AudioBanter.com - View Single Post

On 7 Feb 2006 19:30:29 -0800, wrote:

Your and Paul's lament will fall on deaf ears. Don't look
far- look at the new threads in this AUDIO forum just below yours. A
long quote from an IQ of 70 Limbaugh clone- ....
..I'm not talking about the views expressed- I'm talking about the
intellectual level of the writing and of whoever was so impressed by it
as to reprint it in an Audio forum. Next several threads about budget
and anything else but music or audio, Where from will the young get
exposure to better things ?

I agree the standard is low everywhere, Ludovic. What especially
worries me is not that the young are choosing poorly, but that no
choice exists for them; that a person can go from cradle to grave, and
many do, never hearing a note of serious music (other than
incidentally in movies and video games, where it passes unnoticed) or
reading a word of quality literature. The old audio saying, "Garbage
in, garbage out" is unfortunately only too true in life, and given the
cultural food we as a society feed the young these days can we wonder
......well, you see my point.

Classical music has disappeared from the only record store in my local
mall. They had a good supply of Naxos, but of course no one bought
them but me so they ditched them. Now it's all variations or rock and
rap and something called "Alternative", though I doubt whatever that
is that it's any real alternative.

Audio? Questions about plugging Best Buy things into each other and
rehash of the ABX nonsense- .to which I plead guilty of contributing.
More evidence? Here in Vancouver when one goes to a symphony or a
chamber music concert one sees a sea of bald heads with their faithful
spouses.

Absolutely, playing to the converted, to the same dwindling band of
conservatives, who live for the next Beethoven or Tchaikovsky concert
and shiver in dread that someone might program Shostakovich or Vaughan
Williams.

Why? Do I dare to say it? In the ages past only the privileged
could afford "Culture". And with privilege went snobbery. A taste for
art was one of the class distinctions. In the West, now. more people
have access to entertainment than ever before in the written history.
And a very good thing it is. Except that: the Roman populace did not
cry for panem et poetae. They wanted "panem et circenses"- circus
gladiators and Christians thrown to the lions.

I hate to be elitist but it's hard not to agree with your sentiment.
Who was it who said, "No one ever went broke pandering to the lowest
common denominator?" And boy have they pandered! But people can only
rightly choose when presented with a choice. If you present them with
poetry or games, they'll probably choose games, but at least that's a
choice, whose consequences they have to live with. As it is at the
moment the choice (?) is between games, games and more games.

I recently told a 15 year old that I liked classical music. He said,
"What? You mean like The Beatles?" Enough said.

One must take the rough with the smooth.Like for instance better
teaching of science together with the teachers of English (like in my
son's school) who couldn't write a grammatical sentence if their life
depended on it.
I don't know what th answer is.
Ludovic Mirabel

Pity. I was hoping you might have the answer. :-)