Christian {Music, Musician}: The Ethics of Participation
In continuation of some earlier thoughts …
If the faith is going to find a natural point of integration with music, it will be not in the brute features of pitch and rhythm, of sequence and development. It’s natural point of integration will likely be found at the point where the human experience intersects with those brute features: there may be no such thing as “Christian Music”, but there might be such a thing as a “Christian Musician”. I’ve suggested three areas where I think holding to a Christian worldview might influence how we think about being a musician. The first pertains to the ethics of participation.
There are very few amoral acts. By amoral, I don’t mean immoral, I mean truly amoral, without any sort of moral weight. In a view that sees the world as a holistically intertwined place, where the imperator dei sustains all of creation, there are very few acts of human will that stand neutral to the will of God. This kind of holistic view makes it incumbent on us to evaluate our actions both in light of their individual moral weight, and also in their context as acts with persistent connection to other acts and consequences.
For the Christian musician, this gives rise to a particularly difficult set of questions about the moral weight of creative acts in the midst of larger projects. Let me state the problem in the traditional way: by hoisting it up on the wooded spit of an Aristotelian syllogism. Like all good philosophical questions, it’s beautiful and simple in the abstract.
- Premise 1: Participants in a project bear responsibility for the outcome of the project.
- Premise 2: Some creative projects have a negative moral outcome.
- Conclusion: Participants in projects with negative moral outcomes bear responsibility for those outcomes.
Premise 1 doesn’t require much defense, except to say that the degree of responsibility can be conditioned by any number of things: foreknowledge of the outcome, intent of the participant, degree of participation, kind of participation. The guy who greases the chain on the chain-saw before it leaves the factory doesn’t really bear any responsibility for the crazy man who uses it to terrorize his neighbors in a small fishing village in Oregon. He is justifiably ignorant of the potential outcome, and has no malicious intent in greasing the chain. The man who sells the chain-saw to the crazy-eyed drunk man with foaming flecks spewing from his lips, muttering angry threats against his neighbors, he obviously bears more responsibility. Even though he had no malicious intent, there were foreseeable consequences to his act of making the sale.
Premise 2, that some creative projects have negative moral outcomes, might require a little more convincing, but let me make an absurdly extreme case in order to make my point. Suppose that an artist came to you with a song they had written, and asked you to sing the backing vocals for the song. The chorus of the song is “We’ve got to kill all the Hittites, kill all the Hittites, come on everybody, kill all the Hittites.” Now, you happen to live in a neighborhood that has both Hittites and Amorites, and you know that the racial tensions between the two are running pretty high, so this song makes you nervous. You think that people might take it seriously, and that it might stoke some of the more excitable Amorites to start rioting against the Hittites.
Then he hands you the lyrics to the bridge, which are, “Everybody, come over to my house this Thursday at 8PM, I’ll have flaming torches and beer, we’ll burn those Hittites out, burn them out, burn them out. Everybody come over to my house, I live at 321 Maple, turn left at the 7-11, and it’s just past the 3rd speed bump on the right, we’re going to kill all the Hittites.” All of the sudden, it’s gone from protest song, to specific instructions for when and where to riot.
Obviously, this little project that you’ve been roped into has some foreseeable negative moral outcomes. You might find it hard to sing these words, knowing that they might be the cause of misery and suffering as the racial tensions in your neighborhood ignite into full-scale rioting. You might decide to bow out of the project on that basis.
So far, we’ve said nothing about music. We’re talking about the moral weight of the words, the intent of the artists, and the foreseeable consequences of singing those words. At this point, I want to assert again, as I did in my first post, and as Phil continues to do, that Music is not the sort of thing that we can assign moral value to when it is divorced from context. Any moral or spiritual weight that is attached to it is a kind of cultural sentimentality, a corporate response to the associations we’ve constructed. It’s not inherent to the music itself.
So here’s my question: how do we evaluate our participation in a project with a negative moral outcome, when our contribution to it is morally neutral, or even morally good? Suppose you aren’t singing the backing vocals to the song; suppose you’re playing guitar. There’s nothing evil about the notes you’re playing (unless you’re Bobby), and maybe the money from the recording session will be used to buy insulin for your 6 diabetic foster kids.
If there are participants in a creative work where their contribution is morally neutral, their intent is morally good, but the project is morally negative, do we still reach the same conclusion about the responsibility of the participant?
This is a particularly Christian sort of dilemma for two reasons; first, because of the holistic nature of the Christian moral view. We find it difficult to slough off our obligation to investigate the moral consequences of our actions, particular of our complex actions. Secondly, an orthodox Christian spirituality doesn’t allow for simplistic reclusion. We are people in the world, and we are immeshed participants in it. Our actions are persistently bound up with the actions of others who do not share our same value, goals, or convictions.
How should we think about our participation in creative works?
Amorites
Art
Chainsaw
Christian
Ethics
Hittites
Music
Oregon
Philosophy
Hey thanks for providing me with some more personal taglines (look for these on some business cards coming soon):
“Evil Notes for a Nominal Fee”
“Purveyor of Evil Notes since 1987″
“Loved that one,Bobby, now can you do that again, with just a splash more Evil?”
“Tritones ‘R Us”
Well, living in Nashville, you need to distinguish yourself somehow.
Sheesh, I find myself asking some of these questions about “Christian” music…
Is it morally questionable to take a “CCM” gig where the sole intent is to make dollars? Or, the artist is doing “CCM” but doesn’t act/live/profess to be a Christian?
At least when doing secular music, the process for determining what the outcome may or may not be is slightly less grey. But then like you said, we’re in the world, doing business in the world. Is playing on Paul Stanley’s record like the Apostle Paul’s tentmaking? Surely Paul sold some tents to some morally questionable folk.
BTW, you DO know that all amplified guitars are of the devil, right? I would contend that an acoustic with a pickup in the hole falls in that category. In fact, any amplification is probably Satanic. Subwoofers are clearly one of the devil’s favorite tools.
I think you’ve got the makings of a hit single there, Michael…though I’m not sure about the rhyme scheme on the bridge. But the chorus is catchy.
Oh, wait.
This whole ethics of participation thing can be mind-boggling, and not just in the realm of music. You did a post awhile back about ethical consumerism–same dilemma, different genre. I appreciate so much your drive and willingness to think deeply about the consequences of any given action or series of actions. The world would be a better place if we all began to take responsibility for negative outcomes that could have been foreseen.
That said, the pragmatist in me (she is very small) thinks that sometimes motivation has to count for something. In your chainsaw example, for instance, if the guy greasing the chain in the chainsaw factory became suddenly paralyzed by a fear that someone, sometime might use a chainsaw for something other than good, wholesome tree chopping, he would be unable to continue his valuable service to chainsaw users everywhere…and his 6 diabetic foster kids would go without their insulin. I think Doug Pagitt talked about this a bit at Soliton last September…the idea that every solution to a problem that we can dream up will eventually create its own set of problems that will in turn have to be solved, probably by our children and our children’s children’s children. (Diabetes notwithstanding.)
Should this paralyze us into inaction? By no means! (See how I got all epistolary right there?) We would never grease any chains or record any albums or do anything worth doing if we lived in constant fear that ill rather than good might come of our endeavors. Yes, we must be mindful of possible consequences of our actions, and [hopefully] veer away from invitations to kill the Hittites, and all other invitations to obvious anti-kingdom activity. But when the going gets gray, we’ve just got to do the best we can and pray for grace.
Geez. I thought I was an optimist.
I hope Larry weighs in on this “Ethics of particpation” conversation. As the artist wonders about particpation in musc that might be used to incite violence the scientist wonders about particpation in development of the actual tools of violence. i.e. “defense” contractors developing WMD.
Well, this question comes at an opportune time, so I can respond from home rather than my cushy cubible in the Defense Industry.
Maybe I should just share a story. Perhaps it is only remotely related to the discussion.
I’m thinking of the time several years ago when I worked on a major torpedo product for the Navy. I remember seeing a marketing poster hanging in a hallway in the building I worked in, evidently meant to inspire us engineers. It showed one of our admittedly very effective torpedos about to clobber a “Bad Guy” submarine (the Cold War era was just about frozen), with some sort of marketing jingle extolling our product. I didn’t feel pride, rather I couldn’t help but think of the 100 or so sailors on that sub, and about their wives and partners and moms and dads and kids and families. Although I didn’t and don’t actually build stuff (but I analyze it), I felt that their blood was indeed on my hands. Unlike what the poster was meant to convey, I did not feel pride, but rather sadness. Unlike Pilate, I could not wash that blood off, but I would have to walk and show people, my hands, my tears in my eyes, and tell them “see the awful thing that I helped make – see the awful thing that happened!”
So in my case, I recognize that there are times when people and nations do need to defend themselves, and that this torpedo is meant for one of those times, and it is important, if one is involved, to do it well. Just in case. Perhaps this attack sub was on its way to attack a major city somewhere, also full of innocents. But the skill in defending oneself is not really something prideful, but something that is a sad solemn terrible responsibility. I don’t think pride or happiness are appropriate emotions. It was and is my prayer that these things are never needed, for it is shameful for all parties to let situations get so bad that the only resolution is to go to war.
Thankfully, my activities for the last ten years or so are involved with commercial GPS Navigation (perhaps you’ve heard of GPS receivers that are WAAS capable? We designed, built, and maintain/improve the WAAS system for the FAA. End of plug), and some amount of command and control (really defensive). So I don’t have to ponder that question much, for the time being.
Thank you, Larry. I really liked hearing your side of things. “…sad solemn terrible responsibility.” Easier, isn’t it, to dehumanize the enemy and make weapons with a cheerful heart?
Cerise
…and what I mean is, you didn’t dehumanize anybody – quite the reverse, really – and took the harder road.
Just to clarify.
Cerise
hey everyone, almost finished my 1st month of my 2006 diet. Phendimetrazine does control my appetite and I’ve lost 8lbs. On on the treadmill 5 days and walking the dog briskly at night.
Congratulations, phendi!
Gotta git me summa dat.
wow, phendi has really shown us the way forward. To the drugstore, everybody!
[...] There is no part of the word “Music” that the word “Christian” modifies. There may, however, be ways in which the word Christian modifies the word “Musician”. In an earlier post, I suggested that one way this might be true is in the area of ethics, particularly, in the ethics of participation. [...]
Sorry, Mike, I seem to have missed this post when it first came out. So this is a late comment.
After all these years of being a hack arranger (if you have music, I’ll make kindling of it, and I don’t even need a chainsaw) I’ve occasionally participated in projects that were probably not the greatest celebrations of the imago dei. In my defense, I don’t always know what’s going to happen until I see the production (if I do). Having said that, I don’t usually ask. I recall being embarassed a few times…. but I cashed the check anyway. I have three kids… not foster kids, and not diabetic… but my responsibility anyway.
I did refuse further work for one client when I saw what was going on… and no, I’m not sharing details here.
I consider a great deal of musical participation and experience to be a matter of “common grace”, though some of it is just a common abuse of grace. And of course, some is simply graceless.
I’m not sure where all this takes us, other than encouraging the avoidance of the obviously egregious.
One more thought: it seems to me that the “ethics of participation” might also have implications for the ways we relate to our fellow musicians, how we use/abuse them (or don’t), how we distinguish “networking” from self-interested schmoozing and the like, but none of these considerations seem particular to music.
Gotta try this Phendimetrazine stuff. And plug in the treadmill. (Those three kids I mentioned were using it at max speed and inclination to launch stuff across the family room.)