[Bug 697425] Review Request: sound-theme-beethoven-fifth - Sound theme based on Beethoven's fifth symphony

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https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=697425

Christopher Antila <crantila at fedoraproject.org> changed:

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                 CC|                            |crantila at fedoraproject.org

--- Comment #1 from Christopher Antila <crantila at fedoraproject.org> 2011-04-18 18:33:16 EDT ---
Is this theme intended to be standard-issue in all Fedora installations? Either
way, has anybody thought about the socio-cultural implications of this
particular sound theme? I'm not definitively either for or against this sound
theme, in principle, but the very fact that it is what it is means that we are
likely to endorse it as a good, neutral, positive change for the distribution.
Because musical cultural problems are otherwise likely to go unnoticed, I feel
obliged to stand here waving my arms and pointing at them.

Here's what I think we need to consider, and I'm being brief:

1.) Everything stems from the fact that most of the Fedora developers live in
the Western European music culture, or its out-growths that include North
America and Oceania. If we intend to make a universally distributable
distribution, which seems to be the project's intention, then we cannot *just*
let this music culture dominate without deciding that we want it to do so.

2.) Music is not universal. Sometimes, we fall into this trap as a result of
sloppy thought-processes, and sometimes we wilfully mislead ourselves into
thinking that music is universal. It's not, and in 2011, it isn't difficult to
explain how not and why not. There are cultures that use very different music
from our own - many of them unburdened by the artificial distinction between
"art music" and "popular music." When we say that music is universal, what we
mean is that music has the ability to transcend natural language barriers.

3.) Beethoven is, and historically has been, often constructed as the ultimate
genius. His music, therefore, is very frequently called upon by people wishing
to forward the argument of universality. When we access any Beethoven
composition, we automatically invoke this argument.

4.) Worse still, Beethoven's fifth symphony, which is very obviously the basis
for this sound theme, is one of the most well-known pieces of "classical
music," that is - even more than the ninth symphony - called upon to lead the
"how could you not appreciate this?!?!" charge. By hijacking this symphony, we
add yet another element to the train of thought that holds this work as
"universally good," which represents the universally good composer, the
universally good classical music tradition, and the universally good Western
European tradition that allowed it to develop.

5.) And "universally good" means "superior to every alternative." Classical
music is also often upheld as one of the supreme achievements of... well...
anything. It may or may not be, but do we want to be pushing this message as
part of the Fedora Project? And moreover, do we want to be pushing it very
forcefully by using Beethoven's fifth symphony? We need to think about this,
and because we're an open-source project, our thought process needs to be
documented for future reference by ourselves and others.

Basically what I'm saying is that, if this is to be the default sound theme (or
even just the first sound theme), then we as a collective Project must decide
whether or not we want to push the Western classical music tradition, and
therefore the achievements of Western society, as superior to the achievements
of all other cultures.

And for the record, Ubuntu has not, in my opinion, successfully solved this
problem. They're simply co-opting a generic "African" culture, both with their
name and with their sound theme, and thereby falling victim to good,
old-fashioned Primitivism. I think, however, that "Microsoft" has solved the
problem.

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