One Hand
Clapping:
The Taoe of Music
WholeArts and
The Psychic Internet is proud to present the
"Preface" and "Part One" of this
remarkable book by Daniel d'Quincy. "One Hand
Clapping: The Tao of Music," originally published by
WholeArts in 1991, is a book-length essay on the
performance of music from the perspective of Eastern
philosophy and religion. Mr. d'Quincy is a noted
composer, musician, author, inventor, educator, speaker,
and photographer. Please visit his unique music sites at WholeArts: syNThony, and the WholeArts Online Music Conservatory.
Page 17
Chapter Two
If we abide
within the conceptual categories familiar to us in the
West, this is not an easy question to answer, especially
since our western culture, and now advanced technological
society everywhere, is undergoing a great crisis of
identity. We have even invented a “politics of
identity.”
Our love affair
with individuality, conceived ideologically, has produced
a mentality that views itself formally as sovereign and
unique, almost like a primary substance. Like one of the
basic chemical elements, we want to be completely
ourselves, unalloyed, without reference to externals. Not
only do we all want to speak English, but we also
don’t want to be marked by any recognizable accent.
No news anchor with an accent is permitted on television.
Each of us wants to be a tabula rasa on which we
will write our own story - undefined, unmeasured, and
unconstrained by ethnic origin, or cultural background.[1] Igor Stravinsky, when he was fifty-seven,
and living in the United States for a year, decided to
apply for citizenship. At his interview, being asked his
name, he enunciated its three syllables impeccably,
“Stra-vin-sky.” Came the reply, “You could
change it, you know.”
It’s up to
you (…well, not entirely?). This is why the
“Melting-Pot” has been such a compelling
American ideal. By virtue of it, and its corollary, the
“classless society,” Americans have achieved a
full-blown cultural leveling, in which all classes share
the same food, appliances, sports, arts, and
entertainment. Cultural relativism is the order of the
day.[2] No specific cultural standards are granted
privileged position, either in public discourse or at the
academy. Preference is prejudice. An ecumenical taste is
highly regarded.
Thus, as an
absolutely necessary and logical result of these factors,
we find ourselves in a constant frenzy of self-definition
as individuals. We never realize that pure and unmediated
self-definition is essentially impossible. How can we
define ourselves without regard to the affinities or
antipathies that we have for externals that exist apart
from us? And if we shop for these externals, off the
shelf, with little or no regard for the internal
consistencies shared by all cultural entities when they
exist in organic relation to their origins, then we are
at a loss as to the meaning and significance of any of
our choices. It requires a certain, and very rare,
integrity of spirit to be able to mold one’s
identity at will out of the whole range of options and
alternatives available in a global culture. Nobody does
it without at the same time exercising an interest (nay,
passion) for things in their proper context. Any other
approach is that of the hobbyist collector, who is a man
without identity properly speaking.
For the vast ruck
of hard-working men and women who trudge the treadmill of
bread-winning and home-making, having abandoned class,
ethnic and racial heritage as a frame of reference, it
becomes increasingly difficult to define one’s
identity in terms that do not depend exclusively on
patterns of consumption. This is to know who we are in
terms of one or another mass-produced flimflam that we
purchase off the shelf - and, in a throw-away world, this
tends to be problematical. Even our political elections
exactly parallel the process of corporate-driven
shopping. Only two political parties are allowed, both
“new and improved.” Pundits eke out their
differences, but no free mind is deceived. The Nixonian
Republicans meet in mutual vituperation with Clintonian
Democrats on essentially common ground. Political
ideology, per se, is completely one-dimensional, and no
political identity outside of the paradigm is recognized
or permitted. People used to be defined to a great degree
by their party, choosing their friends and in-laws
accordingly, but no longer.
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