Music ethics politics

Abstract

In the twenty-teens, music has been wrapped up in politics and ethics in several prominent events, including violent attacks at the Bataclan theatre in Paris and the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, and the profiling of musical listening habits in the French governments "stop jihadism" campaign. Significant scholarship exists on music and politics, and interest in music and ethical philosophy is growing. More work, however, is needed in theorizing the connections between music, ethics, and politics. In 1951, Heidegger's essay "Building Dwelling Thinking" lists the words in the title without punctuation in an attempt to show how these three terms are intertwined even though they are often considered separate. While these words and concepts are not interchangeable, each relies upon or invokes the other. My title structurally mirrors Heidegger's, and my aim here is to elucidate how music is intertwined with ethics and politics.