You have probably heard stories about how people blast classical music to scare drug dealers out of their neighborhoods, homeless out of train stations and teens away from convenience stores.
There was recently a story in the Wall Street Journal about a town in India that is using drummers to shame people into paying taxes.
Among my first thoughts were that it is pretty awful for a guy who has been playing drums since he was two to have his performance used to punish people. Thinking of my post yesterday, it occurred to me that this may be another manifestation of the disconnect between people who value the arts and those who see little value at all. Assumptions are made about the utility of the arts as well as about how undesirable elements of society will react when exposed to them.
There is a little more nuance to the story than that. The drummers play the same music they are hired to play at weddings and birthday parties. So as the article suggests, the drumming may indeed be more about calling attention to scofflaws than torturing them. (Though the classical music being blared in train stations to scare kids away is the same music chamber groups are hired to perform at weddings, so that isn’t proof in itself.)
Also the inclusion of the musicians is accompanied by an effort to create a safer environment. Often tax collectors are beaten up. The musicians and the collectors are accompanied by security guards bearing a banner with the city coat of arms.
On the other hand, since 1/3 of the population doesn’t pay their taxes, they assume the effectiveness of the drummers will wear off soon. They next plan to send transgender women, who are believed to be able to impose hexes on people, to perform mocking dances in front of houses. Again, using a group to shame others solely on the basis of their identity or practices makes me a little uneasy.
It is difficult to begrudge those who need money for their participation in efforts aimed to force social compliance.
It really does say something about the way the arts are perceived that people think it can be used in a prescriptive way to separate the desirable from the undesirable; improve cognition and behavior and a host of other things.
Would Walter White suddenly find stores and other places he frequented that played classical music repulsive after he started cooking meth and dealing drugs?
Of course not. If we have learned anything, its that every James Bond villain or psychopathic killer is attractive, cultured, loves classical music and wants to watch the world burn.
Clearly then, while classical music keeps riff-raff away from train stations and 7-11s, it attracts megalomaniacs to concert halls in droves.
Gives you second thoughts about Drew McManus looking so suave and sophisticated in the pictures on his orchestra consulting website, doesn’t it?
(Yeah, he only wishes he was filthy rich enough to have sharks with freakin’ laser beams attached to their heads.)