CONDITIONING BY MUSIC
PART 1
By
Dennis L. Cuddy, Ph.D.
July 13, 2009
NewsWithViews.com
[NOTE: On the back of the cover page of my The Road to Socialism and the New World Order, I have a picture of the famous Fabian Socialist window with its inscription “Remould it nearer to the heart’s desire.” So is it any wonder that President Obama’s policies are moving us toward Socialism when at a townhall meeting in Arnold, Missouri, on April 29, 2009, he said “We’re working to remake America”? He will remake (remould) America (it) nearer to his heart’s desire, and that is as an increasingly Socialist nation. If you doubt Obama is doing this, look at his appointment of Carol Browner as Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change. She’s been a member of Socialist International (SI) Commission for a Sustainable World Society, and there is a photo of her addressing SI’s XXIII Congress in Athens, Greece on June 30, 2008. She is a strong supporter of “cap-and-trade” carbon emission controls, which will send many more American jobs overseas.
According to Fabian Socialist George Bernard Shaw, they (Fabian Socialists) set out to “Educate, Agitate, Organize.” Relevant to “Organize,” Obama was a community “organizer” following the model of Saul Alinsky, author of Rules for Radicals (1971), which had an acknowledgement to Lucifer at the front. Relevant to “Educate,” John Lloyd (former executive director of the Kansas National Education Association) said that this Alinsky book has been the “bible” of the National Education Association (NEA). And relevant to “Agitate,” Alinsky wrote that the radical organizer “dedicated to changing the life of a particular community must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community; fan the latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expression. He must search out controversy and issues…. An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent….” Obama has been a radical organizer “dedicated to changing” America, which is now headed down the path toward Socialism as desired by the Fabians.
Lastly, one way to recognize a Socialist Nation is to look at the relation of government to private business (e.g., government takeover of General Motors), and relevant to that is the fact that the corporate tax rate in the U.S. is even higher than that in Sweden, which is recognized as a very Socialist nation.]
We know that music can have a profound effect on people. Certain type of music can have a calming or soothing effect. However, according to Oliver Sacks (Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center), “music of a particular sort can actually trigger seizures.” [See here]
In Plato’s Republic, he stated that “the introduction of a new kind of music can alter the character of a nation.” The modern assault upon traditional American moral values began with the permissiveness of the Roaring ‘20s (e.g., look at the lyrics of the popular 1921 song “Sheik of Araby”). In previous columns, I have quoted from Antonio Gramsci, John Dewey, and Edward Bernays concerning their roles in altering societies and values, and in this column I’ll focus on the role of music in this regard.
After the Roaring ‘20s, in 1934, the bisexual Cole Porter introduced a popular musical and song by the title “Anything Goes,” which was about a shift away from restrictive codes of conduct. And in 1936, Irving Berlin composed the music and lyrics for the motion picture “Follow the Fleet” starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, in which she sang “Let Yourself Go.” In that same movie, Harriet Hilliard (later to be Harriet Nelson of “Ozzie and Harriet” TV fame) sang a song with the following lyrics: “Get thee behind me, Satan… but the moon is low and I can’t say ‘no.’… Get thee behind me, Satan, but the moon is low and I may let go. Get thee behind me. Someone I’m mad about is waiting in the night for me, someone that I mustn’t see. Satan, get thee behind me. He promised to wait, but I won’t appear, and he may come here. Satan, he’s at my gate. Get thee behind me. Stay where you are. It’s too late.” The message is clear – resistance to temptation is futile (also look at the lyrics of the popular 1942 song “That Old Black Magic”).
Two years after “Follow the Fleet,” in February 1938, Theodor Adorno (formerly of the Frankfurt School in Germany) was made chief of the music division of Princeton University’s Radio Project, which was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. Adorno believed that repetition in music and other areas could create popularity, and that one could change the culture away from “the authoritarian personality” (belief in traditional authority) toward the “revolutionary,” liberating individuals from traditional values. He also believed that the mass media could be used for “opinion management.”
In 1941, Adorno left the Radio Project and moved to the University of California in Los Angeles where he taught for seven years, teaming with Max Horkheimer in 1947 to author Dialectic of Enlightenment. Horkheimer was director of the Frankfurt School during the 1930s and believed that authority within the family structure was a serious problem to be eliminated. In 1947, he also authored Eclipse of Reason, and in 1950 Adorno authored The Authoritarian Personality indicating that those who emphasized their family, nation, or race, actually had a psychiatric disorder. Adorno also theorized that an emphasis on fractious music could help destabilize society.
[See DVD "They Sold Their Souls for Rock-N-Roll"]
In 1951, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed invented the phrase “rock & roll,” which had sexual connotations. “Rock & roll” placed a heavy emphasis upon the beat and rhythm, and famous composer and conductor Dimitri Tiomkin would later judge that “the big beat is deliberately aimed at exciting the listener. There is actually very little melody, only rhythm…. We seem to be reverting to savagery…. Youngsters who listen constantly to this sort of sound are thrust into turmoil. They are no longer relaxed, normal kids.” Tiomkin’s analysis was supported by Aldous Huxley’s statement in his The Devils of Loudun (1952): “If exposed long enough to the tomtoms and the singing, every one of our philosophers would end by capering and howling with the savages…. Assemble a mob of men and women previously conditioned by a daily reading of newspapers; treat them to amplified band music, bright lights… and in next to no time you can reduce them to a state of almost mindless subhumanity. Never before have so few been in a position to make fools, maniacs, or criminals of so many.” In 1933 in The Shape of Things to Come, H.G. Wells had foretold of growing criminally infected areas after WWII (he said the war would begin in about seven years).
Scientifically supporting what Tiomkin and Huxley said, in 1957 Dr. William Sargent, former president of the Section of Psychiatry in the Royal Society of Medicine (London) authored Battle for the Mind: The Mechanics of Indoctrination, Brainwashing, and Thought Control revealing “that electrical recordings of the human brain show that it is particularly sensitive to rhythmic stimulation by percussion and bright lights…. Certain rates of rhythm can build up reportable abnormalities of brain function and explosive states. Furthermore, it is easier to disorganize the normal function of the brain by attacking it simultaneously with several strong rhythms played in different tempos.” Sargent then stated: “Belief can be implanted in people after brain function has been sufficiently disturbed by accidentally or deliberately induced fear, anger, or excitement. Of the results caused by such disturbances, the most common one is temporarily impaired judgment and heightened suggestability.”
Three years later, The Beatles formed in 1960 in a transition from “rock & roll” to “rock” music, and by 1967 their “Sgt. Pepper’s” album had definite drug implications (even the U.N. Bulletin on Narcotics warned about it). In 1962, “The Rolling Stones” formed and are even popular today, despite producing such songs as “Sympathy for the Devil” and albums such as “Their Satanic Majesties Request.”
The mid-1960s became a period of increasing revolution against traditional values. In 1964, “The Who” formed, and one of its members has proclaimed: “What we dish out is the musical equivalent of war – war upon quiet, war upon dullness, war upon certainty and stability.” That same year, “Mothers of Invention” formed, and its leaders Frank Zappa said, “The loud sounds and bright lights of today are tremendous indoctrination tools.” The next year (1965), “Jefferson Airplane” formed, and member Paul Cantor revealed: “The new rock music is intended to broaden the generation gap, alienate parents from their children, and prepare young people for revolution.” The next year (1966), Crosby, Stills and Nash met (formally forming in 1968), and David Crosby in Rolling Stone (Vol. 1) remarked: “I figured the only thing to do was to steal their kids. I still think it’s the only thing to do. By saying that, I’m not talking about kidnapping. I’m just talking about changing young people’s value systems which removes them from their parents’ world effectively.”
One important area of American values under attack in the 1960s was religion. Traditional Biblical values were undermined and replaced by those of the religions of Secular Humanism and the New Age. Songs expressing the situation ethics attitudes of “do your own thing” and “if it feels good, do it” promoted the religion of Secular Humanism. And in 1967, the musical “Hair” opened and included the popular song, “Aquarius,” which promoted the New Age religion. It contained the following lyrics:
When
the moon is in the seventh house,
And Jupiter aligns with Mars,
Then peace will guide the planets,
And love will steer the stars.
This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius!
Harmony and understanding,
Sympathy and trust abounding,
No more falsehoods or derision,
Golden living dreams of visions,
Mystic crystal revelation,
And the mind’s true liberation.
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In 1969, the singing group “The Fifth Dimension” released this song as a single. And in the 1996 Theosophical/New Age book The Light Shall Set You Free (Theosphists believe Lucifer, “The Light-Bearer,” sets one free as opposed to the Biblical statement “the Truth (Jesus) will make you free”) by Norma Milanovich and Shirley McCune, one reads: “The date for entry into the Fifth Dimension [when the Piscean or Christian Age will end and the Age of Aquarius will begin] is scheduled for the year 2012.”
� 2009 Dennis Cuddy - All Rights Reserved
