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bachus
Joined: Feb 29, 2004 Posts: 2922 Location: Up in that tree over there.
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Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 7:55 pm Post subject:
Mozart Opera censored by ghostly Gestapo in Germany |
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A ghostly Gestapo marched through the streets of Berlin last night where opera buffs, running to hide in glass houses, were heard to cry: "Give me liberty or give me Offenbach." Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, near Brookneal, Virginia, a sound like vomiting was heard coming from deep beneath the ground. Insurance adjusters there assured a worried populace that it was an act of God and of no real consequence.
http://news.scotsman.com/entertainment.cfm?id=1427072006 _________________ The question is not whether they can talk or reason, but whether they can suffer. -- Jeremy Bentham |
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seraph
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Joined: Jun 21, 2003 Posts: 12398 Location: Firenze, Italy
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Posted: Tue Sep 26, 2006 11:06 pm Post subject:
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we re getting closer and closer to Fahrenheit 451. _________________ homepage - blog - forum - youtube
Quote: | Don't die with your music still in you - Wayne Dyer |
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klangumsetzer
Joined: Jan 23, 2006 Posts: 513 Location: Sweden
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 1:35 am Post subject:
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i don't understand the references made to the 'gestapo' and bradbury's novel. most politicians criticize the decision not to play idomeneo, there isn't any censoring activity from berlin's/germany's government.
it's more like paradoxal communication:
a newspaper shows mohammed with a bomb on his head, so fundamentalists attack foreign embassies to prove the world wrong.
the pope states that theological problems can't be solved by violence and islamic fundamentalists kill a nun. eh?
when i lived in berlin there was this joke:
hey, you look at my sista?
-no, i didn't.
what, you think my sister ugly?
-no, she's quite beautiful.
whaat, i kill you...
die spinnen, die fundamentalisten!
best regards
eike
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elektro80
Site Admin
Joined: Mar 25, 2003 Posts: 21959 Location: Norway
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 2:03 am Post subject:
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noodulator wrote: | die spinnen, die fundamentalisten!
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Indeed
_________________ A Charity Pantomime in aid of Paranoid Schizophrenics descended into chaos yesterday when someone shouted, "He's behind you!"
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bachus
Joined: Feb 29, 2004 Posts: 2922 Location: Up in that tree over there.
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 4:57 am Post subject:
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noodulator wrote: | it's more like paradoxal communication: |
Indeed.
elektro80 wrote: | noodulator wrote: | die spinnen, die fundamentalisten!
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Indeed
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Indeed, indeed. _________________ The question is not whether they can talk or reason, but whether they can suffer. -- Jeremy Bentham |
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seraph
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Joined: Jun 21, 2003 Posts: 12398 Location: Firenze, Italy
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 7:09 am Post subject:
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so what Mozart's Idomeneo, from now on, has to be banished _________________ homepage - blog - forum - youtube
Quote: | Don't die with your music still in you - Wayne Dyer |
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bachus
Joined: Feb 29, 2004 Posts: 2922 Location: Up in that tree over there.
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 7:30 am Post subject:
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seraph wrote: | so what Mozart's Idomeneo, from now on, has to be banished |
Only where people are terrorized by spiders and ... _________________ The question is not whether they can talk or reason, but whether they can suffer. -- Jeremy Bentham |
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Kassen
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Joined: Jul 06, 2004 Posts: 7678 Location: The Hague, NL
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 8:27 am Post subject:
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A while ago we had a case of Christian fundamentalist terrorism in the Netherlands. Well, sorta.
There was this concert by Madonna which was going to involve a cross which some Christians thought was very offensive. So, this one priest called anonimously to announce there was a bomb there.
<thought experiment>
I think we are getting back to medieval times in that religion is once again used for power and controll rather then personal spirituality. Remember Bush only got the amount of votes he got thanks to putting emphasis on being a Christian.
This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the relatively new group of atheists and agnostics who lack access to such power and particularly lack scriptural justification for apropriate methods of self-defence. If nothing is changed it's inevitable that atheists become "collateral damage" in the current jihads and crusades which seems like a disturbingly high price to pay for merely being underdeveloped in the region of the brain that deals with religious experiences.
I see no other options then atheists becoming Atheists and forming their own armies and engaging in their own iconoclastic genicide (is reli-cide a word?).
At first this seems like a unlikely solution; there are relatively few atheists compared to Muslims and Christians and in general atheism seems badly suited as a motivator for genocide. However, remember there are probably less Jews then atheists and they are doing fine compared to their numbers and it's also shown by Stalin and Hitler that while atheism isn't by itself sufficient as a motivator for genocide it need not prevent it either.
Another factor to keep in mind is that a relatively large amount of scientists are atheists or at least agnostic and it's generally established that if you want to have efficient forms of genicide you need to be on the bleeding edge of science. Generally you preferably need to be one generation of technology ahead of your opponents though more is preferable. In practice, considdering the atomic bomb was invented by Einstein (Jew) and used so far exclusively by Christians and thus should be considered to be on the side of the religionists atheists will need something considerably more destructive then that in order to stand a chance at self-denfence.
</thought experiment> _________________ Kassen |
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bachus
Joined: Feb 29, 2004 Posts: 2922 Location: Up in that tree over there.
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 10:01 am Post subject:
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Kassen wrote: | <thought_experiment> ...
I see no other options then atheists becoming Atheists and forming their own armies and engaging in their own iconoclastic genicide (is reli-cide a word?).
</thought_experiment> |
Oh, goody! Another troop of murderous monkeys running amuck. Just what the world needs.
Can one disown one's own species? _________________ The question is not whether they can talk or reason, but whether they can suffer. -- Jeremy Bentham |
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Yorky
Joined: Feb 14, 2005 Posts: 244 Location: Boston, UK
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 10:44 am Post subject:
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Hang on, Idomeneo was premiered in 1781
so the Muslims missed it for 225 years ??? _________________ Lots of new albums at Ambientlive |
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bachus
Joined: Feb 29, 2004 Posts: 2922 Location: Up in that tree over there.
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 10:48 am Post subject:
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Yorky wrote: | Hang on, Idomeneo was premiered in 1781
so the Muslims missed it for 225 years ??? |
I think the objectionable parts are the work of the director Hans Neuenfels and so they've missed it for only four or five years. _________________ The question is not whether they can talk or reason, but whether they can suffer. -- Jeremy Bentham |
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seraph
Editor
Joined: Jun 21, 2003 Posts: 12398 Location: Firenze, Italy
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 11:06 am Post subject:
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bachus wrote: |
I think the objectionable parts are the work of the director Hans Neuenfels and so they've missed it for only four or five years. |
so why not cut the director's head off and keep on going for another 225 years _________________ homepage - blog - forum - youtube
Quote: | Don't die with your music still in you - Wayne Dyer |
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Kassen
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Joined: Jul 06, 2004 Posts: 7678 Location: The Hague, NL
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 11:08 am Post subject:
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bachus wrote: |
Oh, goody! Another troop of murderous monkeys running amuck. Just what the world needs.
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<still in thought experiment mode>
Well, yes, but you could also look at it as one less group of sitting ducks.
As the Iraq situation is showing; if you start messing with one group of muslims you'll get all (or at least many) of them after you. After the WTC and the Pentagon were atacked Christian governments the world over were delighted to jump on the crusading bandwagon. Atheists are however completely unprotected except nominally by "human rights" (for our younger members, this was a 20th century concept of granting people rights like a right to live and to eduction and so on, didn't realy work back then and now largely forgotten). No atheist would normally take up arms just because other atheists elsewhere would be shot. this is made worse by most of the other fractions being under explicid scriptural obligation to kill anyone not of their religion (including the atheists).
For a long time the demand to "cast out and stone" (etc) people not of your own religion was seen as a antiquated idea only practiced in less developed rural regions but currently it's rapidly gaining in popularity and a popular topic in mass media, albeit implemented using airplanes and cluster bombs instead of stones.
Folowing this religious mandate tends to cost you; if you are a Muslim then flying a airplane into a building has a good chance of getting your country bombed, it's childeren born mutated due to the ground-water getting poluted by uranium-core ammo. For Christians the prize of atacking Muslims seems to be a good chance of getting beheaded on public TV.
"Stoning" atheists however has no such price.
If we quickly rewind to the cold war; there it was shown that being sure of being bommed in return is a excelent deterent to keep people from throwing bombs themselves.
It logically follows from this that atheists will be the first to be wiped out once the current jihads/crusades get started in earnest unless they get armed.
As I pointed out above; fortunately they are in a excelent position for this (at least relative to their numbers) and all they need is organistation. This seems inevitable to me. True; as you pointed out this means yet another armed group from a global perspective but from the perspective of individual atheists this will turn them from sitting ducks to at least having some chance.
</mode>
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Can one disown one's own species? |
I'd like to do so as well. The only real way I can figure out of doing this is not having childeren. |
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Kassen
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Joined: Jul 06, 2004 Posts: 7678 Location: The Hague, NL
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 11:18 am Post subject:
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Yorky wrote: | Hang on, Idomeneo was premiered in 1781
so the Muslims missed it for 225 years ??? |
Don't forget traditional Western style orchestration and counterpoint is unlistenable to many people of other cultures. Maybe they simply didn't go? _________________ Kassen |
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Keysandslots
Joined: Aug 18, 2006 Posts: 266 Location: Mississauga, Ontario
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 12:31 pm Post subject:
Mozart Opera censored |
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First off, I don't think an arrogant director should be messing with a classic without informing the audience he has included some 20th century style hype and shock. I haven't seen the play but I would be interested in finding out from someone who has whether or not it actually added anything and if it was made clear to the audience that the play had been altered.
Secondly, I hate to see "religion" blamed for our stupidity. We can maim and murder and censure all we want in the name of one religion or another but for the most part, we're either mis-interpreting the religion or looking for an excuse to wreak some havoc.
I admit I have difficulty believing George Bush is a Christian, and that's not my call to make (I'm a so-called "born again" Christian myself) but the fact that the vast majority of Christians have never murdered anyone, and the vast majority of Muslims have never murdered anyone lead me to believe none of this has anything to do with religion.
Randy |
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bachus
Joined: Feb 29, 2004 Posts: 2922 Location: Up in that tree over there.
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 1:21 pm Post subject:
Re: Mozart Opera censored |
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Keysandslots wrote: | First off, I don't think an arrogant director should be messing with a classic without informing the audience he has included some 20th century style hype and shock. ... |
During the 20th century the restaging/resetting of operas became commonplace. Many were brilliant productions that contributed significantly to the art form. Not to put too fine a point on it, one is tempted to suggest that it seems arrogant to accuse the director of arrogance without either having seen the production or having much familiarity with the forms history. _________________ The question is not whether they can talk or reason, but whether they can suffer. -- Jeremy Bentham |
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Kassen
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Joined: Jul 06, 2004 Posts: 7678 Location: The Hague, NL
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 1:39 pm Post subject:
Re: Mozart Opera censored |
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Keysandslots wrote: | First off, I don't think an arrogant director should be messing with a classic without informing the audience he has included some 20th century style hype and shock. I haven't seen the play but I would be interested in finding out from someone who has whether or not it actually added anything and if it was made clear to the audience that the play had been altered. |
Well, it's exceedingly rare for works from the era to be performed without modern interpertation. For example, Mozart himself was a big opponent of equaltempered tunings yet it's rare to hear his work played like it was meant to.
This modification seems to be of a different nature, are you sure it wasn't anounced as a adaptation?
Quote: |
Secondly, I hate to see "religion" blamed for our stupidity. We can maim and murder and censure all we want in the name of one religion or another but for the most part, we're either mis-interpreting the religion or looking for an excuse to wreak some havoc. |
Nobody is blaming religion for stupidity (at least I wasn't) and considdering that hardly any two religionists can be found that interpert scripture the same way nearly everybody *must* be interperting it wrong, asuming even one person interperts it the right way.
Fact is that the old testament explicidly demands the stoning of of non-jews (presumably meaning non-Christians in the case of Christian versions). I myself was frequently thrown stones at for being one of the few non-Christian childeren in a small village.
I want to stress that I present those facts entirely without judgement of value.
I'm not talking about good or bad *at all*. Actually, I have often pasionately wished that I myself could have a religion. I'd also like to stress that while I lament the suffering of those getting stoned I can understand why it's done. If I believed that I would burn forver for not following comandments like that I have little hope that my compassion would save me from engaging in the same behaviour in the hope of pleasing my vengefull (his word, not mine) maker. It's therefore easy for me to forgive the Christians who threw stones at me because I can well imagine their situation.
Quote: | I admit I have difficulty believing George Bush is a Christian |
Why? I don't find his behaviour at all a-typical for a Christian ruler, looking at history. Maybe he doesn't beleive in God himself but that wouldn't be at all a-typical either.
Quote: | and that's not my call to make (I'm a so-called "born again" Christian myself) |
So is he, or so he says. Must've been emotionally painfull for his mother, what was wrong, I'm left to wonder with the first time? Is this one of those cases inspirered by Jesus saying you couldn't follow him without hating your parents?
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but the fact that the vast majority of Christians have never murdered anyone, and the vast majority of Muslims have never murdered anyone lead me to believe none of this has anything to do with religion.
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Well, no not personally. However, in GWB's election him identifying strongly as Christian was a deciding factor and so was his war-like nature in his re-election. For better or worse GWB represents the US and particularly the US Christians, they pay him (through taxation) to act on their behalf.
I think it's a bit naive to pretend people have nothing to do with it just because they aren't getting their own hands dirty and are just electing to have it done and making sure it's funded.
Anyway, I realy don't want to go into wether any of this nesicarly follows from just religion, my one point was that currently atheists are under-represented on the level of military force in a rapidly escalating conflict in which the two sides (wether rightly or not) both identify with a religion. I'm sure there are non-militant relgionists but for this analysis they don't realy matter because they aren't a military faction and can probably count on the military backing of those who share their religion anyway. _________________ Kassen |
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Kassen
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 3:06 pm Post subject:
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As I see it we have a imediate and huge problem. Much like the geographical world is being torn apart by warfare (said to be) inspirered by religion, the cultural world is in imediate danger of being carpet-bombed at least as heavily.
When the sensitivities of one religion demand the sensorship of a opera and another religion's priests can call in bomb threats to try to stop pop concerts then where will it end? Clearly; if we bow to the sensitivities one one or two then in order to grant everybody equal rights we should bow to all of them. The problem with this is that there are huge amounts of different religions that worship a bewildering range of things from Mult-Handed Elephants to Lightning to Roman Methods of Execution to a Cow that made the first Ice-Giants by licking a Giant Salty Block of Ice. I imagine that traditional Inca's must be quite offended by Unix computers that dare to keep their own Callendar (is this offensive? Should it be sensored? Should potential users be adviced ahead of time the OS may contain religiously offensive elements?). There would also be extremely large problems with paradoxes for example that some religions demand that many statues of Gods be made while other see it as their responcibility to level all statues in sight. Any one behaviour or work has a excelent chance of being offensive to some religion somwehere. It would be hard indeed to name with certainity any one thing or concept that isn't seen as holy or heretical by some religionist somewhere. (Of cource all of those people have a equal right to see things that way and should be respected in it.)
Instrumental music isn't at all safe from this either; I'm not sure about other religions but Christianity for a long time (Perhaps still?) expressly forbade some chords since those would summon the Devil. I think this makes the current religious conflicts (wether armed or political) of immediate relevance to all musicians.
Respecting Roman Catholic Christians in the vision that some chords will summon the Devil leads to results I personally find unaceptable. For example algorithmic music could never be performed unless aditional rules to avoid those chords would be included which might seriously harm the composition. I could, on the other hand, imagine that a well-intended composer would warn ahead of time that some chords might theoretically result which might -according to some Christians- summon the Devil. That way scared Catholics could leave the venue in time to avoid eternal damnation. On the other hand; if that group of Christians would regain political power we could kiss algorithmic composition and acid-house goodbye.
The one solution I see to avoid that scenario is something I proposed previously on this site; we should try to reach a seperation of church and state. _________________ Kassen |
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mosc
Site Admin
Joined: Jan 31, 2003 Posts: 18197 Location: Durham, NC
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Posted: Wed Sep 27, 2006 5:12 pm Post subject:
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This story about the opera being cancelled is very distressing to me. I was heart broken to read it.
This is total and complete cowardice. I think Mozart would have been quite disgusted.
_________________ --Howard
my music and other stuff |
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Antimon
Joined: Jan 18, 2005 Posts: 4145 Location: Sweden
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Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 9:19 am Post subject:
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...and the reason is another war (?), which left a stigma in Germany for the foreseeable future. The analogy of Gestapo in the first post is ironic, since all this is caused by a kind of self-censorship culture that was established to prevent the dark forces from WW2 to rise again.
As I see it.
/Stefan _________________ Antimon's Window
@soundcloud @Flattr home - you can't explain music |
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dewdrop_world
Joined: Aug 28, 2006 Posts: 858 Location: Guangzhou, China
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Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 9:40 am Post subject:
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This is worth a look:
Why America is Polarized by Philip Slater
I take it with a grain of salt, but there's a distinct resonance here. If what he calls "Controller" culture is in fact dying (and it may well be), its death rattle could do a hell of a lot of damage before it goes. Hence a priest, unable to control Madonna, phones in a bomb threat. Hence Muslims, angered over the loss of influence their culture used to have, consider violence the solution. Hence "Christian" fundamentalists in the US exploit fear of gay people as a fundraising device and as a way to write stupid and crude readings of Biblical law into the Constitution. (Have you read about Dominionists? Basically Christian sharia.)
I sincerely hope Slater is right, that the human race is evolving out of a control-based society into a connection-based society. If so, it's only a matter of time before the current madness is replaced with another (ever optimistic!). But I'm concerned that it could get worse before it gets better.
James _________________ ddw online: http://www.dewdrop-world.net
sc3 online: http://supercollider.sourceforge.net |
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seraph
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Joined: Jun 21, 2003 Posts: 12398 Location: Firenze, Italy
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Kassen
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Joined: Jul 06, 2004 Posts: 7678 Location: The Hague, NL
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Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 12:30 pm Post subject:
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Thanks, learned a new word!
I'm sticking to using "religionist" as well though. Christians and Muslim fundamentalists basically have the same goals, and keep eachother in power. I think it's important to be able to speak about them as one factor. I feel it's about as usefull to make a distinction between Muslim "terrorists" and Christian "soldiers" as it is to sort out exactly what speed-fueled soldier pushed the final button to release the cluster bombs. To me the problem is that religionsits in general are bombing and censoring. _________________ Kassen |
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bachus
Joined: Feb 29, 2004 Posts: 2922 Location: Up in that tree over there.
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Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 7:17 pm Post subject:
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Kassen wrote: | Thanks, learned a new word!
I'm sticking to using "religionist" as well though..... |
I find "religionist" simultaneously too general, too specific and too superficial, so I am going to stick to using "anal-retentivist."
(But quasi-gestapo-swine would do.) _________________ The question is not whether they can talk or reason, but whether they can suffer. -- Jeremy Bentham |
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Kassen
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Posted: Tue Oct 03, 2006 7:51 pm Post subject:
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bachus wrote: |
I find "religionist" simultaneously too general, too specific and too superficial
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Well, it is.
A while ago I firsty encountered "Islamist" as a word. It was on a site by "my" government that wanted to make clear they were doing something about terrorism. Not any random kind of terorism, mind you, but the specific kind practiced by Muslims that didn't agree with other people not being Muslims. However, it wasn't about Muslims at all, not at all, you hear? Well, ok, it was, but only some, particularly those that completely misunderstood the Koran (my government is aparently a great expert on that matter). It went on for several paragraphs of that untill I wished they'd just admit they wanted to drive around in pickuptrucks drinking whiskey and and shooting themselves some niggas, boy *spits on ground*.
I like "religionist" exactly because it suffers from the same problems of being wishy-washy and vague; nothing says "I see through your trick" like imitating it. _________________ Kassen |
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