Daily Archives: March 20, 2021

Over the last forty years we have seen the appreciation of the courageous and all conquering individual kicking back against an overbearing nanny state. Ayn Rand, the founder of the philosophy known as Objectivism, described it as . . . the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

The New Right of the 1980s, inspired by Reagan and Thatcher, based their economic principles on pulling back the power of the state to liberate individuals so they could compete and strive through business. By the time Clinton and Blair led the March of the Moderates in the 1990s, the power of the individual was an orthodoxy which reached well beyond the economic sphere.

Objectivism is the ideological foundation on which Silicon Valley has been built. Steve Jobs saw Ayn Rands 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged as one of his guides in life. One of Facebooks guiding principles, Move fast and break things, is a mantra of Objectivism. For many of these tech founders the question isnt Who is going to let me? but Who is going to stop me?. Ayn Rand would thoroughly endorse such sentiment.

Objectivism has not had it all its own way. The banking crisis of 2008 demonstrated that self-styled Masters of the Universe on Wall Street and in the City of London, pretending the pursuit of greed was somehow noble, could corrupt an entire financial system. It was the taxpayer who ended up with the bill, the exact opposite of Rands master plan. China has proved it can corrupt free trade for its own economic advantage, while Russia has done the same politically with free speech.

But still the power of the liberated individual continued to rise. In recent years, the dominance of the unbridled self has seemingly rendered collective wisdom worthless and informed debate meaningless. Personal belief is now treated as an objective reality, so facts can be discounted, experts ignored and lies made truths. Objectivism intended by Ayn Rand to rest upon an objective reality independent of ourselves seems to have begotten its opposite: a subjectivism of fake news, culture wars and populism. There are now Your Truths and My Truths neither of which need have anything to do with facts.

The impact of this highly personal, subjective relationship with truth is all around us. It is largely agreed that Vote Leaves infamous statement We send the EU 350 million a week, lets fund the NHS instead had a strained relationship with fact. It is also largely agreed there was a contentious relationship with truth every time Donald Trump tapped out a tweet.

But personalisation of truth is not just found on the Right of the political spectrum. No-platforming, mainly a phenomenon of the far-Left, demonstrates that self-truth is so powerful that debate becomes worthless or even dangerous. Jeremy Corbyns inability to be an effective Leader of the Opposition was caused by a deeply-held personal belief that his actions and thoughts were inviolable universal truths: any criticism was evidence of mainstream media bias. Debate with Corbynism became evidence of conspiracy.

But after the long night of the Covid pandemic, a belief in society seems to be dawning and the power of the individual might just be brought back in check. It is a source of personal joy that, other than a few notable exceptions, the rules of lockdown have been largely accepted and followed by society. Many predicted mass rioting and looting when western governments took away liberties from citizens, as there was no Chinese authoritarian stick to beat the populace with. Yet the majority have recognised that the fight against Covid would have to be societal, not merely personal. Notably Millennials, in the main, willingly locked down and were subsequently hit hardest by the economic ravages of coronavirus, despite the medical consequences impacting them least.

At the start of Objectivisms surge to power, Ronald Reagan said the nine most terrifying words in the English language were Im from the government and Im here to help. How hollow this now sounds, with the citizens of every nation dependent on the states ability to get jabs into arms.But its bigger than just the state. Covid has asked questions of society, too, and, in the main, society has stepped up to the challenge. As society starts to reassert itself against the individual, let us hope we will once more start to value experts, engage in debate and recouple reality with The Truth rather than My Truth. Even Ayn Rand would have approved of that.

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There is such a thing as society: it has overcome Covid and restored the truth - TheArticle

Recently inThe Tribune-Democrat, therewas an article, UPJ leaders support private vendors online course offerings.

The vendor in question is known as Outlier. At least one UPJ faculty member notes that the connection with Outlier will get our name out there.

However, after pursuing the Outlier website a month ago, I noticed that there was no mention of UPJ anywhere on the site.

At the end of the trailer describing the philosophy course there is a small blurb that mentions a collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh together with the main campus logo. Again there is no indication that UPJ even exists.

To think that this will publicize the Johnstown campus is an example of what Ayn Rand once called magical thinking. But, surprisingly, on the Outlier website, is the discovery that Pitt Provost Ann Cudd, who brought Outlier to the University, is one of the instructors in the philosophy course.

I wonder, can you spell conflict of interest any more clearly?

Martin Rice

Johnstown

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Letter to the editor | UPJ nowhere to be found on Outlier site - TribDem.com

ANN ARBOR, MI A large mural along Liberty Street depicting Woody Allen and four other famous writers has been part of the downtown Ann Arbor landscape for the past 37 years.

But since the airing of a new HBO documentary series revisiting 1992 accusations that Allen molested his 7-year-old daughter, the question of whether to remove him from the mural has resurfaced, and Allens image was defaced recently with a spray-painted X and the word rapist.

Who should replace Woody Allen on this downtown mural? a member of the Ann Arbor Townies! Facebook group asked this week, generating hundreds of responses ranging from American novelist Kurt Vonnegut to Ann Arbor-native musicians Iggy Pop and Bob Seger to Madonna, the pop star who once lived in Ann Arbor and attended the University of Michigan.

The Bookstore Mural, as its known, was painted by artist Richard Wolk in 1984 outside what was Discount Records, now the Potbelly Sandwich Shop, and Davids Books. In addition to Allen, it features Edgar Allan Poe, Hermann Hesse, Franz Kafka and Anais Nin.

The mural is occasionally tagged with random graffiti, but the specific targeting of Allen was unusual, said Jeff Hauptman, CEO of Oxford Companies, owner of the building, who notes his maintenance team already covered over the graffiti.

What isnt new are calls to replace Allen on the mural people ask about that about every few years, Hauptman said, indicating hes open to the idea if the citys Historic District Commission would allow it. Oxford is more than happy to listen to the public sentiment and try to do the right thing, he said.

I can appreciate the frustration people have with seeing Woody Allen on there, Hauptman said, adding whoever replaces Allen should be another writer, and he likes the idea of replacing him with a woman to have more diversity.

Hauptman said he liked the idea some suggested: the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Since she wrote legal opinions, I think that counts, he said.

She would be one of my first choices, he said, calling that his initial gut reaction, though he also likes the idea of adding a Black female writer.

The question of who could replace Allen is continuing to generate discussion in online forums.

Some of the many other suggestions from the Ann Arbor Townies! discussion include poets Amanda Gorman and Maya Angelou, science fiction writer Octavia Butler, novelists Toni Morrison and Ayn Rand, and Joe Dart, bassist for funk group Vulfpeck, which originated in Ann Arbor.

Others suggested poet Robert Frost, who taught at UM and lived in Ann Arbor in the 1920s, Ann Arbor street musicians Shakey Jake and the Violin Monster, Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler and documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, a 1971 graduate of Ann Arbors Pioneer High School.

Some of the more unlikely suggestions include wrestler Hulk Hogan, and actors Keanu Reeves and Mr. T.

Others suggested reggae musician Bob Marley, First Lady Michelle Obama and musicians Bob Dylan and Frank Zappa.

And some argue Allen should be innocent until proven guilty and shouldnt be replaced based on accusations.

Iggy Pop, who once worked in the old Discount Records store that was in the building where the mural is now painted, seemed to be a popular suggestion for replacing Allen until others pointed out an old Iggy Pop lyric: I slept with Sable when she was 13 / Her parents were too rich to do anything.

Another person pointed out Edgar Allan Poe, who is depicted in the mural, married his 13-year-old cousin when he was 27.

No actual human, someone else responded to the question of who should replace Woody Allen. We all have skeletons. Some much bigger than others.

Mural artist Richard Wolk mixes paint in September 2010 as he touches up the mural he originally painted in 1984 at the corner of Liberty and State streets in downtown Ann Arbor.Melanie Maxwell | The Ann Arbor News

Wolk, who has come back to touch up the mural a number of times over the years, couldnt be reached for comment, but he said in 2010 he chose Allen because of the murals proximity to both the State and Michigan theaters. And since Allen is both a writer and filmmaker, he definitely counts, Wolk said in 2010.

Hauptman recalled there was a proposal many years ago to modify the building, which would have included removing the section of the mural with Allen on it. The Historic District Commission wouldnt allow that to happen, he said.

If the commission tells him the mural itself is not protected, Im open to change, Hauptman said, noting the commission controls modification of facades in the historic district.

Since the mural was painted after 1944, it is not considered historic, said City Planner Jill Thacher, the citys historic preservation coordinator. She doesnt have a record of the commission denying a building modification that would have impacted the mural, she said.

The mural is painted on panels affixed to the buildings historic brick facade. In the early 2000s, Potbelly wanted to remove the portion including Allen to expose an original wood and glass storefront entrance along Liberty Street, but the commission was against modifying the mural, Hauptman said.

Given that, Oxford has felt kind of stuck when people have asked over the years about replacing Allen, he said.

But that may no longer be the case.

The citys historic preservation code chapter was replaced with a new one in 2008, Thacher said.

The mural could be altered today with an HDC staff approval from me, as long as the new content isnt advertising something and the area of paint isnt expanding, she said, adding its good that its painted on panels and not the original brick.

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See the rest here:

Talks of replacing Woody Allen in Ann Arbor mural reignited after new documentary - MLive.com

Artificial barriers exist to truly realizing a just, equitable society wherein the inherent rights of the individual protect others; primarily, worship of an ideal so perverse it corrodes the core of community everywhere. Obfuscating the simple truth, that everything is political, only hurts everyone. Being political should only mean being related to a view on the structure of society, not shifting blame.

May I elaborate?

Many wish we could rejoice silently as Thanksgiving dinner is devoid of discourse about views that, ultimately, are direct expressions of personal viewpoints as to how we interact. Whatever that consists of, it certainly boils down to fundamental viewpoints.

Yet this will never happen, for one reason: we all believe in something. If we were mindless drones, devoid of ideals, we would shuffle around, content with the world. Nothing would be political, and nothing would be everything.

Imagine asking Ho Chi Minh about why it is so difficult to live in this world. There would be compassion in the answer. Ayn Rand would likely be equally compassionate. Yet suffering is universal?

Redefining what it means to be political is urgent. When we castigate those who represent us, who are us, by artificially separating the political from something purportedly intrinsic, we transfer the blame of our failure to accept our ties to others into some abstract realm, dominated by what we view to be political.

We are political beings; our existence is defined by those around us, our society. Covid-19 has assured us of that.

Luke Brown

Bluefield, W.Va.

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We wince; therefore, we are | Our Readers Speak | register-herald.com - Beckley Register-Herald

Back in the mid-1990s, when the Republican-controlled Congress briefly considered cutting off funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, I remember seeing an editorial cartoon that portrayed Newt Gingrich taking an axe to Michelangelo's David, over the caption "Counter-Culture." It captured a historical snapshot of our political debate, one that was probably already antique at the time: a portrayal of conservatives as yokels and religious obscurantists, indifferent to art and literature, while the left was the party of education and cultural refinement. Though somehow I can't recall the NEA ever funding anything remotely like the David.

Today, of course, the situation has reversed. Not that conservatism under the influence of Donald Trump has become the party of highbrow intellectualismfar from itbut the left has become the party of a literal iconoclasm, tearing down sculptures and monuments that they imagine represent the old order. They are the new obscurantists seeking to purge our culture of some of its most important art and literature.

This is not exactly unprecedented. In her notes for The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand defined her villain Ellsworth Toohey, a distillation of the 20th-century totalitarian intellectual, in these terms: "He says that he is fighting Rockefeller and Morgan," the big industrialists of the previous era, but "he is fighting Beethoven and Shakespeare." Toohey's left-wing anti-capitalism is just cover for a wider attempt to subordinate the individual to the collectiveand, in service to this goal, to deny the existence of any extraordinary individual. In the real world, this sort of outlook explained, for example, the old left's mania for folk music, because, as Alan Lomax put it, it was "equalitarian," providing us with "a people's culture, a culture of the common man." Beethoven was not a common man.

Under today's left, this desire to cut down the tall poppies is given a racial gloss, and today's "woke" Ellsworth Tooheys are now openly fighting Beethoven and Shakespeare on the grounds that they were white men and thus have been unjustly foisted upon us.

In our age, librarians are not the guardians of great books but their denouncers, so we find them leading the charge against Shakespeare.

A growing number of "woke" academics are refusing to teach Shakespeare in US schools, arguing that the Bard promotes racism, white supremacy, and intolerance, and instead are pushing for the teaching of "modern" alternatives.

Writing in the January issue of School Library Journal, Amanda MacGregor, a Minnesota-based librarian, bookseller, and freelance journalist, asked why teachers were continuing to include Shakespeare in their classrooms. "Shakespeare's works are full of problematic, outdated ideas, with plenty of misogyny, racism, homophobia, classism, anti-Semitism, and misogynoir," she wrote, with the last word referring to a hatred of black women ....

Jeffrey Austin, Writing Center director at Skyline High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan, agreed. "There is nothing to be gained from Shakespeare that couldn't be gotten from exploring the works of other authors," he said. "It's worth pushing back against the idea that somehow Shakespeare stands alone as a solitary genius when every culture has transcendent writers that don't get included in our curriculum or classroom libraries."

I don't know what's worse about this story. Maybe it's the teachersall of them white, by the waywho only assign "authors and characters [who] look and sound like my students," as if it is the job of teachers to keep their students within the confines of their existing lives rather than to expand their horizons. Or maybe it's the ones who do teach Shakespeare, but only ifthey can filter him through their trendy political obsessions, teaching Romeo and Juliet "through the lens of toxic masculinity analysis" or using Coriolanus "to discuss Marxist theory."

It seems strange to have to defend the greatness of Shakespeare, but perhaps people can get away with canceling him because we have taken his status for granted for so long. So let me just list three big reasons we study Shakespeare.

The first is the prodigious variety and creativity of his plots, which have been so endlessly stolen and reworked over the centuriesa few years back it seemed that every movie made for teenagers that didn't have a plot stolen from Jane Austen had a plot stolen from Shakespearethat we forget he was the one who did them first.

Then there is the vast fund of words and phrases in English that Shakespeare created.

If you cannot understand my argument, and declare "It's Greek to me," you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger; if your wish is farther to the thought; if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked, or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort, or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool's paradisewhy, be that as it may, the more fool you, for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare; if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, thento give the devil his dueif the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head) you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I was dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded, or a blinking idiot, thenby Jove! O Lord! Tut tut! For goodness' sake! What the dickens! But me no buts!it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare.

Shakespeare, more than anyone else, is the creator of modern English, and the reason we study him is because of his outsized influence in shaping our language.

But the final reason is the one that makes the attempt to racialize Shakespeare utterly ridiculous. Shakespeare is the most global playwright in history, endlessly translated, adapted, and appropriated by every culture in the world, outside of North Korea. No, strike that, even there.

Only a "woke" American could be so parochial as to imagine Shakespeare to be a restrictively white or English writer. So what purpose is to be served by pretending this is the case?

For an answer to that, let's look at the assault on Beethoven.

As a fan of classical music, this is the shoe I've been expecting to drop for some years now: the claim that classical music is somehow racist and must therefore be canceled.

For now, this takes the form primarily of an attack on music theory, on the body of knowledge that helps us to understand classical music. But you can see the obvious motive. If we can no longer understand or explain classical music, then we won't be in a position to promote it or defend it.

Hence the assault on a tiny little academic journal devoted to the study of early 20th-Century music theorist Heinrich Schenker.

There is no controversy over whether Schenker held racist viewsdespite himself being a Jew whose work and family were later targeted by the Nazis. (We live in a complicated word.) The question is whether this makes his theories on music invalid. That is precisely the claim made by musicologist Philip Ewell in a broadside arguing that "Schenker's racism permeates his music theories" and "accusing generations of Schenker scholars of trying to 'whitewash' the theorist in an act of 'colorblind racism.'" When the Journal of Schenkerian Studies tried to push back against these claims, it got canceled.

That last phrase from Ewell, "colorblind racism," is the curious one, because the upshot is that Schenker scholars stand accused not of broadcasting Schenker's racism but of attempting to separate it from the valid ideas in his musical theory.

If we are going to reject any idea ever developed by a racist as the fruit of a poisonous tree, then I suppose we had better get rid of Woodrow Wilson's entire "progressive" agenda, including the income tax, on the grounds that it was championed by an out-and-out racist and a defender of segregation. Somehow nobody (on the left at least) ever seems to want to draw that conclusion.

Yet it is far more plausible to say that political ideas should suffer guilt by association than it is to apply this standard to science or scholarship. If we found out Copernicus was a racist, would the sun stop being at the center of the solar system? The very notion is an absurdityyet that is essentially Philip Ewell's argument against Schenker and music theory.

No, really. Here is his whole argument for Heinrich Schenker's music theory being racist: "As with the inequality of races, Schenker believed in the inequality of tones." So is an octave consonant and, say, a tritone dissonant, just because a music theorist thought black people were inferior? Would it be "anti-racist" to pretend to hear no difference between the two intervals?

You might as well claim that all numbers also have to be equal and thereby cancel the entire field of mathematics. This is not just an analogy, because as the Greek philosopher Pythagoras discovered 2,500 years ago, musical intervals are directly related to numbers. You can easily replicate his ancient experiments yourself. If you pluck a guitar string, for example, and then you hold the string down against the fingerboard at exactly half its full length and pluck it again, you will get a tone one octave higher. Pythagoras did this and concluded that an octave represents a mathematical ratio of 2:1. (In modern terms, we know that a pitch one octave higher is produced by air that is vibrating exactly twice as frequently as in the original pitch.) Two pitches with this interval between them are so consonant with each other that they are experienced as being the same note, just higher or lower.

Pythagoras then went on to identify the next simplest ratio, 3:2, which sounds to our ear as the next most consonant interval, what is called a fifth or a dominant interval, which is so ancient and widely recognized that it features in the simple pentatonic scales of folk music from around the world. The next most consonant interval, 4:3, is called the subdominant, and if youve ever been to church, you will recognize it instantly as the amen chord progression. And so on.

Thats all that music theory really is. Not that its just the mathematics of the notes. Starting with the rediscovery of Pythagoras in the Renaissance, musicians and scholars began to learn more about the relationships between musical pitches and used this both to create and to understand new forms of melody and harmony, along with developing new ideas about the structure of a piece of music, how to progress from one melody to another, and so on.

Finding out that one influential theorist was a racist does not invalidate thousands of years of accumulated knowledge of music, nor does it change the mathematical relationships between musical pitches, and it is preposterous to think that it ever could.

But to go back to Ellsworth Toohey, let's follow a piece of advice he gave us: "Don't bother to examine a follyask yourself only what it accomplishes." In this case, it's not about a musical theorist unknown to the general public. It's about bringing down the classical composer everyone has heard of: Ludwig van Beethoven.

So Ewell goes on to disparage Beethoven as an unfairly uplifted mediocrity. "To state that Beethoven was any more than, say, above average as a composer," or to say that "Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is a masterwork, born of the genius of a titanic composer," he writes, is to perpetuate "music theory's white racial frame, which works in concert with patriarchal structures to advantage whiteness and maleness." "Beethoven occupies the place he does because he has been propped up by whiteness and maleness for two hundred years."

So Beethoven was just a middling guy foisted upon us in order to keep down "persons of color."

The only way Ewell and the rest of the woke crowd can get away with it is because of decades of neglect of musical education in our schools. Music theorists may know better, and as a musician, Ewell definitely knows better. But he's depending on being able to dupe the public, who only know Beethoven as the guy who wrote the song that begins "duh-duh-duh-DUN."

The insult behind these claimsand the implied intimidationis that we venerate the achievements of a Shakespeare or a Beethoven unthinkingly, out of mere prejudice or chauvinism, without knowing the reasons their work is great. So let's call that bluff by talking for a moment about what's great about Beethoven.

"Duh-duh-duh-DUN" is how most people remember the opening notes of the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphonythree forcefully delivered short notes, followed by a long, sustained note one whole step lower. This is not the opening melody. It's what is called a "motif," a fragment of a melody, something too short and simple to be a melodic theme on its own, but which can be extended or combined with other motifs to become a theme. And that's precisely what Beethoven proceeds to do with it.

This, by the way, is the main difference between classical music and popular music or folk music. You will find that most popular songs have perhaps 15 to 20 seconds of actual, unique musicusually, just enough melody to sustain a single line of the lyrics. That melody is then repeated over and over again, with only the lyrics changing (if you're lucky). Maybe there's a brief hook or refrain, and maybe there's a bridge, a second melody briefly introduced for contrast before returning to the opening melody. But popular and folk music tends to rely on repetition. That's what makes it seem less complex and demanding to listen to, and it's what makes classical music seem more "serious" by comparison.

Classical music is generally built on the opposite approach. Once a melodic theme is introduced, it is meant to be varied, modulated, transformed, inverted, and contrasted. So in the Fifth Symphony, once Beethoven introduces the "duh-duh-duh-DUN" motif, he immediately repeats it one whole step lower. Then he turns it into a full-fledged melody based on the repetition of the motif at progressively higher and lower pitches, first going down, then going up, then put into counterpoint against itself in a kind of call and response. Then the whole process is repeated and extended.

After a little while of this, the opening motif is repeated,at about 0:51, in a horn call that carries the same rhythm but extends itthree short notes followed now by three long notesand spaces out the pitches at wider intervals. The pitches of these notes are then taken as the basis for a second melodic theme, and you will notice that this one sounds much happier. The symphony as a whole is in the key of C minor, and carries the ominous, slightly dissonant tension of a minor key, made all the stormier by Beethoven's urgent, brooding rhythms. But this second theme appears in the key of E-flatmajor. This is the "relative major" of C minor, which just means that if you take all the same notes as a C-minor scale and play them in a different combination, it sounds like a major scale. It's a neat trick for seamlessly changing from an ominous to a happy mood, and back again.

Beethoven then brings back the duh-duh-duh-DUN motif, but this time in a mood that is not brooding buttriumphant, ending (at 1:33) with a variation in which the final note, the DUN, reaches up rather than down.

This sense of triumph is cut short by a return of the original, ominous version of the motif, and this establishes the basic idea for the rest of the first movementa contest between the ominous and the joyous, a sense of impending doom that is transformed into a sense of triumph. After another section of variation and development, the initial theme is broken down, reduced (at4:02) from four notes to two, then to only one, and the heartbeat of the movement nearly flatlines, only to be revived by an adrenaline shot of the opening motif.

If this were a movie, this is the point at which our protagonist, after a series of early victories, suffers a series of setbacks. It looks like he might finally lose, but with the help of some soul-searching (represented here by a quietly introspective oboe solo), he manages to rally for one last superhuman effort.

That's exactly what happens here. The happier second theme makes a triumphant return, at5:38, now in C major, briefly changing the dominant mood of the whole movement from a minor key to that of a major key, leading to a triumphant version of the "duh-duh-duh-DUN" theme that keeps on going this time and rises to new heights. But then the second theme evolves into a form that is darker, more brooding and defiant (atabout 6:55). The piece ends with the opening motif returning, but this time stated (at7:49) in a form that is neither despairing nor triumphant but assertive and indomitable.

Notice how Beethoven starts with the initial motifa short, bare fragment of a melody, so mindlessly simple that anyone can remember itand takes it through so many variations, modifications, and transformations that it can capture a whole gamut of emotions: from dread to joy, from despair to triumph, from stormy defiance to confident assertiveness.

And what does it all add up to? It's helpful to know the context of Beethoven's life. He wrote the Fifth Symphony from 1804 to 1808, years in which he was beginning to lose his hearing and was giving up his career as a concert pianist, turning his energies fully to composing, and that suggests what the Fifth Symphony is about.

Beethoven's secretary, Anton Schindler, later said that the opening motif represents the hand of fate knocking on the door, and his story became so popular that this is known as the fate motif. But most historians agree that Schindler is not a reliable source, and musically, I'm not buying it. The Fifth Symphony is not about fate. It is about Beethovens defiance of fatehis determination to triumph over his circumstances. He is the one who knocks.

To take such a simple motif and weave it, not just into a complex musical tapestry, but into a profound yet personal statementthat is the achievement of a musical genius.

This is precisely why Beethoven is under attack. Ewell says that part of his purpose is to expose the "myth of the artistic genius." Beethoven has to be knocked down a peg.

But the broader motive is the same as Ellsworth Toohey's: to herd us all into a collective and make us think about everything in terms, not of the individual, but of the group. Just as with the supposed anti-racists who want us to see hard work and rational thinking" as "white" values, so Ewell lists the following among his catalog of euphemisms for whiteness": authentic, civilized, classic, function, fundamental, genius, opus, piano, sophisticated. Oh, and also science, theory, and the calendar, because I guess the Gregorian calendar is colonialist. We are not allowed to think of anything independent of the political dogmas of the moment or outside of a racial frameand this is billed, in the final insult to our intelligence, as anti-racism.

This is also, obviously, condescending and infantilizing toward the supposed objects of its concern, conceding as it does the denial to black people of civilization, sophistication, and the ability to appreciate or learn from Beethoven and Shakespearein defiance of all actual evidence. But disparaging the common man under the guise of being his champion is the whole point, which takes us back to the idea Ayn Rand was trying to embody in the character of Ellsworth Toohey. He tears down greatness in order to make man feel small. He fights Beethoven and Shakespeare (and Rockefeller and Morgan) because he wants people to think of themselves as small and weak and thus to allow themselves to herded into undistinguished collectives in need of a rulersomeone like him.

In that regard, notice what this woke analysis accomplishes for its contemporary Ellsworth Tooheys: It allows them to elevate themselves by tearing other people down. They do not have to discover a new continent or unlock the secrets of the universe; they do not need to found a free nation or fight a war to free other men from bondage; they do not need to write a play or a poem or a symphony, or develop their own theories of music; they need merely point out the flaws of the people who did all of these things.

All they need to be better than the best is to display their mastery of the latest catchphrases.

To state it in those terms is to expose the absurdity. And here we need to remember another piece of wisdom from Ayn Rand: The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. The collectivist doctrine of anti-racism is the uncontested absurdity that is rapidly becoming our culture's accepted slogan.

Perhaps the best antidote to that, the best way to combat the absurdity, is simply to keep ourselves grounded in the great works that the woke intellectuals want to cut down. Keep on reading Shakespeare and listening to Beethoven, keep our minds broadened by focusing on the broad vistas they illuminate and the potential for human greatness than they reveal. By contrast to that, the political dogmas of the moment will seem as petty and narrow as they really are.

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Why We Need Shakespeare and Beethoven - The Dispatch

Quarterfinal Game 2

3 p.m. CT, Sunday, March 14

From the front windows of Compton Family Ice Arena, one massive parking lot away from Notre Dames famed football stadium, you can almost see the iconic Touchdown Jesus mosaic that is a landmark of this place most known for exploits on the gridiron.

Before heading to Notre Dame for the Sunday afternoon playoff opener, it was perhaps appropriate for Minnesota Gophers coach Bob Motzko to be thinking in football terms when scouting his opponent.

Theyve had a tough stretch, but its over. Theyre going to get a fresh set of downs now, Motzko said of Michigan State, which the Gophers beat four times in the regular season. Theyve got a chance to remedy some things into the playoffs...Theyre a big strong team, theyre well-coached their goaltender (Drew) DeRidder has been one of the best in the conference.

In fact, just a few weeks ago the Gophers chased DeRidder from the net in a 5-1 victory in Minneapolis. That was one of a NCAA-best 20 wins in the regular season, but the Gophers did not get a banner to show for that effort, and head to the next phase of this most unique season with unfinished business.

Well-assured that they will be in the NCAA tournament in a few weeks, the conference playoffs are a different atmosphere for the Gophers. They played three playoff games at home versus Notre Dame last season before college hockey shut down due to the pandemic. These Gophers have no experience playing at a neutral site in the postseason, but that is not to say they have not experienced higher-pressure hockey in the past. For many players, there is a feeling in the air in March that signals the stakes going up.

This is the best time of year. Growing up as a kid in Minnesota this was state tournament time, said freshman defenseman Brock Faber. When the weather starts to warm up a bit, this is always fun. I wouldnt say (there are) nerves, Id say more excitement for me.

For the Gophers to win a trophy in South Bend, the formula is pretty straightforward. Goalie Jack LaFontaine needs to keep doing the things that have him solidly in the running as the Big Tens top goalie, and Motzko noted that a few of the teams more talented goal-scorers need to be heard from.

Weve got a guy like Ben Meyers who is maybe one of the big spark plugs in our conference, that can explode, Motzko said. Sammy Walker, at any moment. (Blake) McLaughlin (Sampo) Ranta for the first time now is heading into a tournament. Rantas been pretty steady all year. There are not many weekends that he doesnt have a goal.

Like every team except Wisconsin, the Gophers will need to win three games in three nights if they want to raise the Big Ten playoff banner for just the second time (after 2015) in program history. The players who spoke to the media this week said their sole focus is Sunday, and anything past that will be dealt with as it comes.

Thats the biggest game of the season so far. Just focusing on the next one is huge for us, Faber said. Focusing on Michigan State, theyre a heavy team and theyll play physical on a smaller ice sheet that fits their game a lot better.

There are good times ahead for Michigan State, which has an extensive remodeling and modernization project underway at Munn Ice Arena. And there have been good times in the past, as the Spartans remain the most recent Big Ten team to win a NCAA title (in 2007, under former coach Rick Comley).

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The present is more challenging in East Lansing, where Coles teams have finished sixth or seventh in the seven-team conference in all four of his seasons at the helm of his alma mater. They made a valiant stand versus Wisconsin in the season finale, leading the Badgers with a minute to play in the second period before falling 2-1. Although the pessimist will note that the Spartans closed the regular season going 1-9-0 in their last 10 and scoring one goal, total, in their final three games.

Cole was philosophical when talking with the media prior to their fifth game versus the Gophers, quoting both Ayn Rand and Sun Tzu, and making correlations to hockey and hinting that his team may need to play a more aggressive game versus the Gophers in the playoffs.

Even when we havent played well, I do like the way our guys have competed, but you can do that in a lot of ways, he said. If you stand at the bottom of the hill and the opposing army runs down the hill, and you just stand there and they run you over, I guess youre competing, trying to hold your ground. But its not very smart, tactfully.

Like they did in hanging close to the Badgers last weekend, the Spartans are likely to try to make things defensive, as they have averaged 1.5 goals per game this season and scored more than three just twice.

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B1G tourney preview: After 20 wins in NCAA regular season, Gophers still have something to prove in playoffs - Brainerd Dispatch

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Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is a pioneer of modern politics. The junior senator of the Lone Star State defied the odds to become the most unpopular member of the U.S. Senate, a body of people whose collective approval rating falls belowhemorrhoids, traffic jams, root canals and Nickelback.

So why should we be surprised when the least-liked person in such an unpopular body of men and women does something that Ted Cruz would do like fly off to Cancun while his state struggles with a killer winter storm? And why should we be surprised that when he came back in a pandering Texas face mask and blamed his own kids for the trip? And why should we even look moderately shocked when he made a joke about a rotten thing HE did in a CPAC speechin Florida? ("I gotta say, Orlando is awesome. It's not as nice as Cancun. But it's nice." Oh yes, he did.)

These are not surprising because the Cancun incident is just one of the most Ted Cruz things Ted Cruz has done in a long, long line of Ted Cruz-y moments. These aren't his worst moments as a senator, attorney or human being. These are just the most bewildering moments in all Cruziness.

1. Ted Cruz Blocks a Senate Resolution Honoring Ruth Bader Ginsburg One of the unspoken rules of American politics is that you don't have to agree with an opposing leader's politics to honor their memory after they die. Since no one in Congress wants to speak with Cruz, he's more likely to break the rule because no one told him about it. Then again if someone did, that probably wouldn't stop him.

Last year, Cruz blocked a bipartisan ceremonial resolution to honor the late Supreme Court justice because he objected to "partisan" language relaying the justice's final wishes to delay filling her seat until after the presidential election. You know, the very thing that Cruz and his party did for a year when Justice Antonin Scalia died in the final year of President Barak Obama's term? The resolution's words didn't provide any legal recourse to blocking ex-President Donald Trump's ability to choose her replacement. Cruz just objected to Ginsburg's dying wishes being mentioned because he didn't like her choice of last words. Cruz wouldeditsomeone's dying words with a red pen if he could.

2. Ted Cruz Gets Caught By a Dog Puppet Repeating the Same BS Speech to Primary VotersThe fact that Cruz thought a majority of Americans would vote for him for president in 2016 even when people in his own party once called him "Lucifer in the flesh" is Ted Cruz-y enough, but his choice to seek the Republican nomination would be one of many mistakes to come in his first presidential bid.

A plucky, wisecracking puppet named Triumph the Insult Comic Dog voiced by pioneering comedy writer Robert Smigel is one of the reasons his campaign unraveled. Triumph followed Cruz through the early part of his campaign in the New Hampshire primary and caught some of the BS he was peddling to potential supporters. Smigel and his crew recorded Cruz repeating the same tired speech on more than one stop; it accused the other side of the aisle of voter fraud in a joke that would make the hokiest man cringe until his face turned into a prune. We know he used it over and over because Triumph repeated it word for word as Cruz repeated it word for word right down to the stuttering "n-now, look."

3. Ted Cruz Brags About a Painting of Himself While Arguing Before the Supreme CourtCruz is a master of self-worship. He seems like someone who has one of those Time magazine "Man of the Year" framed mirrors. There's something even more Ted Cruz-ish on his office wall.

During an interview with ABC's Jonathan Karl, Cruz brought up a hand-drawn portrait hanging in his congressional office. The portrait shows Cruz arguing a case that he unanimously lost before the Supreme Court from his time as Texas' solicitor general. Cruz says the portrait humbles him and reminds him of the inevitability of losing and failure. The part Cruz leaves out is about the case he argued in 2003 in which he defended Texas' decision to renege on a legal settlement to provide funding for adequate healthcare for poor children. The Supreme Court unanimously voted against Cruz's side, citing the precedent of "Come on, it's Ted Cruz."

4. Ted Cruz Reads Green Eggs and Ham to Filibuster the Affordable Care ActYou know you've sunk to a new low when you shut down the government and piss off government-hating, federal deregulating Republicans at the same time. It's the Congressional equivalent of nuking fish in the office microwave.

Cruz shut down the government in 2013 in order to prevent the funding for the Affordable Care Act because he thought you might as well go all-in if you're gonna argue to the highest court in the land that a state shouldn't have to treat poor, sick children. Cruz filibustered the ACA funding for more than 21 straight hours (only 13 of which involved Cruz actually speaking, which is Cruz-y enough). He quoted the braying, whiny words of author Ayn Rand and Ashton Kutcher's acceptance speech from that year's Teen Choice Awards, and he achieved peak Cruz-iness by taking down something we all love with him. Cruz read from Dr. Seuss's immortal literary classic Green Eggs and Ham in a way that makes us grateful he never had to tuck us in at night.

5. ...Then Ted Cruz Says He "Consistently Opposed Shutdowns" Just like Cancun-gate, Cruz found a new way to out-Cruz himself under the pressure of another Cruz-ian scandal.

Five years after his infamous shutdown, Cruz claimed in a hallway interview with an MSNBC reporter that he "consistently opposed shutdowns." He claimed that during the infamous 2013 shutdown, he "repeatedly" asked "unanimous consent to reopen the government" with a straight (what he calls) face even though he actively fueled and refused to stop a shutdown that's practically named after him. The amazing part is it wasn't the first time he said such aplain wrong thing. He even wrote it in his book titled, get this, A Time for Truth.

6. Ted Cruz Tries to Legally Defend a 16-Year Sentence for Someone Who Stole a CalculatorIn a Texas court in 1997, Michael Wayne Haley received a 16-year prison sentence or a minor shoplifting charge thanks to a clerical error committed by the judge and both legal teams overseeing the case. The maximum sentence is two years. Cruz defended the heavy handed sentence as Texas' solicitor general because a calculator was involved and it would become one of many times that Cruz would prefer that people didn't try to do math (i.e. the 2020 election and its subsequential Cruz-topian events).

7. Ted Cruz Tries to Make Beto O'Rourke Look Bad Because He Was in a Punk Rock Band Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke came the closest to toppling Cruz with his 2018 Senate campaign that ran on a progressive platform of "I'm not Ted Cruz."

One of the "negative points" Cruz tried to pin on O'Rourke was that he played in a punk band when he was young, a talking point sure to win the support of the sort of Texan's who protect their lawns at gunpoint, a vital slice of the electorate that makes up roughly 61 percent of the population.

8. Ted Cruz Makes Fun of Joe Biden the Night Before Biden's Son's FuneralMaking jokes about your political rivals isn't a new concept. In fact, it's sort of expected unless timing is ill-advised. But bad timing never let Cruz stop being Cruzy.

Then-Vice President Joe Biden lost his oldest son Beau in 2015 to cancer. Cruz waited until the eve of Beau's funeral to toss a joke about how Biden's name is just a punchline, which really isn't a joke if you have to explain that it's a joke, but that's beside the point. Someone recorded and released a video of it and Cruz only issued an apology when the video made everyone wonder how someone could be so Cruz-ish. Then again, if someone quotes Ayn Rand while trying to keep people from having access to healthcare, then their humor radar isn't that strong anyway.

9. Ted Cruz Pisses Off Everyone on George W. Bush's 2000 Presidential Campaign You know someone is on an epic level of Cruz-ness when they figure out a way to be the least liked person on a team like the George W. Bush campaign staff. It's like being named the least talented member of Limp Bizkit.

Cruz worked as an advisor on W's 2000 presidential campaign team and "Theodore" (as George W. called him) instantly became the least popular member of the team.W. sensed that the Theodore Cruz-esqueness was on par with a coked-up ferret and sent him to form the legal team that would bring the 2000 presidential election out of voters' control and into the hands of the Supreme Court. Theodore would email staffers throughout the day and night bragging about his legal qualifications to the point where people avoided being in the same room with him during meetings. Of course, Theodore bragged about all of this in his aforementioned book, which he probably emails to his staff in the early morning hours every day.

10. Ted Cruz Elbows His Wife in the Face While Hugging His Dad Three TimesThis moment was easily the most Cruz-y moment of his campaign. It's a perfect metaphor for Cruz's plan to prevent Donald Trump from winning the nomination and his subsequent groveling to win Trump's favor when Trump became president even after the man publicly criticized Cruz's wife for his being less attractive than Melania Trump.

Cruz's disastrous run at the White House ended following his loss in Indiana. He concluded it with a speech in which he went in to hug his father, Rafael, and ended up elbowing wife Heidi in the face (more than once!), like he's on a bad date in the world's lamest mosh pit. Hurting someone with a hug is one of the Cruziest things a human being can do.

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Danny Gallagher has been a regular contributor to the Dallas Observer since 2014. He has also written features, essays and stories for MTV, the Chicago Tribune, Maxim, Cracked, Mental_Floss, The Week, CNET and The Onion AV Club.

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The Worst Ted Cruz Moments in History - Dallas Observer