[ANPPOM-L] What snow shovels have to do with musicology

[Jos=?ISO-8859-1?B?6SA=?=Luiz Martinez]

Dear friends,

>From the web site of Phillip Tagg. Just to make it easy at Musikeion.

Regards,
Martinez

(P.S. Tagg's website surely deserves a careful visit! There are many online
texts on the semiotics of popular music and other resources.)

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From:Phillip Tagg website
http://www.mediamusicstudies.net/tagg/

What snow shovels have to do with musicology

6 links in the chain

1. Many snow shovels sold in Canada, where it snows a lot, are made in
China, where it in general snows much less.

2. Snow shovels are one of many products which used to be made in Canada but
are now made in countries where labour costs are lower and where the welfare
of workers and their families is less secure.

3. Many Canadians who used to work in production are now unemployed or must
work in the underpaid service sector, with the result that the public purse
‹ local, regional, provincial, federal ‹ is deprived of income tax from
fully employed citizens. This depletion of public funds is exacerbated by
tax cuts to corporations who Œoutsource¹ labour to China, India, Indonesia,
etc.

4. Decreasing public revenue from income tax (see point 3) means less money
to pay for essential services like public transport, health care, education
and research.

5. Arts, humanities and social science are the areas of education and
research conventionally regarded as most Œuseless¹ in capitalism, even
though no human community anywhere has ever been without artists, musicians
and thinkers. Arts and humanities are usually the first to experience budget
cuts despite the fact that the advertising business, with its abuse of
knowledge from the arts, humanities and social sciences, turns over more
money worldwide than the arms industry, despite the fact that the music,
computer games, TV and other audiovisual industries play a hugely important
part in the economy of many nations. Work out the logic of capitalism from
those contradictions, if you can!

6. Musicology is a typical target for budget cuts, despite the fact that, if
applied properly, it can help people understand how emotional manipulation,
commercial coercion and political propaganda all work. It may even help us
understand why so many people here are on anti-depressants and give us some
clues about how that misery can be alleviated.