“Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is one of classical music’s most famous works,” tweeted one of the mouth-breathers at Vox this morning. “But to many, it’s also a symbol of elitism and exclusion.”
Forget, for a moment, the lazy and amateurish “to many” construction, which can be applied to any particular axe the writer wants to grind. Like, I dunno, “To many, CK is a merciless tyrant.” See what I did there? I led you to believe that CK is a terrible person without actually having the courage to say that he’s a terrible person—and without any evidence whatsoever.
This isn’t journalism. This is projecting.
But even if it were true—even if there existed a nontrivial number of self-absorbed a-holes who see a piece of music as “a symbol of elitism and exclusion”—so what? That’s their problem, not the music’s. Any idiot can, in the amount of time it takes to type “Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony” in the search field, find literally hundreds of performances on YouTube. FREE.
Who, exactly, is being excluded here? Only those who want to be culturally illiterate. (And those, like Vox writers, who want in on the intersectionality racket.)
So. Want to experience transcendent beauty? Give Beethoven a listen. Rather listen to “WAP”? That’s your prerogative. But for God’s sake don’t go blaming the white patriarchy for your benightedness. That’s just dumb.
