Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

[Anne Wellmer <>]

Noone interested in experimental music should worry about Tom Sora. He is part of a discourse that takes place in a parallel universe. Or would a dialogue or a fruitful discussion with him and his audience ever be possible?

But it is scary that Tom Sora's nonsense narratives obviously have an audience.

And it is scary to realize that a German “Bibliothek des Konservatismus” exists and how it promotes Sora's book and his blog. 

Nevertheless, best strategy is to completely ignore texts shared by “achgut” or Tom Sora. As others have already mentioned, “achgut” is a rightwing blog; among its topics are climate change denial and the hatred of anything “politically correct”. you get the idea.

best wishes from berlin.

On 20 May 2024, at 16:44, Rod <> wrote:

I agree, but not knowing hasn't ever stopped groups of people generalizing their discontent with whatever they're upset about this week. All they need is a springboard idea from someone that they feel is on their "poor me" side and off they go pontificating in absurd fashion. Reading the comments to this fellow's screed demonstrates that the "who" of the subject matter is secondary to the emotion expelled by these folks.

Also, I find it rather humorous that the guy that Sora has a big beef with is the person who greatly contributed to the understanding of why Sora does what he does.

R

On May 20, 2024, at 07:59, Rob Haskins <> wrote:



My take is that most of the people with his political views don't know or care who John Cage is, and those who do have a great number of stunning writings about him. Keep in mind, too, that Cage was a prolific writer and speaker—his words are an important and often readily understood aspect of his work.

Warm greetings.

On Sun, May 19, 2024 at 1:02 PM Ralph Lichtensteiger <> wrote:

Dear all,

I just accidentally stumbled across this crazy and defamatory text about John Cage online.

The text is an excerpt from a book by author Tom Sora. He makes absurd and defamatory claims about John Cage's person and work in this book. Is the silence community known to this work?

Greetings from Germany

R. Lichtensteiger

[[ Cage's desire to abolish competence and excellence and even to ban the words they name is (also) due to resentment. A deep-lying envy is one of the reasons for his hatred of culture. His easy solidarity with the underdogs is not as altruistic as it seems at first glance. Cage has certainly not thought too much about the well-being of the disadvantaged - be it composers, students or other allegedly discriminated categories. He argued primarily from his own perspective, as a composer, because he considered himself an "underdog", a "discriminate" in the context of "old music".

Cage knew that the large audience definitely and completely rejected his art. He also knew with certainty that he was by no means one of the "big" composers and not even one of the less "big" ones, and, as we saw, he admitted that himself. His defiant sentence quoted in the previous chapter that he is "not a musician" - is basically a bitter insight. His rejection of "old music" was partly a consequence of this insight. That's why Cage has tried a "revaluation of values" in many ways. ]]

https://www.achgut.com/artikel/john_cage_und_der_neid_der_kulturkaempfer

--

Rob Haskins, DMA., PhD

Professor and Chair, Department of Music

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