Is Rock Music Really Bad for Our Youth and Society?

Allan Bloom is right when, in his essay entitled "Music," he says that rock music is damaging to the youth of our culture because it appeals mainly to our passions and not to our ability to reason. It is this one-sided onslaught that keeps us imbalanced in our perception of reality. Our ability to reason is what keeps us from making rash, heat of the moment decisions that we might regret later and our passions are what drive us to succeed and excel. Aaronson's essay does not directly address these issues but her views make it clear that she feels that passion is more important than reason because our passions have been repressed and need to be let out through dance.

In her essay, "Dancing Our Way Out of Class Through Funk, Techno, or Rave," Aaronson states that dance and techno music "skillfully explode all mental constructs" (Aaronson 109). She sees the music as a way to remove the negative prejudices of the listener but this same explosion of mental constructs may be the root cause of many anti-social behaviors as well. Without restraint through reasoning we are nothing more than our current passions which change as often as the wind and much too often get us into trouble. The social constructs we have created are there to keep us from becoming completely ruled by our passions so that society may function. Rock, Trance, and Techno music push our social constraints to the background and make it easier to do things we shouldn't because we lose the will to reason before we act.

In Bloom's essay he explains that rock and its immediacy in our lives is dangerous to children and society as a whole. He states that rock music hurts children by giving them "on a silver platter... everything their parents always used to tell them they had to wait for until they grew up" and "providing a constant flood of fresh material for voracious appetites" (Bloom 38). Rock gives the children a hunger and a passion for things which their mind is not able to understand, however, I don't believe that rock is the only reason why society is full of decay but I do believe that it is much more than just a symptom. The influence of rock-n-roll moves the listener towards the baser, emotionally unstable parts of themselves rather than towards that which is rational and morally established in society. This can be seen by listening to any rock station on the radio. There will undoubtedly be allusions to the worst parts of society such as violence, sex, drug use, self pity, self doubt and sometimes even suicide.

Aaronson posits that trance, techno, and rave dance floors "have become a secular ritualistic locus of emancipation and liberation from society's ever growing stranglehold" (Aaronson 108). I find the idea of a secular ritualistic locus of emancipation to be more than a little scary. This is a situation in which the participants feel like the rules that govern society do not apply to them. In Aaronson's own words the participant eventually succumbs to the music and begins an "ecsomatic trance in which the everyday world is put in parentheses" (Aaronson 110). This out-of-body trance-like state is something that she apparently feels is a good thing. At one point she refers to how the "repetitive nature recalls the frenetic drums of African tribal dances" (Aaronson 108). I disagree with her as to whether that frenetic, frantic, frenzied, out-of-body state during tribal dancing has any constructive long-term interpersonal value at all. The only way that we build interpersonal relationships is through meaningful conscious contact. If Raves and dance club atmospheres succeed in removing us from our conscious awareness then they also make us incapable of creating interpersonal relationships and make us more apt to ignore our inhibitions and do what feels right instead of what we know is right.

Music can bring about harmony and unity, but what Aaronson is describing is not the way to achieve these goals. Aaronson says that the followers of rhythm and dance are able to "achieve this unity because, like psychotropic drugs, they remove inhibitions and enable people to function on an intuitive level" (Aaronson 112). The problem is that when the beat leaves the relationship dissolves and the old prejudices, such as race, religion, and politics, return. There is no permanent change in the attitude, philosophy or personality of the participant, just a momentary disassociation of the dancer's long held prejudices through the psychotropic effect of the music. The participant enters a trance-like state where passions rule and where reason is put to death.

We need to stop repressing our ability to reason and to stop killing our ability to be passionate. We need to find music that engages both parts of our minds. Both authors would agree that we to find the middle ground and create music that will help us to be passionate in our reasoning and reasonable about our passions so that society can continue to function through reason and its people will have the passion to succeed.

Work Cited

Aaronson, Beatrice. "Dancing Our Way Out Of Class Through Funk, Techno, or Rave."

Music and Culture. Ed. Anna Tomasino. New York: Pearson Longman, 2005. 107-115.

Bloom, Allan. "Music." Music and Culture. Ed. Anna Tomasino. New York: Pearson Longman, 2005. 35-43.