It feels very unusual and strange, after thinking critically about the arguments, assessing the evidence and forming a rational conclusion, to arrive at a position that nowadays only two groups share: Christian puritans and the Taliban. It makes me very uncomfortable, but I fail to see any flaw in the reasoning or compelling counter-argument.
What conclusion am I talking about? “Music is a parasite.”, or in practical terms, “Music is bad for you and exploits you.”. This is a very radical statement, so initial skepticism is very much understandable. If it comforts you, let me get one thing out of the way: I do not object to music out of “spiritual” or “religious” reasons, which, unfortunately, seems to be the most common case. Most likely, music does not “corrupt your character” or “lead you away from God” or any such nonsense. It is also not really an argument for asceticism. No, my main argument comes from memetic theory and a cost/benefit analysis. It is, in principle, a very similar argument broad forward by atheists against religion. The Four Horsemen of Atheism (Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens, all truly awesome) have argued very much alike, but against religion. I will try to show that their reasoning extends to more fields, one of which is music. This is not meant to falsify or parody their position (I in fact agree with it), but to explore and demonstrate the real ramifications.
Before I get going, let’s clarify 3 things. Firstly, I will build on memetic theory, so you will probably need to know what it’s about to understand some of my reasoning. You may want to read “The Meme Machine” by Susan Blackmore or some of Daniel Dennett’s recent books, like “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea”, or at least google it. The arguments aren’t really very technical, but if you aren’t familiar with basic evolution or what a meme is, then my points may seem alien to you. To understand the perspective of replicators, it will also help greatly to read “The Selfish Gene” by Richard Dawkins.
Secondly, let’s establish a few terms. I will refer to “not having music” as amusicality, analog to “not believing in god(s)” being atheism. This is totally different from being tone-deaf, disliking music or the like. To be honest, I was a great fan of music, so this is also not a “disgruntled outsider” kind of argument. Furthermore, I take it as a given that music is a highly advanced memeplex (i.e. group of memes that support each other), in the same way as religion or language, and as such is a replicator and subject to evolution, but independent of genes.
And lastly, why I will bring no argument for amusicality. It might seem odd that I only attack arguments for music, but have no strong argument of my own why “not having music” is too be favored. This follows the same logic of atheism: the one’s making the claim are the one’s in need of evidence and arguments. The Null Hypothesis (i.e. “there is no correlation between A and B” or “A doesn’t exist” or similar) is the default position of science. We start off with an empty set of assumptions and every one we want to add has to be substantiated. To successfully defend the skeptic position, I only have to dismantle all the evidence proponents show, not actively prove the impossibility of the claim. Atheists are used to it in terms of religion: You only show there is no reason to believe in god(s), you don’t need to show there is any evidence against god(s). This is logically evident, as disproving such claims is often impossible or simply impractical.
However, my position isn’t exactly that bleak. I actually can make one simple argument for “not having music”: it eats up your time. Replace any time you spend listening to music with something actually beneficial and you are in a better position. But even if music were “free” (as in, would use up no resources), my position would still be the rational one.
So let’s go and see all the arguments in favor of music. To be clear, it is rare for anyone to defend all of them. But they are, as far as I know, all proposed seriously and the list is complete. Here we go:
The Argument from History.
Humans have been playing music for, at least, thousands of years and probably millions of years. It is completely natural for us to do so. Evolution has shaped our brain to encourage this.
This is true, but a fallacy: what “is” can never inform us what “ought” to be. Evolution has also made men good at killing and raping, for example. (And also enabled us to use language and science, of course.) What has happened in the past can inform us, but can not be our sole guide. You must provide actual, current benefits.
In fact, I suspect there is a strong correlation with “being spiritual” and “liking music”. The link is probably the ease with which memes can enter your brain – your memetic immune system, if you want. This holds true for me (I was a gnostic theist for a long time, having personally talked to several gods and all. It was a hard struggle towards logic and reason for me.) and many people I know. But in the end, it is just a suspicion, and I wouldn’t commit to it.
The Argument from Social Integrity.
Human society is, among other things, united by music. People engage in collective music, like festivals, camp fires or choirs. They define their own identity through it (“Are you a metalhead, too?”). It is one reason why human society is so stable and productive. Do you want to advocate chaos and anarchy?
This is probably the strongest argument in favor of music. It is true that music is a very important social “glue” and it might very well be true that society as we know it would not function without it. But the same thing can be said of religion. There is not a single historical case of a society that got from family-sized tribes to city-states without major help from religion. That, however, doesn’t make any religion particularly true. And even if this were true in the past, it doesn’t have to be true for the future.
I’ll have to admit that I can not completely disprove this argument. I would not advice on any changes to society, like outlawing music, but I can point some things out.
First, there are societies without music. The most famous one are the Taliban, who are thriving and have a stable history. They certainly are a competitive and strong society. Also, the deaf community is active and very tight-knit. The claim is probably overstated, but might have some justification.
Second, I do understand the danger of trying to experiment on this. What if the argument is right and we accidentally do harm civilization? Is it really worth the risk?
Those are powerful ideas, but in the end, I accept the risk for my life. I only advocate self-experimentation and personal growth, not necessarily a revolution. Even if society can only tolerate “some” abstinence, it would be an improvement. Any freed mind would increase our collective mental capacity.
The Argument from Pleasure.
Humans take great joy from music. It invokes many emotions, from happiness to anger to sadness. It gives their life meaning, but also just passes boredom.
This one is easy to argue against, but hard to understand. You do not enjoy music because of benefits, but because music is shaped (and has shaped you) to be enjoyable. It (ab)uses your reward system, your fear response, anger response and so on, to pass itself on. It is self-perpetuating, making you feel good so you listen to it so you feel good so you listen to it… Memetic evolution predicts this: brains that are “bored” without music will propagate it more, so any successful music will incorporate selection for this property. This is obvious to any outsider, as it is with any drug, but not for the afflicted. Observe anyone under the effect of a drug, during a panic attack and so on, while you yourself are neutral, unaffected. They will be blind to it; their brain pays no attention to this fact.
Arguing that pleasure in itself is a good thing, is tautological at best and addictive behaviour at worst. If you propose this, then you should also strive for direct stimulation of your reward center. Electrodes can be inserted, a little switch can be attached and you can sit there all day, feeling great! This is what this argument is really saying.
The Argument from Morals.
Music can influence our moral behaviour. Playing wholesome and delightful music to children will shape their character for the better!
This is a bold statement, especially because it has no evidence whatsoever. There is no psychological study supporting this, no disproportionately large chunk of deaf people in jail, no connection between crime rate and music education. If there is any link, it is minuscule.
There is, however, a strong connection between indoctrination and music. Almost every cult, religion or otherwise strong ideology will use music for its purposes. Music’s strong potential to move people’s emotion can easily be exploited to instill fake unity, bliss or aggression. I would not go so far to disqualify music for this reason, but reject any moral claims as at least neutral. If it has positive effects, it might as well have negative ones. You can not advocate only the one part you profit from.
This argument is sometimes used negatively, e.g. “Modern music corrupts our children!”. If you believe it, you must accept this conclusion as well. Music censorship, at least partially, would be the only responsible thing to do.
The Argument from Profits.
Billions of dollars are involved. Music is a very profitable industry.
So is heroin. I don’t feel I have to say more about this; it is such an empty argument.
The Argument from Benign Symbiosis.
Music is useful to us. It enhances our ability to recognize patterns. It supports the learning of languages. It improves our ability to adopt other memes. It has been documented that children that learnt an instrument perform better in school. Music can help to treat mental illnesses.
There exists barely any valid research for any of those claims. The strongest is probably the learning of languages. Basically, this uses musics strong reproductive capabilities by hijacking it. You take language memes, like a poem, or just some words, and apply them as text to some music, thereby making them “stick” a lot better. This seems to work, as far as we can tell. There is, of course, no conclusive evidence. (This is mostly because of the failure of language education and linguistics, and unrelated to music, in my opnion.)
But is this worth its price? Are you able to contain it? Recall that you are using music exactly because it is so fertile. It seems like the opposite of a safe operation to me. Also, is it really effective? Instead of using music to get small benefits in school or elsewhere, read books. Learn critical thinking. Solve puzzles. Address the problem directly, instead of trying to do it through some remote synergy with a symbiant.
However, it can be argued that music was a major driving force behind the development of our big brains. We needed more and more capable meme machines to spread music more reliably, so we were selected for it. We profit from this because the human brain is largely a universal machine, not specialized for any particular meme and so all kinds of useful memes spread better as well. Everyone wants a better memetic “soil”, if you want. But if this is true (I suspect it is), then there is a fiendish little twist to it: We can exploit the parasite now! Sure, music used us for its own purposes, endowing us with bigger brains to get a better chance itself, but now that we have those brains, we don’t need to have any affiliation to music anymore! What do we care if music survives? Let’s use those brains for something good! So long, and thanks for all the neurons!
The medical use of music might be justified. Psychotherapy is in a terrible state right now, but the existing studies seem to support effectiveness of music in some cases. While I personally would prefer other methods, I would nonetheless agree that a reasonable case can be made for music in the hands of a professional. And this is the crux: we are talking about serious illnesses and therapy, certainly not recreational use.
Finally, I feel that this argument is very dishonest. It is really a rationalisation. No one sits down, thinks “Hey, singing those songs would get me better test scores in 10 years!” and then does so. You listen to music because you like it. Later on come the “reasons” and “beliefs” on why it really is good for you. If I showed studies disproving all such claim, would it change the argument? Most likely not. You would still listen to music, those scientists be damned. They are probably frauds anyway!
Conclusion
In the end, you will have to admit one thing: your attitude towards music, and your rationalizing of it, are indistinguishable from memetic addiction. You are being exploited by it. Music has shaped your brain for its reproductive advantages. Sure, you may have won some sexual selection yourself, but this is of little concern to music. The memeplex has all characteristics of a virus. It eats up as much of individual resources as it can without disabling its host. You are constantly encouraged to listen to more music, get more music, recommend it to your friends and so on. It spreads for the sake of spreading. Good music is judged not by its inherent benefits to individuals or the species, but by how popular it is, that is, how good it is at spreading. Being an ear worm is a good thing for music to be. If someone states he doesn’t listen much to music, then the most common response is one of disbelief, utterances of “How empty and meaningless my life would be without music!”, of “What is wrong with you? Are you depressed?”, followed by hundreds of recommendations because “There has to be some music out there that you like! Just listen more to it!”.
It is the behaviour of addicts. If you are not devoted to music, at least a bit, you must try harder! These are memes that ruthlessly exploit their hosts. Natural selection has shaped them to be highly resistant, persuasive and addictive. All of music theory and education is only occupied with how to make more popular music, how to spread it better, how it increase its impact. It conveys no message (or only an empty shell of one), it teaches nothing, it gives you nothing except pleasure. It circumvents the purpose of a reward system by directly stimulating it without giving something in return. It is a parasite.
But what now?
I thought, “Okay, calm down. Let’s just try on the not-believing-in-God glasses for a moment, just for a second. Just put on the no-God glasses and take a quick look around and then immediately throw them off”. So I put them on and I looked around.
I’m embarrassed to report that I initially felt dizzy. I actually had the thought, “Well, how does the Earth stay up in the sky? You mean we’re just hurtling through space? That’s so vulnerable!” I wanted to run out and catch the Earth as it fell out of space into my hands…
I wandered around in a daze thinking, “No one is minding the store!” And I wondered how traffic worked, like how we weren’t just in chaos all the time. And slowly, I began to see the world completely differently. I had to rethink what I thought about everything. It’s like I had to go change the wallpaper of my mind.
-Julia Sweeney, “Letting Go of God (which my title is, of course, an allusion to)
That’s a bit how I feel right now. Really, can my reasoning be right? It must be wrong! Dvořák’s 9th symphony, a parasite? ゆらゆら帝国’s “Sweet Spot”, detrimental? Demons & Wizards, really a satanic band? Impossible! And even if, can I ever be able to let go of them? Can I not listen to music? Will I not die of boredom, depression, isolation? Will it not cheapen my life to be amusical? Will nostalgia not overpower me?
But it begins to settle in. I remember the same thing, happening to religion. Not praying, not talking with the gods, not feeling this sense of mystical bliss, this was really hard for me. But it is the only honest thing to do. The only true understanding you can have. And after a while, the old way seems silly. You begin to truly understand the world a bit better, not making excuses, running down dead ends, but learning an actual powerful lesson.
No one said it would be easy. Letting go of those false attachments is hard, but it is worth it. I expect to get more comfortable with it over time. It will probably take weeks until I like my decision, and plenty of thought and meditation. The full implications of being a meme machine begin to settle in. My thoughts are not my possessions, I am just one of them. They are not “my” thoughts, not “my” believes, not “my” desires. I do not create them, or control them. There truly is no self. My brain is just a kind of computer, running all kinds of programs. And some of those – are viruses.
New habits will grow to fill the void, better habits. New memes will come. The world goes on.
