aesthetics
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On Church Organs and Church Music
Recently I had the good fortune to hear an organ concert in Westminster Abbey. Not long afterwards I heard someone asking whether churches should get rid of their old organs. The question is a reasonable one, since organs are expensive to maintain, nigh impossible to move, and not many people can play them well. To those charges we should add the charge that organs are old-fashioned, and we are not.
I happen to love organ music, so that's one reason why I think we shouldn't get rid of the organs that remain in our churches. But there is at least one more important reason to think carefully about replacing them. Sometimes organs don't fit well with the buildings they are in, as though the organ was purchased on its own merits and not for the way it matched the acoustics of the building that holds it. In those cases, I don't see the loss if they're removed.
But this is a failing of architecture and economics, not just of music. The problem in that case is far greater than the sin of not being contemporary. An organ that does not match the church, or a church that is not made to be acoustically beautiful - both of these are failures, the kind of failure that comes from people who think that design and aesthetics are luxuries. But design is never neutral; it always helps or hurts. Efficiencies and economics can be the enemies of accomplishing the most worthwhile ends.
Here's what Westminster Abbey reminded me of: a well-built organ is not just an instrument; it is a part of the edifice itself. Specifically, it is the part that turns the whole edifice into a musical instrument. When the organ at Westminster is being played, it is not just a keyboard or pipes that are being played, but the whole building. Every bit of the building resounds. The music is not an isolated event anymore; the notes played and the place in which they are played have merged, and each reaches out to affirm the other. A good organ turns a church into a musical instrument.
Too often churches think of aesthetics last, if at all, or refuse to make aesthetics part of their theology. This is a huge mistake. The prophets describe the architectural adornments of the Ark and the Tabernacle and the Temple, giving those aesthetical elements a permanent place in Jewish and Christian canonical scripture. Similarly, the scriptures are full of songs and poems that - one could argue - are unnecessary to salvation. As Scott Parsons and I have argued, art and the sacred belong together. Our faith is not a matter of mere talk; sometimes what must be articulated cannot be said in words, but needs the smell of incense, the ringing of a sanctus bell, the deep bellow of a pipe organ, the beauty of light well-captured in glass or terrazzo.
If you're not sure of what I mean, listen to Árstí∂ir sing the medieval hymn Heyr himna smi∂ur -- in a train station. Can you imagine that being sung in a church with similar acoustics? Here's what I love about the video: when they sing that beautiful old song, everyone around them stops to listen. The beauty of the song is arresting, especially when it is paired with the building. What keeps us from dreaming of building churches, writing music, and designing instruments that could similarly arrest us?
I happen to love organ music, so that's one reason why I think we shouldn't get rid of the organs that remain in our churches. But there is at least one more important reason to think carefully about replacing them. Sometimes organs don't fit well with the buildings they are in, as though the organ was purchased on its own merits and not for the way it matched the acoustics of the building that holds it. In those cases, I don't see the loss if they're removed.
But this is a failing of architecture and economics, not just of music. The problem in that case is far greater than the sin of not being contemporary. An organ that does not match the church, or a church that is not made to be acoustically beautiful - both of these are failures, the kind of failure that comes from people who think that design and aesthetics are luxuries. But design is never neutral; it always helps or hurts. Efficiencies and economics can be the enemies of accomplishing the most worthwhile ends.
Here's what Westminster Abbey reminded me of: a well-built organ is not just an instrument; it is a part of the edifice itself. Specifically, it is the part that turns the whole edifice into a musical instrument. When the organ at Westminster is being played, it is not just a keyboard or pipes that are being played, but the whole building. Every bit of the building resounds. The music is not an isolated event anymore; the notes played and the place in which they are played have merged, and each reaches out to affirm the other. A good organ turns a church into a musical instrument.
Too often churches think of aesthetics last, if at all, or refuse to make aesthetics part of their theology. This is a huge mistake. The prophets describe the architectural adornments of the Ark and the Tabernacle and the Temple, giving those aesthetical elements a permanent place in Jewish and Christian canonical scripture. Similarly, the scriptures are full of songs and poems that - one could argue - are unnecessary to salvation. As Scott Parsons and I have argued, art and the sacred belong together. Our faith is not a matter of mere talk; sometimes what must be articulated cannot be said in words, but needs the smell of incense, the ringing of a sanctus bell, the deep bellow of a pipe organ, the beauty of light well-captured in glass or terrazzo.
[youtube=[www.youtube.com/watch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4dT8FJ2GE0&w=320&h=266])
If you're not sure of what I mean, listen to Árstí∂ir sing the medieval hymn Heyr himna smi∂ur -- in a train station. Can you imagine that being sung in a church with similar acoustics? Here's what I love about the video: when they sing that beautiful old song, everyone around them stops to listen. The beauty of the song is arresting, especially when it is paired with the building. What keeps us from dreaming of building churches, writing music, and designing instruments that could similarly arrest us?
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Guns and Aesthetics
A number of times in the last few months the issue of aesthetics and firearms has arisen, notably in connection with the recently proposed ban on what are called assault weapons. I say "what are called assault weapons" because it's difficult to decide which weapons should be included in that category. The assault weapons ban tries to categorize them by asking whether they meet at least three out of a short list of criteria.
Many guns are semiautomatic - that is, each pull of the trigger fires a round and then loads the next round - without being assault weapons. Most of the duck hunters I know use semiautomatic shotguns, for instance. Their guns only hold three rounds (as stipulated by the law that governs the hunting of migratory waterfowl) but those three rounds can be fired in rapid succession, and most of the guns can be quickly made to hold more than three rounds - usually up to five. Some small-game guns that fire .22 caliber rounds (one of the smallest and least powerful bullets commonly available) are also semiautomatic; and I'd guess most of the handguns sold today are semiautomatic as well. But few of these guns qualify as assault weapons.
Critics of the ban point out that for this reason (among others) the criteria for assault weapons are merely aesthetic. Banning guns on the basis of aesthetics will do little or nothing to solve the problem of gun violence, they say.
I haven't looked into the statistics, but I would guess that most gun deaths in the United States involve semiautomatic handguns and not assault weapons.
Which leads me to the question of whether the aesthetics of guns matters.
My answer is not about what laws we should enact, but about whether aesthetics matters anywhere. And the answer is that every one of us knows that aesthetics always matters. It affects the kind of car we drive, the clothes we wear, the way we wear our hair. Even those who profess that they don't care about these things almost certainly do care. Everyone who studies advertising and marketing knows; songwriters and filmmakers know; everywhere we turn we find a human environment in which we have made important choices on the basis of how the visual aspect of our belongings and edifices makes us feel.
The Best View In Warsaw
When the Nazis were retreating from Warsaw they dynamited the city, block by block, leveling nearly every building in the city. After the war, the proud Poles gathered photos and paintings and rebuilt the city, brick by brick, to look just as it had before the war. No doubt this was much harder than simply rebuilding, but they knew: aesthetics matters. It is the expression of people who will not be put down. Visual culture can be used to rally a nation, to embolden hearts, to renew hope.
Years ago, when I was working in Poland, one of my students offered to take me to the top of the Palace of Science and Culture in Warsaw. The building was a "gift" from Moscow, and the building rises from a huge footprint to a soaring tower that overlooks all of Warsaw. When we reached the top and gazed out on the city, Tomek said to me "This is the best view in all of Warsaw."
"Because the tower is so tall that you can see everything?" I asked.
"No," he quickly replied. "It's because this is the only place in Warsaw where you can't see this damned tower!" The building was a "gift" but it was also a visible reminder of Russian Soviet power. Everything from the wide footprint to the dizzying height to the architectural style was an aesthetic expression of domination. The Soviets knew: aesthetics matters. Visual culture can be used to intimidate and oppress.
You Are A Sign
Regardless of what you think of the proposed ban on certain kinds of guns, this should be obvious. Go to a gun shop or a gun show sometime and ask yourself whether aesthetics matters in guns. It might not matter enough to inform our laws, but the guns we make and buy for ourselves ought to tell us something about what is in our hearts. The thing we hold in our hand, like the car we drive and the clothes we wear, is something we project to others, a word we are silently and visibly speaking. As I have written before, the gun is not a neutral element in this speech. It is a word we speak, but it can be a word that speaks us, too. Let me tell you what every polyglot knows: some words in some languages open up new thoughts that you didn't think to think in your native tongue. The technologies we deploy may be the same; as may the visible aspect of those technologies. Nothing is ever neutral; as Peirce said, everything - everything - is a sign, and we ourselves become signs as well.
This doesn't answer the question of what kind of laws we should have. I think that question is secondary to this question: what kind of people should we be?
Many guns are semiautomatic - that is, each pull of the trigger fires a round and then loads the next round - without being assault weapons. Most of the duck hunters I know use semiautomatic shotguns, for instance. Their guns only hold three rounds (as stipulated by the law that governs the hunting of migratory waterfowl) but those three rounds can be fired in rapid succession, and most of the guns can be quickly made to hold more than three rounds - usually up to five. Some small-game guns that fire .22 caliber rounds (one of the smallest and least powerful bullets commonly available) are also semiautomatic; and I'd guess most of the handguns sold today are semiautomatic as well. But few of these guns qualify as assault weapons.
 |
| Which ones are the dangerous ones? |
I haven't looked into the statistics, but I would guess that most gun deaths in the United States involve semiautomatic handguns and not assault weapons.
Which leads me to the question of whether the aesthetics of guns matters.
My answer is not about what laws we should enact, but about whether aesthetics matters anywhere. And the answer is that every one of us knows that aesthetics always matters. It affects the kind of car we drive, the clothes we wear, the way we wear our hair. Even those who profess that they don't care about these things almost certainly do care. Everyone who studies advertising and marketing knows; songwriters and filmmakers know; everywhere we turn we find a human environment in which we have made important choices on the basis of how the visual aspect of our belongings and edifices makes us feel.
 |
| They aren't just vehicles for our bodies, but for all the other things we wish to convey as well. |
The Best View In Warsaw
When the Nazis were retreating from Warsaw they dynamited the city, block by block, leveling nearly every building in the city. After the war, the proud Poles gathered photos and paintings and rebuilt the city, brick by brick, to look just as it had before the war. No doubt this was much harder than simply rebuilding, but they knew: aesthetics matters. It is the expression of people who will not be put down. Visual culture can be used to rally a nation, to embolden hearts, to renew hope.
Years ago, when I was working in Poland, one of my students offered to take me to the top of the Palace of Science and Culture in Warsaw. The building was a "gift" from Moscow, and the building rises from a huge footprint to a soaring tower that overlooks all of Warsaw. When we reached the top and gazed out on the city, Tomek said to me "This is the best view in all of Warsaw."
"Because the tower is so tall that you can see everything?" I asked.
"No," he quickly replied. "It's because this is the only place in Warsaw where you can't see this damned tower!" The building was a "gift" but it was also a visible reminder of Russian Soviet power. Everything from the wide footprint to the dizzying height to the architectural style was an aesthetic expression of domination. The Soviets knew: aesthetics matters. Visual culture can be used to intimidate and oppress.
You Are A Sign
Regardless of what you think of the proposed ban on certain kinds of guns, this should be obvious. Go to a gun shop or a gun show sometime and ask yourself whether aesthetics matters in guns. It might not matter enough to inform our laws, but the guns we make and buy for ourselves ought to tell us something about what is in our hearts. The thing we hold in our hand, like the car we drive and the clothes we wear, is something we project to others, a word we are silently and visibly speaking. As I have written before, the gun is not a neutral element in this speech. It is a word we speak, but it can be a word that speaks us, too. Let me tell you what every polyglot knows: some words in some languages open up new thoughts that you didn't think to think in your native tongue. The technologies we deploy may be the same; as may the visible aspect of those technologies. Nothing is ever neutral; as Peirce said, everything - everything - is a sign, and we ourselves become signs as well.
This doesn't answer the question of what kind of laws we should have. I think that question is secondary to this question: what kind of people should we be?