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Illustration by Mahgul Farooqui

Earwormz: Politics of Sound

From Plato to Bernie, music has always been political.

In Protagoras (347c-d), Plato said that “second-rate and commonplace people, being too uneducated to entertain themselves … by using their own voices ... put up the price of female musicians, paying well for the hire of an extraneous voice.” He was disgusted by how these men hired artists to sing for entertainment, a radical appropriation of music at that time. He did not dislike music, but rather believed in the ancient Greek notion of ethos, which made music a powerful force that can be used for good or evil, controlling the listeners' emotions, behavior and morals. In this double-barrelled attempt to warn the newly founded Athenian democracy against the abuse of ethos, he voiced his concern that reckless musical license, such as what is heard in a bar or social setting, is only a step away from social chaos.
While Plato’s claim may be controversial in contemporary times, he was correct about one thing: the power of the ethos. Research has shown that music can influence emotional responses and our perception of time. Pieces played in a major key can induce joyful emotions while pieces in minor keys produce feelings of sadness. “Pleasant” music can make time pass by faster while “unpleasant” music can reverse that effect. These qualities of music, as captured through Plato’s concept of ethos, can and have been used as tools for controlling social emotions.
This concept fittingly invites us to evaluate the extent of music’s power as a political tool. As American political reporter, Astead Herndon, told Michael Barbaro in a New York Times podcast, “Whoever wins on the Democratic side [in the party’s primary elections] will have to motivate their base in a way that matches or exceeds that level of energy [at Trump rallies], and it has to be done in a way that seems authentic to who that person is, and that is not going to be an easy task.” Seven months later, at the start of the U.S. Democratic Party primaries, we are beginning to see how musical pieces are being used to motivate political bases and to sway voters on both sides of the political aisle.
Opinions on the current U.S. president aside, it is no secret that his campaign and presidential rallies carry an atmosphere of unmatched musical rhetoric. Songs that invoke U.S. American national pride, ranging from “Sweet Home Alabama” to the notorious sports-anthem, “We Will Rock You,” were classics played to a crowd that is often there expecting a performance. All of that changed when democratic candidate and current frontrunner Bernie Sanders began altering the atmosphere of rallies.
On Oct. 27, Jack White of the White Stripes and the Raconteurs played in his hometown, Detroit, at a Sanders rally. On Feb. 1, popular indie-rock band, Vampire Weekend, performed an entire set for an Iowa crowd of 3,000 at a Sanders rally. The night before, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon joined. On Feb. 10, The Strokes ended a New Hampshire get-out-to-vote rally of over 7,500 attendees, playing two new songs, debuting a new music video and announcing their upcoming album release date – their first in seven years. The Strokes ended the set with the rarely played song, “New York City Cops,” and invited the ralliers on stage. Lead singer Julian Casablancas, who is not one to shy away from discussing politics, looked straight to the police officer who had been sent on stage to handle the chaos and finished the lyrics, “New York City cops, they ain’t too smart.”
The results are evident. With these popular musicians and figures’ display of unity against the corporate elite – see Dr. Cornel West and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez not only endorsing, but performing and speaking at rallies, Sanders’ idea of a “political revolution” seems more evident. Sanders himself is now winning more polls than expected, winning the youth vote in New Hampshire by a whopping 31 percent. And most importantly, the rallies remain as they are, a political rally for Bernie Sanders featuring artists – not a concert featuring Bernie Sanders.
While of course, the Sanders campaign has done more to reach success in the polls than invite artists to his rally stage, it cannot be denied that in the discourse of American politics, music can provide a sense of social unity through passion. This is especially true in this age, with a previously unseen increase in the youth vote. It is the Sanders campaign that provides us with an utmost example of this idea, beyond passion found even at the last few years of Trump rallies. This round of campaigning exemplifies Plato’s notion of the ethos and its effect in controlling political opinions through emotional arousal. But only time will testify whether it leads to social chaos or order.
Aravind Kumar is Features Editor and columnist and Reema El-Kaiali is a Columnist. Email them at feedback@thegazelle.org.
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