Today’s Youth and Music

Music began changing since the moment it was invented. If it had not, what would it be? Would there be any music at all? Music must continuously change, constantly presenting the world with new songs, chords, melodies, and ideas in order for a new generation of thinkers and inventors to be inspired. It is an expression of the soul, conveying things that cannot be said with mere words. It has the ability to change feelings, emotions, and moods in a way that no one can quite explain. Music has the ability to help define a society.

In an excerpt from his 1987 book, The Closing of the American Mind, Professor Allan Bloom contends that rock music is worthless “junk food for the soul.” He says that rock destroys creativity and imagination in youth, dulling their desire for the higher arts. Throughout this excerpt, he continuously talks down to his readers, making them seem inferior and uneducated compared to himself. Bloom makes many statements based on false reasoning and assumptions. He also frustrates the reader by going off of the subject, and attempting to prove points that have nothing to do with his thesis. Although Bloom has several good, credible points, his overall presentation is poorly written, without substance, and largely unproved.

Bloom’s main argument is that rock music destroys the imagination of youth and their passion for the arts. However, it is difficult to discern that this is his thesis until the end of his article. He goes on for many paragraphs trying to show that rock music leads to a moral decline in youth. The reader is led to believe that this is his main point until he states that the moral effects of the music are not his concern. This shows poor quality in his writing by not making his thesis clear early on, in order for the reader to understand what point he is trying to make.

Bloom says that rock music ruins the creativity of youth, but does not mention specifically what type of music he is referring to. In his article, he considers Mick Jagger, Prince, Boy George, and Michael Jackson as rock musicians. Today, their type of music is not confined to the title of “rock.” Bloom implies that classical music is the only “good” kind of music, and also says that, “No classical music has been produced that can speak of this generation.” So, it can be deduced that Bloom’s claim about rock music would include not only rock as we know it, but also many of today’s current pop, country, rap, and contemporary artists as well. Not all of today’s music is harmful and it is not good reasoning to classify all music as “bad” by looking at only a few musicians. Music also has the potential to be very good. Many artists provide the world with new ideas and spiritual inspiration.

Still, music definitely does have the potential to be damaging to today’s young people. If the child is already very troubled, and then continuously listens to a song about killing people or committing suicide, then that child will be much more susceptible to actually doing those acts. However, this is only in extreme cases. Many times youth do not even know what they are listening to. A sociologist from California State University surveyed junior and senior high school students, asking them what their favorite songs were about. Only seven percent said that their favorite songs were about sex, violence, drugs, or Satanism. Twenty-six percent said that they were about love, and thirty-seven percent of the kids surveyed did not even know what their favorite songs were about (Roehlkepartain).

Bloom does not back up his claim that rock music is bad for the imagination with any concrete evidence. Although there have been studies that show some types of music can be detrimental to the brain, Bloom does not mention them, or even imply that these kinds of studies exist. One such experiment studied 72 mice divided into three groups. One group was subjected to heavy metal music, one to Mozart, and the third group, the control group, was subjected to no music at all. They were then required to complete a maze. At the beginning of the study, all the mice took about ten minutes to complete the maze, but as time progressed, the control group was able to get their time down to an average of five minutes and the classical group down to less than two minutes. However, the hard rock group increased their time to about thirty minutes (Werte). Even though these studies were done on mice, using loud heavy metal music, these types of studies help to show the potential damaging effects that heavy metal could have on youth. These studies may not convince all readers that heavy metal has the capability of being harmful, however, it still would have been very helpful to his argument if Bloom had mentioned these studies.

This article is very difficult to read and comprehend without a high level of reading ability. Bloom uses very uncommon words throughout his article, many that most college students have never heard of. Also, the wording he uses is so confusing that many times the readers will have to back track and read the passage again. Although using these words and wording may seem to make him more credible and knowledgeable, this actually hurts his writing more than helping it. He uses such wording as, “Its antinomianism and its longing for a world without constraint might seem to be the clarion of the proletarian revolution.” In order for many readers to understand this sentence, they would have to look up some of the words and read it again, still not certain of its meaning. This lessens Bloom’s desired effect because many readers would rather choose to stop reading the article altogether than to continue on, confused and lost.

Throughout his article, Bloom uses many quotes from ancient philosophers to back up his opinions. He quotes such people as Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, and Nietzsche, frequently relying on their statements and philosophies as his proof. These philosophers are very credible and certainly respected in today’s world, but are many times outdated. Although they had many wonderful insights, these men lived in a completely different culture than ours, and many of their ideas are no longer prevalent in today’s society. For Bloom to rely so heavily on these old philosophies is not very helpful in convincing the reader of his opinions.

One main point Bloom is trying to get across is that classical music is a wonderful art that not enough youth are recognizing. He says that the current generation does not have a background of classical from their childhood, like the previous one did. He states that “classical music is now a special taste”, and that it is “dead among the young.” He supports this opinion by stating that only 5 to10 percent of college students are involved in classical studies. This is false reasoning. The fact that only a small percentage of students are studying classical music in their classes does not mean that the other 90 to 95 percent are ignorant about classical music, or that it is dead to them. As a piano student myself, I love classical music, but am currently not involved with any classical studies at college. Many students are not involved with things that interest them at school, and for Bloom to assume that if someone is not in a class about something, it means that he or she is not interested in it, is extremely presumptuous and false of him.

Bloom also contends that listening to rock music is like taking drugs. He says that they both “[provide] premature ecstasy,” giving artificial emotions naturally attached to life’s “greatest endeavors-victory in a just war, consummated love, artistic creation, religious devotion, and discovery of the truth.” Although rock music can give you high emotions like drugs, the differences of these two things far outweigh the similarities. Though they are both addictive, doing drugs is so much more destructive than listening to music, both physically and emotionally. Just a few of the devastating things drugs can cause are loss of coordination and memory, hallucinations, seizure, lung failure, coma, and death by cardiac arrest. Bloom’s comment that these two things are similar plays down the harmful effects of doing drugs, and makes listening to music seem much worse than it is.

Throughout this excerpt, Bloom exaggerates and embellishes on the truth. He even goes so far as to compare rock music to witch burning and cannibalism. He failed in convincing the readers of his thesis by having no solid proof, unbelievable assumptions, much false reasoning, and an overall feeling of superiority to his readers. His argument that rock music is bad for the imagination of youth could possibly have been proved, but not in the way he presented it.

Works Cited

Bloom, Allan. “Music.” Common Culture. Ed. Michael Petracca and Madeleine Sorapure. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001. 245-57.

Roehlkepartain, Eugene C. “Teenagers’ Media-Saturated World: Music Mania.” Search Institute. Jan. 1992. 30 March 2002 <http://www.search-institute.org/archives/ tmsw.htm>.

Werte, Marianna. “Why Classical Music is Key to Education.” Schiller Institute. 7 Feb. 1998. 10 April 2002 <http://www.schillerinstitute.org/programs/ program_symp_2_7_98_tchor_.html>.