during war.

[BWV 1080]

According to traditional conceptions of "just war", such as the one espoused by Aquinas, soldiers must devote themselves to good and not evil. I estrapolate from this that "killing" is only justified between the men of war themselves, within the confines of a purely chivarlic contest.

The second you start cleansing civilians, even assuming that would give one a tactical advantage of some kind (though i cannot see that actually ever being the case), you have already violated whatever moral precept one agrees can be applicable during war.

When has there ever been a 'purely chivalric contest'?  All wars, just or not, involve mass deaths of civilians, either directly, or indirectly through disease and starvation. 

[BWV 1080]

The opposite is also true. The concepts of people, in particular of a musician or composer, influence the music he or she creates. Can we assume that a bad person makes bad music and a good person makes good music?

define what constitutes a 'good' or 'bad' person

[Opus131]

The opposite is also true. The concepts of people, in particular of a musician or composer, influence the music he or she creates. Can we assume that a bad person makes bad music and a good person makes good music?

I think this is a crucial point in this discussion, one that i feel won't probably be solved but needs to be addressed.

I personally don't think a tainted individual can produce truly beautiful art, but there's nothing preventing an "evil" person from possessing all the intelligence and talent in the world, which makes the problem somewhat complex.

In the case of someone like Saint-Saens (what did he do btw?), i neither loved nor hated his music. Always found him to be a competent and technically proficient composer but his works have always left me somewhat cold, so if you told me he was an evil man, i wouldn't have a problem accepting it.

But a Bach, or a Beethoven? I don't think i could believe it or accept it.

[Opus131]

When has there ever been a 'purely chivalric contest'?  All wars, just or not, involve mass deaths of civilians, either directly, or indirectly through disease and starvation. 

I think they happened more than you think in acient socities. Much of the atrocities described in ancient documents were intended to be propaganda, much like the number of people slain in official royal annals was also intentionally inflated to make the king look better.

Not saying ancient warfare was all roses either, but i do believe there was an element of chivarly and honor. This was obliterated after the industrial revolution and the invention modern weaponry, which dehumanized warfare to a degree that only senseless slaughter remained. When you can just kill thousands with the press of a button i don't think you can even remotely speak of honor anymore.

[BWV 1080]

I think they happened more than you think in acient socities. Much of the atrocities described in ancient documents were intended to be propaganda, much like the number of people slain in official royal annals was also intentionally inflated to make the king look better.

Not saying ancient warfare was all roses either, but i do believe there was an element of chivarly and honor. This was obliterated after the industrial revolution and the invention modern weaponry, which dehumanized warfare to a degree that only senseless slaughter remained. When you can just kill thousands with the press of a button i don't think you can even remotely speak of honor anymore.

What ancient warfare was not ultimately about taking plunder for the empire or warlord?

[Todd]

I think they happened more than you think in acient socities

Which ones?

[Opus131]

What ancient warfare was not ultimately about taking plunder for the empire or warlord?

This seems like begging the question to me. I disagree with the idea that "all" ancient warfare was "ultimately" about taking plunder for the empire or warlord, which is the conclusion being pushed in what appears to be a question but isn't.

I think this kind of thinking is part of the general notion that all history can be reduced to a matter of economics, an idea mastefully refuted by HG Chesterton:

https://www.worldinvisible.com/library/chesterton/everlasting/part1c7.htm

[Opus131]

Which ones?

Ok, what plunder did the crusaders had in mind when they sought to retake Jerusalem? Was St. Bernard thinking of any specific loot when he exorted people to enlist in the effort to retake the holy city?

What about when Charles Martel finally defeated the Moors, was he being motivated purely by the prospect of material wealth? Were the campaigns of Charlemagne driven entirely by a desire for personal enrichment, or was he genuinely attempting to establish an holy empire?

I just find this kind of reductionist thinking to devalue the importance of history. It's also too facile to just reduce every motivation to the crassest one imaginable. Were the early Muslim conquests driven purely by a desire for material spoils? Does that explain the lighting strike expansion of Islam?

[BWV 1080]

This seems like begging the question to me. I disagree with the idea that "all" ancient warfare was "ultimately" about taking plunder for the empire or warlord, which is the conclusion being pushed in what appears to be a question but isn't.

I think this kind of thinking is part of the general notion that all history can be reduced to a matter of economics, an idea mastefully refuted by HG Chesterton:

https://www.worldinvisible.com/library/chesterton/everlasting/part1c7.htm

Not saying all wars (or history) is economics, but the wars motivated by tribal hatred, religious zealotry or whatever
A) had a strong economic / social status benefit for some of the participants
B) tended to be far less chivalric that wars waged for purely economic / power politics reasons (say the 30Y war vs the 7y war)

[Opus131]

Not saying all wars (or history) is economics, but the wars motivated by tribal hatred, religious zealotry or whatever
A) had a strong economic / social status benefit for some of the participants
B) tended to be far less chivalric that wars waged for purely economic / power politics reasons (say the 30Y war vs the 7y war)

Again, i don't think wars were "always" and invariably motivated by the crassest concern possible (given that the domain of a lord or king was the temporal order it goes without saying wars were often waged for territory and the like, but there were also deeper concerns there), but i'd like to point out that the motivation for war has nothing to do with how war was conducted. Those are two distinct arguments. What i said reguarding the "chivalric" nature of anciet warfare applied mainly to the conduct of war itself, given the argument was whether it is moral for a soldier to commit "murder". 

While in most wars violence does have a tendency to spill over into the civilian population, by the large it seems to me ancient warfare seemed to involve fighting parties almost exclusively. 20th century wars by contrast seemed to just target civilitian populations indiscrimately, and on a massive scale given the destructive nature of modern weaponry.

Like i said i'm not trying to paint a purely idealistic vision of the ancient world, i'm just attempting to push back against the opposite tendency, that of imputing the most vile and crassest of motivations to anything that happened in pre-modern societies.

At any rate, i think this is starting to become a massive derailment on a thread that was already a derailment. Maybe we should drop the morality of war argument and go back to talking about artists, their personal proclivities and how those affect their works.

[Todd]

Ok, what plunder did the crusaders had in mind when they sought to retake Jerusalem? Was St. Bernard thinking of any specific loot when he exorted people to enlist in the effort to retake the holy city?

What about when Charles Martel finally defeated the Moors, was he being motivated purely by the prospect of material wealth? Were the campaigns of Charlemagne driven entirely by a desire for personal enrichment, or was he genuinely attempting to establish an holy empire?

Talk about question begging - and false choices.  People who fought in the Crusades had religious, political, imperial, and downright grubby aims.  Some peasant soldiers were explicitly promised riches to go along with salvation.  Carolus Magnus absolutely was driven by lust for empire, among other motives.  The Hammer wanted to defeat the infidels and secure power, among other things. 

You offer romantic visions of war.  Wealth and power are part of all wars, everywhere, all the time.  Sometimes more wholesome motives may be part of the mix. 

[Opus131]

Talk about question begging - and false choices.  People who fought in the Crusades had religious, political, imperial, and downright grubby aims.  Some peasant soldiers were explicitly promised riches to go along with salvation.  Carolus Magnus absolutely was driven by lust for empire, among other motives.  The Hammer wanted to defeat the infidels and secure power, among other things. 

You offer romantic visions of war.  Wealth and power are part of all wars, everywhere, all the time.  Sometimes more wholesome motives may be part of the mix. 

Yeah but you were the one making the argument about what wars in pre-modern societies were "ultimately" about. I never said crass motivations were not part of the picture as well. That's a given considering socities are not monolithic and in any population you get a vast assortment of human temperaments, some more noble than others (and in the case of someone like Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, the most noble possible), but motivations extending beyond the most base materialism did exist and that was all my argument required.

[Todd]

Yeah but you were the one making the argument about what wars in pre-modern societies were "ultimately" about.

Where?

[Cato]

I think there's a truth there (in what Plato believed i mean). In fact Greek modes seem similar to the ragas in Hindu classical music, which are also believed to be able to induce certain states of being in the listener.

I'm not going to say how that would apply to modern music but i wouldn't be surprised if there aren't some deleterious effects to certain type of melodies or modes employed in an age like ours where basically "everything goes".

Yes, but that is not the same as causing a behavior.  Jones, the author in question, was claiming actual causal behavior, e.g. (since people have mentioned him here) becoming a killer because you had listened to Gesualdo!

I believe I am correct in recalling that he claimed that Schoenberg's first wife committed adultery because Music in early 1900's Vienna was using Wagnerian chromatic harmony, i.e. Chromatic Harmony turned people into robots unable to exercise free will because they were "under the spell" of the Tristan Chord!   

For the same reason - denial of free will - Plato's claim is to be rejected as well.

[Todd]

I believe I am correct in recalling that he claimed that Schoenberg's first wife committed adultery because Music in early 1900's Vienna was using Wagnerian chromatic harmony, i.e. Chromatic Harmony turned people into robots unable to exercise free will because they were "under the spell" of the Tristan Chord!

I know the Tristan Chord has led me to do all manner of unspeakable things. 

[Cato]

I know the Tristan Chord has led me to do all manner of unspeakable things.

Oh my!       Well, I will not pry any further into that confession!

I hope a jury is not involved: your defense might be a hard sell!   

[AnotherSpin]

define what constitutes a 'good' or 'bad' person

There can be different definitions. Plato considered a good man the one who lives in accordance with virtue and moral principles. However, it is not the definition of good and bad that matters. Is it possible to feel in the musicianship of this or that musician what's inside his/her mind and soul, figuratively speaking?

[AnotherSpin]

I think this is a crucial point in this discussion, one that i feel won't probably be solved but needs to be addressed.

I personally don't think a tainted individual can produce truly beautiful art, but there's nothing preventing an "evil" person from possessing all the intelligence and talent in the world, which makes the problem somewhat complex.

In the case of someone like Saint-Saens (what did he do btw?), i neither loved nor hated his music. Always found him to be a competent and technically proficient composer but his works have always left me somewhat cold, so if you told me he was an evil man, i wouldn't have a problem accepting it.

But a Bach, or a Beethoven? I don't think i could believe it or accept it.

Intelligence yes, talent yes. Is it enough? Should we expect anything more/else from those with whom we interact, literally trusting a part of ourselves and our strengths?