The music of our lives

I may be repeating myself a bit, but this has been a reoccurring theme in my mental meanderings over the last couple weeks, seemingly being re-awakened by the oddest and most unconnected group of experiences.


I was watching the introduction credits to a DVD lesson for one of my anthropology courses and it hit me just how much our opinion on something can be swayed by putting images or information about something to a soundtrack. Here were mixed images of children, families, war, faces from all over the planet, starvation, battle, and parties all mixed in, pictures that if seen normally were more than likely not of such photographic quality to elicit an emotional response from their audience. However, with music supporting them, the response was there the instant the picture became visible, maybe even before I could consciously put a name to what it was I was seeing (I hear that our brains can process much more information and at a tremendously faster rate than our conscious attention can).



How is it that we have become so culturally, or maybe as a species as a whole, trained to react to music so quickly and so strongly? My textbook tells me that there is no known culture in the world that does not have music as part of its culture in one way or another. It surrounds us to the point that many of us can discern music even from the natural cacophony of sounds of nature, we hear music where there is only natural or even man-made sounds not meant as such.


I’m not complaining, I gladly claim to have a soundtrack to my life, and will rarely be seen without music on my free-time. I sometimes even deliberately use music with the intention of getting myself into a particular mood, or out of one as the situation might warrant.


The STRENGTH of the human emotional response to music will never cease to amaze me. Many times, such as watching TV or walking into a pub, we don’t even consciously realize that music is there, around us. I have learned to accept that I will get jabbed in the side occasionally, especially during tests, because I am unaware that I am humming something.


As one of my friends mentioned haphazardly, what WOULD happen to people if there were no music? Would we all go through some kind of withdrawal? I doubt it, should the knowledge of music all of a sudden be wiped from our collective knowledge and memory banks, I suspect it would very quickly make its way back into our lives, even if only by way of some bored individual banging on something nearby and rediscovering rhythm as it were. I cannot even claim to comprehend what might happen should the knowledge of music be blocked from our cultural memories.


Sounds like a good science fiction short story idea, I wonder if anyone has done that one yet.

The Human Propensity for Violence

I am asked, for a homework assignment in my Introduction to Anthropology course, "Which theory do you think best explains the existence of warfare and violence in human societies? Explain your choice." Now, the theories mentioned come from the reading, a wonderfully written text that I have few specific complaints about called Culture, People, Nature: An Introduction to General Anthropology, by Marvin Harris. The options for me to choose from consist of the following briefs:
1. "War as instinct: This explanation proposes that we humans have innate aggressive tendencies that make us hate other people and want to kill them. Warfare is just one of the ways by which this tendency expresses itself (Lizot 1979:151)."
2. "War as sport and entertainment: War is a big game. People enjoy the thrill of using martial arts and risking their lives in combat. (It's better than the movies.)"
3. "War as revenge: This is the most common explanation for going to war given by nonstate combatants. It is frequently accompanied by the belief that the spirits of the ancestors who have been killed in previous battles will not rest unless a relative of the culprit is killed in turn. The desire for revenge keeps wars going generation after generation whether the combatants win or lose."
4. "War as a struggle for reproductive success: Sociobiologists explain nonstate warfare as a means of obtaining higher rates of reproductive success: The fiercer the warrior, the more wives he will have, and the greater the number of surviving children. Thus natural selection favors the practice of warfare."
5. "War in general is a struggle for material benefits: It is fought only to the extent that it provides material advantages for some of the combatants."


As I read through the options left to me, I couldn't help but notice that none of the above truly represented my own ideas on why we, as humans, seem to universally be a violent species. while I know people who would be labeled as pacifists or 100% peaceful, I also know people who would label me as such and can't help but wonder at how wrong their view inherently is. The human, especially my own, penchant for violence or physical reaction to events is something that I occasionally sit back and deliberately contemplate and it is an interesting train of thought, one with no real answer so far as I can see.

I do believe that violence, especially to the stage of being formally called warfare, is a choice. The choice to follow though from a thought into an action against oneself or another that is harmfully physical or mental in nature is one that is consciously made. To those who claim that certain decisions were not in their control and resulted in violence, I merely respond that perhaps there may have not been the time allotted to allow one to thoroughly and deliberately think through one's reaction, but the decision was there, even if the result of past decisions made. Mayhaps the decision isn't one made directly before the action occurs, but at some point in one's past, a decision was made that determined the outcome of one's own (re)actions.

Why the propensity for violence is there, however, shall probably forever stump me, but it makes for intriguing contemplation. My explanation at the current moment is that there is a combination of factors paving the way for even the gentlest of peoples to react to some situations in their life with violence and/or physically manifested rage; factors both buried in our biology, our genetics if you may, and buried in the historical context of our species. To both of these extents, I believe that violence itself is instinct, its has been bred into our culture and our very fibers of our being through generations of actions which very well may have begun their journey through time and inheritance as methods of survival.

I do not believe that we, as humans, have the "innate aggressive tendencies that make us hate other people and want to kill them". I do believe that we have innate aggressive tendencies, but not towards an ultimate goal of hating nor killing other People. This would not account for violence that is perpetrated upon oneself or those that we love, intentionally or unintentionally. While I have heard and have read/heard about/witnessed actions by people because of the belief that spirits of others against whom evils/crimes had been performed could not rest until they were avenged (hell, there are entire shows dedicated to the idea - ex: Ghost Hunters) or understood, their grievances set to rest one way or another, often via violence towards the perceived perpetrator, if not the actual one). I look deeper into the understanding I have of humans and human-nature (I feel that though my beliefs and understandings are no doubt culture-bound in nature, are yet valid due to my own existence as a member of the human society as a whole) and I can't believe that this is the true underlying cause. As I search my own memories of anger, betrayal, and my own outbursts of violence as well as those times when I deny myself such a relief, I find that it is less a settling of the true spirits of those ancestors or others wronged, and more of a settling of one's own spirits for the wrongs held either against one's actual own self or vicariously against oneself through others held dear.

Humans, we are strange in our sense of what justice is. We can not agree, all of us, on a single idea of what happens once we are gone from this world, yet, we , as individuals, will forcefully push others into such a future, and then as a whole, punish those individuals into this future as well. How are we to know that there is anything there, that we are not sentencing both our 'innocent' and our 'guilty' to what we might view as a heaven or a hell, or perhaps a nothing. How can we know that we are not doing them, instead of a dis-service, a favor? How can we in our limited understanding of the origins and futures of all things in existence, in the meanings of anything, presume to wage violence and warfare at all when we so little understand the true consequences of our actions? And yet we do, constantly, and the list of justifications given, oh! It reads as dictionary of definitions of insanity, greed, selfishness, and naivety.

It confuses me, and intrigues me all in one. I know, from examining my own reactions, to feel hurt, anger, desire for retribution, is biological, it is built into us as a species; the difference however, between those who give in to it, and harm others, intentionally on any level, or those who turn it inward, inflicting pain on oneself, and those of us who choose to step back, away from what elicits the urge....where does that difference come from. But I suppose, that leads upon a greater path that delves even deeper into a shared yet separate psyche....into the question that surrounds and has birthed my current path of study....who are we?

Second Best Invention Ever: Music!

I have to admit, yes, that music has been around at least a millennia, or few, longer than coffee, and thusly I can not claim it was the First best invention ever. *sigh*

Whom-so-ever it was who realized that beating on different objects with something, whether a part of oneself or an external object, could create a variety of intriguing and amusing noises,  ranks well among geniuses in my mind. Granted, anthropologically speaking music probably arrived in several geographical locations in several different cultures or emerging cultures at once, but still, whomever(s) it were, deserves several thousand years worth of royalties.

Whoever the famous "They" are, they are right; music captures the human soul. It is the one thing I know of that can capture emotions to such purity and to such an incredibly accurate range; even more than the actual expression of our emotions themselves.This ability, comes second only to one other facet where I am concerned, music's ability to bring forth and change our current moods. Even when in the most terrible, horrible, god-awful mood, put on the right song or track, and by the time the track ends, one's mood can be at the complete opposite end of the emotional spectrum than it was only a few minutes prior.

Okay, granted, the thought that brought, for the umpteenth time this semester, was accompanied by another variable, my beloved coffee, but that is in addition to the fact. My life has a soundtrack, while I am still much too fuzzy in the morning to turn on music first thing and jump-start myself then and there, by the time I am out the door on my way to the bus-stop, in nearly pitch-black at this time of year up here, I am becoming human again, capable of dealing with whatever awaits me outside my personal domain. The catalyst? My treasured iPod. By the time I exit Kaladi's to head up the street to work, the music has worked its charm and it is as if I am opening my real eyes for the first time that day. Even before I have taken my first sip of my 'liquid morning' (as the Raven's Brew cups at school call it-took me Forever, sadly, to get that) the spell is woven; one, that hopefully will outlast the day to come.

I have never met anyone who has claimed not to like any music at all. Many people may not like my music preferences (I say that in the plural because I think I could find a piece from any  genre that I would like), but they like some kind of music. It truly seems to be a facet that ties all cultures together. Music, many dialects, one world-wide language of symbolism.

The Strangeness of Everyday Words

It's happened to me many a time, normal, everyday words, the very same words and spellings we've used in conversations and writings for years and years, suddenly just don't seem right anymore. No matter how you look at it, write it, or how many times you retype it, there is just this new, inherent wrongness associated with it. Now, granted this might not last for long, sometimes not even past the act of asking someone else (or even the nearest SpellCheck bot) to verify that, yes indeed, it is correct; however, it never fails to throw one for a momentary loop.
I experienced a new facet of this phenomenon recently that I had, as of yet, never encountered. Traveling through an airport on my way back from a week in Montana, I over heard someone mention Seattle. Now, Seattle is a town I have visited more times than I can count and cherish dearly, hearing its name this time, though, made me pause with a strange thought at the forefront of my mind. It is a very strange thing we do, very odd, to refer to a locale or a place that extends for who knows exactly how many units of any one measurement, by a name, a word, and expect it to cover it as simple as that.
Taken from the anthropological point of view, this cultural practice is indeed an unsound one. As the population of the world, or even one geographical location (although in this context the phrase "geographical location" also makes no sense, perhaps I should mean physical land mass) grows, borders of 'villages', 'towns', 'cities', 'states', 'nations' merge, blend, shift, move, and change. Even within a population that changes very little, if at all, it is nearly impossible to interpret or know where the Exact borders of their land are.
I have never known of a culture or society who, outside of perhaps their own personal property (aka: such as siblings who share a bedroom) to deliberately and (semi-)permanently mark the official or even unofficial boundaries of their land(s). Granted, maps do this in a symbolic way, but even then, news of borders being in dispute and moving, being changed is continuous if one knows where to look for it.
The fact that we presume to know the Exact location of borders between official geographical areas or cultural ones must say an awful lot about us as a culture.Our need to control our surroundings perhaps? For one must, logically admit, that even outside of the cultural changes abound, no human can presume to control geological changes to the physical world around us so much as to be able to predefine and forever set such borders in stone, as it were. Realizing such, how is it possible that we can think to assign a set of single words or terms to areas which so obviously combine, merge, and shift with little warning and, quite possibly, no methods of prediction.