Mike Lyden
Aesthetics - Dr. McPeak
Philosophy 231-701 - Final
June 8th, 2000

The Value of Music

When asked what value music holds for Mo Tzu and Hsun Tzu, one must realize that they held quite different opinions on the matter. Mo Tzu professed that making music is wrong, and absolutely contrary to that, Hsun Tzu proclaimed that music is joy. Arthur Shopenhauer believes that music itself is a manifestation of the will. He says that music is an almost indescribable thing which transcends the material world. Hsun Tzu and Shopenhauer were both very much in favor of music, although in different aspects, and spoke of its harmony within itself and with the emotions of a human being.

Mo Tzu was against music. He spoke of the importance of the well being of the state (much like Plato) and said,
"If in order to gratify the senses he has to deprive the people of the wealth needed for their food and clothing, then the benevolent man will not do so"(p.47).

As mentioned in the reading, it was not because Mo Tzu did not enjoy music or find it delightful, or that he himself could not understand how anyone could find it enjoyable, but because music, along with other forms of art "were not in accordance with the way of the sage kings". Mo Tzu, like Plato, was overly protective of the state. He said that music would waste resources that could be used in other ways to gratify the state. He compared music to boats and carts, things for which there are definite physical purposes, and condoned the payment of taxes for such things because they were sure to benefit the people of the state. What I see as an important note in the writings of Mo Tzu is his idea of the three things that people in a society are preoccupied with;
"…when they are hungry they will have no food, when they are cold they will have no clothing, and when they are weary they will have no rest. These are the great three worries of the people"(p.47).

He rationalizes that if something does not help to ease any of these three worries, that they are a waste of time and resources. Formulaically, this theory makes sense. Of course the making of music would be a waste of time if all the people are interested in is surviving. If the entire community were in danger of extinction, living day to day on berries for which they had scrounged all day in search of, with no housing and no clothing, starving and freezing to death, I could understand how the making of music could be frowned upon, and perhaps even completely absent in their daily lives.

However, Mo Tzu overlooks the fact that living and surviving are indeed different things. It is true that in order to survive, a human being needs the three things that he mentioned, however, human beings have not merely existed or survived for centuries. Even before his time, human beings were thriving and spreading. This was undoubtedly not due only to the fact that they were performing an excellent job of surviving, but that they were enjoying living. To enjoy living, you must do more than simply survive. This is where I think Mo Tzu faltered. His idea that all music and art was bad and not in the interest of society was a positivistic theory that just seems to lack a correct analysis of the ideals of human existence.

Hsun Tzu realized this as well. His writings in "A Discussion of Music" criticized Mo Tzu to no end. He defined music as "joy, an emotion which man cannot help but feel at times"(p.50). Because man cannot help but feel this emotion from time to time, he must have an outlet for it. He says that "man must have his joy, and joy must have it expression", but adds that the expression of joy would inevitably become 'disordered' if one did not follow the principles of 'the Way'. Due to this fact, he states, the empowered developed hymns and odes in efforts to keep musical outlet under control, giving it a form to follow.

Hsun Tzu wrote that when music was performed in the temples of rulers, that all present were filled with a feeling of 'harmonious reverence', and that when it is performed in the home, the entire household would feel a 'harmonious kinship', and when performed in public, the community is filled with a 'harmonious obedience'. It is obvious that Hsun Tzu truly believed - much to the contrary of Mo Tzu - that music was capable of bringing a community together for the better of society. Hsun Tzu seems to exhibit music in an oppressive light. He tells of how powerful it is in all its abilities to control the populous, and to bring not only serenity to the people, but ease of control to their ruler.

He continues with music's war-like capabilities, saying that music can teach soldiers to march, and to reap justice upon the offenders of the peace of the state. Thoroughly apparent in his writings is the importance of the role of the king concerning music when he states that "…music was used by the former kings to express their delight…(p.51)" and also what I think exudes more precisely what Hsun Tzu believes is that because music is so powerful an agent that "…the former kings were careful to give it proper form(p.50)". This is, in my opinion, a form of oppression - a form that Hsun Tzu is condoning and justifying. Perhaps he overlooks the fact that, although music is a creative emotional outlet that should indeed be allowed and uncensored in a society, it should not be manipulated into a not so entirely subtle form of mind control induced by a community's oppressor.

Hsun Tzu also admits that although music should be allowed, bad music should not be allowed. This point is reminiscent of Plato's beliefs in that 'good music' makes one a good citizen, while 'bad music' will produce a bad citizen. He says that if music is 'seductive and depraved' the people will then become 'abandoned and mean-mannered'. He then makes a decidedly slippery slope-esque argument about how the 'bad' music will then affect all of society on every level, creating complete chaos, and ruining the condition of the state, managing to dishearten all members of society including its protectors, thus affording an invasion of foreign enemies.

Hsun Tzu, above all, is in favor of the existence of music in society (albeit a censored existence) and although he says that music is joy, and that man is entitled to express such an emotion, he speaks less of the actual beauty of expression, than of the manipulative qualities that exist therein. Where Mo Tzu claims that music is a waste of time and resources, Hsun Tzu points out that music can be used as a tool to make the human being more complacent, and subsequently more productive.

However much I agree with Hsun Tzu's Idea of music being an emotion that human beings cannot help but experience(and that is the only aspect in which we agree), I feel that Shopenhauer's idea of music is much more accurate, and not nearly as oppressive. Shopenhauer tries to explain what he feels music is.

Opposed to both Mo Tzu, and Hsun Tzu, Shopenhauer mentions nothing about the state. His definition of music is by far the least tainted by any type of oppressive nature. Like Hsun Tzu, he states that music is an emotion, but he goes a step further to define exactly what that means to him. Music is not just an outlet, not just an expression of an emotion, but it is an emotion in itself. To Shopenhauer, the music does not invoke the emotion in its listener; it actually is the emotion that the listener is experiencing. A way he tries to explain this concept is when he says that "…music is mimetic: what is 'copies', however, is not the familiar world, rather it is 'a copy of the will itself'"(p.151). As explained by Shopenhauer, music is, instead of being a copy of an emotion, is a copy of the essence of that emotion.

This existential nature of music leads to the further clarification of music being "…independent of the phenomenal world…"(p.153). Because of this, Shopenhauer says that it is also more powerful and moving than any other form of art. So, in agreement with Hsun Tzu, Shopenhauer believes that music has the power and capability to touch people and affect their lifestyles, but speaks about it with a reverence as an art form and an aesthetic experience to be felt and enjoyed. He also mentioned its capabilities to convey these feelings without using words, meaning that music can so adequately describe an emotion in itself, that it need not be put to language, it being its own language.

I would have to say that Mo Tzu would agree with this statement, although he most likely would not be impressed by it, considering he felt it was a waste of time, effort, and resources in the first place. I suspect that Hsun Tzu would agree with that statement, simply because I can't picture warriors on a battlefield singing, but I can definitely imagine a monstrous horde being led by a drumbeat and a flute. I myself agree most with Shopenhauer, I feel that music has a quality in it, which is hard to define, and I think that Shopenhauer does the best job evaluating it in my opinion. However, I would be most supremely interested in the opinions of Mo Tzu and Hsun Tzu in present time, when they weren't so absorbed with their state issues.