Ongoing History Daily: Plato hated new music
Check this out and ask yourself: does this sound familiar?
“Forms and rhythms in music are never altered without producing changes in the entire fabric of society…It is here that we must be so careful, since these new forms creep in imperceptibly in the form of a seemingly harmless diversion. But little by little, this mischief becomes more and more familiar and spreads into our manners and pursuits. Then, with gathering force, it invades men’s dealings with on another and goes on to attack the laws and the constitution with reckless impudence until it ends by overthrowing the whole structure of public and private life!”
Sounds like your typical anti-rock’n’roll crusader, right? Actually, those words were written in 375 BC by the philosopher Plato. In other words, the crusade to censor the music of the young has been going on a little longer than most people realize.
Yesterday’s Ongoing History Daily post was a Defcon One Weird CD Alert.
