Cancel Culture is spreading across the country faster than you can say, “Down with the First Amendment.”
It has even come to red state Texas, and the object of cancellation is perhaps the last thing you’d expect: classical music. Yes, classical music, which came under fire from a social media gaggle at the University of North Texas (UNT) in Denton. To the defense of classical music came Timothy Jackson, a UNT Distinguished University Research Professor of Music Theory. For his defense of music against the charge of racism, Professor Jackson is now in danger of losing his job. Left with no other alternative, he is suing the university for violating his First Amendment rights. Under the law, state universities are required to uphold the First Amendment.
Here are the facts of the case: Jackson, with his colleagues at UNT, published a “Symposium” in July 2020 in the Journal for Schenkerian Studies. Of the symposium’s 15 scholarly contributions, some were critical of and others in support of music-theory scholar Philip Ewell, a professor at Hunter College at the City University of New York. Ewell had argued publicly that “music theory is white.” He censured the classical music tradition as well as music theory as “racist.”
Ewell targeted his criticism on the late-nineteenth-century/early-twentieth-century Jewish music theorist Heinrich Schenker, sometimes referred to as the “Albert Einstein of music theory.” Ewell characterized him as a “virulent racist,” whose racism “linked . . . repugnant views on people to his music theories.”
Oh well, you universities ask for this shit. Now it’s coming home to your ass.
I have to put a little blame on conservatives here. What, exactly have you all conserved? Back in the 1990s, when people were warning of this post modern philosophy crap taking over- all i ever heard was “philosophy is stupid get a real degree”- and “muh taxes”. Classical music, fine art, good literature are exactly the things conservatives ought to have been preserving and promoting. Instead, we got junk culture celebrated by the right and the left just the same. If you are a republican, it is time to ditch the pop music, the television, and the anti-intellectualism. Pop culture is filth for stupid people and democrats.
Obviously we need Distinguished Perfessers of Rap, Hip-Hop, etc to be established and funded by the various rappers before they OD or are gunned down. Play it forward, bro!