Read Online Time Will Run Back by Henry Hazlitt - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Henry Hazlitt
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for such literature? Moreover, though most of these novelists ridiculed and hammered away at some cornerstone, or one or two of the pillars supporting capitalism, they always seemed to want to preserve some other pillar, some bourgeois or capitalist value, like ‘liberty,’ ‘freedom of speech,’ ‘freedom of conscience,’ or some other pernicious doctrine. They hadn’t the slightest realization of how or why the capitalist values hung together.
“Then our ancestral leaders turned-to music, and ordered all existing score sheets burned—with, of course, the exception of the International , and a few revolutionary compositions—”
“But what was wrong, Your Highness, with the existing music?”
“What was wrong with it? Ask me what was right about it! Of course there were not lacking people—and one or two of them were on the Politburo itself—who argued that bourgeois music was harmless. They thought that with the exception of an enormous number of bourgeois love songs, full of claptrap about sexual faithfulness, and songs about mother and home and liberty, and patriotic songs—and all this trash of course nobody defended—they thought that with these exceptions the rest might be left, on the ground that it didn’t actually say anything. Fortunately they were overruled, on the solid ground that bourgeois music necessarily reflected and might perpetuate all sorts of sticky bourgeois sentiments and emotions and ways of feeling—”
“But what harm,” Peter broke in, “could a pure pattern of sound—”
“What harm? Look at a music scale! The very symbol of bourgeois inequality, with some notes higher than other notes—”
“But don’t we have inequality in our own social system? Don’t we divide people into Protectors, Proletarians—”
“That is not inequality; that is merely difference in function. Let’s not bring up these matters until we get to them. In any case, there is no resemblance whatever between the bourgeois inequality and class divisions reflected in the musical scale—they even had ‘major’ keys for the employers’ songs and ‘minor’ keys for the workers’ songs—and the necessary differences of function in a communist society. Do you know that bourgeois music even had self-confessed dissonances? Proletarian music can contain only the purest harmony, to reflect the unadulterated and uninterrupted harmony of the communist society!”
Peter felt that on this point, at least, he ought to be the instructor and Bolshekov the pupil. He suspected that Bolshekov did not know the difference between a dominant seventh and a hole in the ground. He longed to tell him how necessary discords and their resolution were to harmony. Instead, he asked mildly: “Is Mozart a communist composer?”
“Mozart? Great Marx, no! He was the worst type of bourgeois! He composed all that rubbish on commission from archbishops and emperors and such, and even from the church! So you can imagine what kind of trash it must have been.” Bolshekov suddenly looked at him shrewdly. “How do you know about Mozart? Do you play Mozart?”
Peter admitted that he had. Bolshekov threw up his hands in a gesture of resignation and despair.
“Well, this proves that my feeling about it has always been right. I’ve always contended that on this point of music our ancestral communist leaders weakened in their resolution, that they failed to be thorough, and we are suffering from that mistake to this day.
“Here is what happened. They ordered all the music of the Dark Ages burned; and it was burned. But there was one thing they didn’t count on—people’s memories.”
“Memories of the bonfires?”
“No! Memories of the music! The musicians remembered the music! They remembered nearly all of it! Do you know that there were orchestra conductors who remembered whole symphonies, even when these were written for scores of instruments? It was found that among them the living musicians carried in their
“Then our ancestral leaders turned-to music, and ordered all existing score sheets burned—with, of course, the exception of the International , and a few revolutionary compositions—”
“But what was wrong, Your Highness, with the existing music?”
“What was wrong with it? Ask me what was right about it! Of course there were not lacking people—and one or two of them were on the Politburo itself—who argued that bourgeois music was harmless. They thought that with the exception of an enormous number of bourgeois love songs, full of claptrap about sexual faithfulness, and songs about mother and home and liberty, and patriotic songs—and all this trash of course nobody defended—they thought that with these exceptions the rest might be left, on the ground that it didn’t actually say anything. Fortunately they were overruled, on the solid ground that bourgeois music necessarily reflected and might perpetuate all sorts of sticky bourgeois sentiments and emotions and ways of feeling—”
“But what harm,” Peter broke in, “could a pure pattern of sound—”
“What harm? Look at a music scale! The very symbol of bourgeois inequality, with some notes higher than other notes—”
“But don’t we have inequality in our own social system? Don’t we divide people into Protectors, Proletarians—”
“That is not inequality; that is merely difference in function. Let’s not bring up these matters until we get to them. In any case, there is no resemblance whatever between the bourgeois inequality and class divisions reflected in the musical scale—they even had ‘major’ keys for the employers’ songs and ‘minor’ keys for the workers’ songs—and the necessary differences of function in a communist society. Do you know that bourgeois music even had self-confessed dissonances? Proletarian music can contain only the purest harmony, to reflect the unadulterated and uninterrupted harmony of the communist society!”
Peter felt that on this point, at least, he ought to be the instructor and Bolshekov the pupil. He suspected that Bolshekov did not know the difference between a dominant seventh and a hole in the ground. He longed to tell him how necessary discords and their resolution were to harmony. Instead, he asked mildly: “Is Mozart a communist composer?”
“Mozart? Great Marx, no! He was the worst type of bourgeois! He composed all that rubbish on commission from archbishops and emperors and such, and even from the church! So you can imagine what kind of trash it must have been.” Bolshekov suddenly looked at him shrewdly. “How do you know about Mozart? Do you play Mozart?”
Peter admitted that he had. Bolshekov threw up his hands in a gesture of resignation and despair.
“Well, this proves that my feeling about it has always been right. I’ve always contended that on this point of music our ancestral communist leaders weakened in their resolution, that they failed to be thorough, and we are suffering from that mistake to this day.
“Here is what happened. They ordered all the music of the Dark Ages burned; and it was burned. But there was one thing they didn’t count on—people’s memories.”
“Memories of the bonfires?”
“No! Memories of the music! The musicians remembered the music! They remembered nearly all of it! Do you know that there were orchestra conductors who remembered whole symphonies, even when these were written for scores of instruments? It was found that among them the living musicians carried in their
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