Random thoughts on this gloomy Memorial Day

NYT: To increase the diversity of orchestras, eliminate blind auditions

U.S. orchestras switched to blind auditions in the 70s and 80s to rid the process of possible prejudice against women. In theory, women musicians’ lower numbers in orchestras were due, not to lesser merit, but because of gender discrimination. That was the theory, but it wasn’t borne out: blind auditions made no statistical difference.

Make of that you will, but at least orchestras were trying to hire on merit; the new demand is to eliminate merit as a consideration and hire by quota instead.

This really won’t matter shortly, because “they” are working to eliminate classical music entirely: it’s sexist, elitist, and misogynist, and must go.

Hip hop and rap concerts can easily replace symphonies and concerts, and they surely will. They’re certainly more popular among a certain set; witness this weekend’s “Urban Beach Week, a/k/a Black Beach Week” in Miami: 300,000 attendees, with only 2 shot dead and 20 wounded – that’s as “mostly peaceful” as a riot in Minneapolis. Concerts will still draw audiences, they’ll just be more diverse, and won’t include white oppressors. Good!

But they’re not stopping at classical music. Just this week, Princeton announced that it was dropping Latin and Greek requirements from its Classical Studies program “to combat racism”. And again, it will soon make no difference. The school accepted only 129 white male students into the class of 2021 — 14% of the 1,940 successful applicants. Surely there’s no need to study the evolution of Western thought over the past 2,500 years, and only a white racist would want to, so out it all goes. Our young tigers can instead study the greatest (and only) philosopher to come out of Africa, the Egyptian Vizier, Ptahhotep, 2500 B.C., who is famous for advising his peers on proper table manners and a book of maxims to guide social discourse. Does Princeton still have eating clubs? If so, perhaps the students can order up bibs and placemats printed with Ptahhotep’s etiquette tips; those, and an Ivy degree will be all that’s necessary for them to succeed in the new Babylon, Washington, D.C.

Everything that’s formed our culture is either under attack or already gone: religion; the family; the arts, including literature, music, painting, and sculpture; education; the military; free speech, free elections; history; the rule of law; the right to own property and make a living; the military; even the right to be left alone by officious, oppressive “betters”. Have I left anything out? If so, add your own.

It’s sad this Memorial Day to see that the values the people we honor today fought and died for to preserve are going, with barely a squawk from we who have so benefitted from their sacrifice.

Worse, and unlike Joni Mitchell’s lament, the mob won’t know what they had when it’s gone.