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I'm rather surprised by the number of critical theory related articles on HN recently. Maybe it is because hackers are literally people who like to disassemble

I'm rather surprised by the number of critical theory related articles on HN recently. Maybe it is because hackers are literally people who like to disassemble things to better understand them? Although I'm more cynical and I think it's more likely a bunch of people in political forums coordinating to implant those articles (this is what happened to Reddit after all). On YouTube there was this video about how Music Theory is White Supremacy. Yes you read that right, Critical Music Theory. Of course the points made do not really stand to simple scrutiny and doesn't even direct proof of what they claim outside of "it's not the best system and those who are propagating it tend to be White". There's even reference to math not being universal, and I got into a debate where I had to make the point that 2+2 is not equal to 5, which kinda tells you the intellectual honesty of those espousing this kind of thinking. CR is great at deconstruction, but the problem as you pointed out they entirely fail at making anything that makes sense or is useful. They openly state that it is better to make points that "have the right political impact" rather than being correct (actually a quote from Vaush) under the pretext that since there are no objective truth and that only "those in power" make the point, it's just better to pick models that destroys structures of power.

bitdizzy 6y ago
I dont know which video you watched but it's basically true that what most people call Music Theory focuses much of its attention on a narrow period of music on a narrow continent within narrow analytical frameworks (Schenkerian, for example) and comes associated with a lot of normative baggage about what is valuable and interesting in music and what is not which is biased towards specific musical traditions which, surprise, are white. Schenker himself admitted to white supremacist values in the development of his ideas. Of course it was en vogue at the time. The music under study isn't white supremacist itself of course, nor is the structural analysis. Whiteness is usually imputed post hoc by less talented hangers-on.
- TeeMassive 6y ago
  Your whole argument is based on coincidences, at best. I mean, "the guy who created it was a White supremacist", OK, but the same thing is true for the internal combustion engine. Numbered theory is said to be very popular in Asian cultures, yet it was invented by a French man who probably wasn't a saint either in terms of having more or less the prejudices of his time, are they White supremacists too? Using Music theory is like using English as the tech lingua franca instead of Latin or Esperanto, it's not about imperialism, it's just too troublesome to learn and change and does the job pretty well anyway. The idea that ideas carry over all of the context of their creation is simply insane.
  - bitdizzy 6y ago
    He wasn't just a white supremacist, he developed the framework he did specifically because he wanted to elevate certain forms of music as superior and "White". > Using Music theory is like using English as the tech lingua franca instead of Latin or Esperanto, it's not about imperialism, it's just too troublesome to learn and change and does the job pretty well anyway. The idea that ideas carry over all of the context of their creation is simply insane. English is a natural language and all technical concepts are equally well expressed in most natural languages perhaps with the need to enrich the vocabulary. A specific framework for analyzing music which emphasizes certain specific structures and discards considerations that other musical traditions hold as important creates systematic biases in the understanding of music. A better metaphor would be perhaps be expressing algorithmic ideas in a language where only "for" loops were deemed important and everything else a derivative concept. The fact that you think this bias towards specific forms of European music doesnt have consequences doesnt make the idea insane. I think the fact that you have to resort to that kind of labeling speaks to a fragility in your worldview.
    - TeeMassive 6y ago
      > He wasn't just a white supremacist, he developed the framework he did specifically because he wanted to elevate certain forms of music as superior and "White". So what? Even if that was his main intention (that's highly disputable), the intentions does not carry over like glue to the system he created. Modern music theory has nothing to do with race. Good luck finding notion about race in a recent music book. Again, you argument is purely coincidental in nature and totally lacks in causality. > English is a natural language and all technical concepts are equally well expressed in most natural languages perhaps with the need to enrich the vocabulary. I'm sorry but this is not true. As someone who knows French, English and is currently studying Japanese and dabbled with German and Mandarin I can tell you that not all natural languages do not have the same capacity for technical precise technical jargon or other domains such as philosophy. Somehow English "won", due to the British Empire winning wars around the world. > A specific framework for analyzing music which emphasizes certain specific structures and discards considerations that other musical traditions hold as important creates systematic biases in the understanding of music. All framework is going to be better at certain things and worse at others. Are the Chinese racist because their traditional system doesn't accommodate certain traditions held as important such as African dance music? Of course not. It's just not possible to accommodate everyone, and as English, modern music theory "won". And that nothings stops "systematically" people from playing other styles and user other systems. > A better metaphor would be perhaps be expressing algorithmic ideas in a language where only "for" loops were deemed important and everything else a derivative concept. I get it that you never tried functional programming. (which according to its supporter is superior by the way) but I digress. Programming is pretty much a free market of ideas, and nothings stops people from using other musical notations and framework or augmenting existing one, and I would be surprised that nobody does. There nothing "supreme" or "systematic" stopping people from doing so. > The fact that you think this bias towards specific forms of European music doesnt have consequences doesnt make the idea insane. I think the fact that you have to resort to that kind of labeling speaks to a fragility in your worldview. I'm sorry for the pejorative term, but critical theory is simply non-nonsensical by nature. Ideas can and are abstracted from the original context from which they have been created. The Rocket Equation is not Nazi just because it was mainly used by Germans first during WW2. Blaming Europeans and countries of European descent for simply having their own culture is downright ridiculous. Nations having their own culture is fine, especially when nobody is forcing anyone to use only one system.
ralusek 6y ago
Yes, critical theories are philosophies often meant to be executed on behalf of "ends by whatever means." They're antithetical to liberalism. Liberalism has no ends, it's effectively JUST a description of means. If anything, the means are themselves the ends. Liberalism is content with asserting something like "freedom of speech is a fundamental mechanism for a functioning society." Critical theory instead asserts that those with power have demonstrated the capability to amplify certain speech and marginalize other speech. Because their goal is to maximize the power of those they assert to be marginalized, rather than having a principled position on speech, they'll instead leverage whatever tools at their disposal in order to do exactly what they condemned: amplify certain speech and marginalize other speech. This is the reason it's a common statement among these people to say "never attack tactics, only attack motives." The means are completely sidelined. Compare this to what I would consider to be a proper deconstruction of liberalism. Rather than saying "I have encountered a pattern where freedom of speech is not extended to all groups equally, therefore freedom of speech is an invalid ideal, and can only ever be used to uphold corrupted hierarchies," one could instead say "I consider any failure of freedom of speech to be an _implementation_ failure in need of examination and correction, rather than getting rid of the principle due to incidental failure to produce the outcomes I desire." The whole pattern employed by modern critical theory seems to work backwards from "these systems have failed to produce the outcomes I desire, and these outcomes should be evidence that the whole system is corrupted." They're basically horrible scientists.
- andrewjl 6y ago
  > Liberalism has no ends, it's effectively JUST a description of means. If anything, the means are themselves the ends. Liberalism has terminal values, wouldn't those qualify as ends?

bitdizzy 6y ago

I dont know which video you watched but it's basically true that what most people call Music Theory focuses much of its attention on a narrow period of music on a narrow continent within narrow analytical frameworks (Schenkerian, for example) and comes associated with a lot of normative baggage about what is valuable and interesting in music and what is not which is biased towards specific musical traditions which, surprise, are white. Schenker himself admitted to white supremacist values in the development of his ideas. Of course it was en vogue at the time. The music under study isn't white supremacist itself of course, nor is the structural analysis. Whiteness is usually imputed post hoc by less talented hangers-on.

TeeMassive 6y ago
Your whole argument is based on coincidences, at best. I mean, "the guy who created it was a White supremacist", OK, but the same thing is true for the internal combustion engine. Numbered theory is said to be very popular in Asian cultures, yet it was invented by a French man who probably wasn't a saint either in terms of having more or less the prejudices of his time, are they White supremacists too? Using Music theory is like using English as the tech lingua franca instead of Latin or Esperanto, it's not about imperialism, it's just too troublesome to learn and change and does the job pretty well anyway. The idea that ideas carry over all of the context of their creation is simply insane.
- bitdizzy 6y ago
  He wasn't just a white supremacist, he developed the framework he did specifically because he wanted to elevate certain forms of music as superior and "White". > Using Music theory is like using English as the tech lingua franca instead of Latin or Esperanto, it's not about imperialism, it's just too troublesome to learn and change and does the job pretty well anyway. The idea that ideas carry over all of the context of their creation is simply insane. English is a natural language and all technical concepts are equally well expressed in most natural languages perhaps with the need to enrich the vocabulary. A specific framework for analyzing music which emphasizes certain specific structures and discards considerations that other musical traditions hold as important creates systematic biases in the understanding of music. A better metaphor would be perhaps be expressing algorithmic ideas in a language where only "for" loops were deemed important and everything else a derivative concept. The fact that you think this bias towards specific forms of European music doesnt have consequences doesnt make the idea insane. I think the fact that you have to resort to that kind of labeling speaks to a fragility in your worldview.
  - TeeMassive 6y ago
    > He wasn't just a white supremacist, he developed the framework he did specifically because he wanted to elevate certain forms of music as superior and "White". So what? Even if that was his main intention (that's highly disputable), the intentions does not carry over like glue to the system he created. Modern music theory has nothing to do with race. Good luck finding notion about race in a recent music book. Again, you argument is purely coincidental in nature and totally lacks in causality. > English is a natural language and all technical concepts are equally well expressed in most natural languages perhaps with the need to enrich the vocabulary. I'm sorry but this is not true. As someone who knows French, English and is currently studying Japanese and dabbled with German and Mandarin I can tell you that not all natural languages do not have the same capacity for technical precise technical jargon or other domains such as philosophy. Somehow English "won", due to the British Empire winning wars around the world. > A specific framework for analyzing music which emphasizes certain specific structures and discards considerations that other musical traditions hold as important creates systematic biases in the understanding of music. All framework is going to be better at certain things and worse at others. Are the Chinese racist because their traditional system doesn't accommodate certain traditions held as important such as African dance music? Of course not. It's just not possible to accommodate everyone, and as English, modern music theory "won". And that nothings stops "systematically" people from playing other styles and user other systems. > A better metaphor would be perhaps be expressing algorithmic ideas in a language where only "for" loops were deemed important and everything else a derivative concept. I get it that you never tried functional programming. (which according to its supporter is superior by the way) but I digress. Programming is pretty much a free market of ideas, and nothings stops people from using other musical notations and framework or augmenting existing one, and I would be surprised that nobody does. There nothing "supreme" or "systematic" stopping people from doing so. > The fact that you think this bias towards specific forms of European music doesnt have consequences doesnt make the idea insane. I think the fact that you have to resort to that kind of labeling speaks to a fragility in your worldview. I'm sorry for the pejorative term, but critical theory is simply non-nonsensical by nature. Ideas can and are abstracted from the original context from which they have been created. The Rocket Equation is not Nazi just because it was mainly used by Germans first during WW2. Blaming Europeans and countries of European descent for simply having their own culture is downright ridiculous. Nations having their own culture is fine, especially when nobody is forcing anyone to use only one system.

ralusek 6y ago

Yes, critical theories are philosophies often meant to be executed on behalf of "ends by whatever means." They're antithetical to liberalism. Liberalism has no ends, it's effectively JUST a description of means. If anything, the means are themselves the ends. Liberalism is content with asserting something like "freedom of speech is a fundamental mechanism for a functioning society." Critical theory instead asserts that those with power have demonstrated the capability to amplify certain speech and marginalize other speech. Because their goal is to maximize the power of those they assert to be marginalized, rather than having a principled position on speech, they'll instead leverage whatever tools at their disposal in order to do exactly what they condemned: amplify certain speech and marginalize other speech. This is the reason it's a common statement among these people to say "never attack tactics, only attack motives." The means are completely sidelined. Compare this to what I would consider to be a proper deconstruction of liberalism. Rather than saying "I have encountered a pattern where freedom of speech is not extended to all groups equally, therefore freedom of speech is an invalid ideal, and can only ever be used to uphold corrupted hierarchies," one could instead say "I consider any failure of freedom of speech to be an _implementation_ failure in need of examination and correction, rather than getting rid of the principle due to incidental failure to produce the outcomes I desire." The whole pattern employed by modern critical theory seems to work backwards from "these systems have failed to produce the outcomes I desire, and these outcomes should be evidence that the whole system is corrupted." They're basically horrible scientists.

andrewjl 6y ago
> Liberalism has no ends, it's effectively JUST a description of means. If anything, the means are themselves the ends. Liberalism has terminal values, wouldn't those qualify as ends?