Response to Alexandra Kertz-Welzel, “Daring to Question: A Philosophical Critique of Community Music”

Abstract

Response to Alexandra Kertz-Welzel, “Daring to Question: A Philosophical Critique of Community Music” Antía González Ben “Daring to Question” raises a number of relevant and timely questions regarding community music. It is a pleasure for me to review Kertz-Welzel’s piece. This task gave me the opportunity to reflect unhurriedly on her arguments and to elaborate some of my thoughts on them. The prescribed length of PMER’s “In Dialogue” prevents any attempts at conducting comprehensive article reviews so I will focus here on just three of Kertz-Welzel’s arguments, trying to keep up with her piece’s “daring” spirit. First, I will interrogate her approach to conceptual ambiguity. Next, I will explore the theory-practice dichotomy laid out in her article. Lastly, I will reflect on community music’s link to the notions of human betterment and social progress.1 Kertz-Welzel frames community music’s definitional ambivalence as a critical epistemological deficiency, linking it to anti-intellectualism. In counterpoint, I argue that definitional ambivalence does not necessarily have to equal a refusal to engage in intellectual activity and I also call attention to the power dynamics attached to the act of naming. Under this light, rejecting definitions might be seen as an act of political resistance. [End Page 220] For Kertz-Welzel, “this [conceptual] ambiguity of community music is a well-known problem.” Certainly, she does not believe fixed definitions to be completely unproblematic. Contrarily, she acknowledges some of the dangers that come with definitions. She points out: “They [definitions] are imperfect and incomplete,” and also, “There are general epistemological problems with definitions and have always been.” However, she also postulates that explicit definitions are indispensable for both communication in general and for scholarly activity in particular. She writes: “The beginning of all kinds of communication, logical thinking, and scholarly reflections are definitions because we need to know what we talk about.” A corollary of the previous argument is, for Kertz-Welzel, that an individual or a community who resists self-definition or being defined by others, embodies anti-intellectualism. In her words: “Refusing to define basic terms means refusing to be part of the world of thinking, intellectual discourse, and academia.” Likewise, she adds: “[I]t surprises that for the sake of community music, community musicians would voluntarily give up the value of cognition and perception in general.” I do not pretend to argue that definitions are useless or inherently evil. Indeed, I agree with Kertz-Welzel in that “we use them [definitions] because they help us to understand the world.” Definitions have tactical productivity. They have real effects in regards to how people think, feel, and act in the world. However, it might be a logical fallacy to infer that refusing to espouse stable and shared definitions necessarily leads to anti-intellectualism.2 Derrida’s critique of “the metaphysics of presence,” commonly known as deconstructionism, and his erudite exposition of the notion of différance, stand as counter-examples to Kertz-Welzel’s argument for the need of clear definitions to carry out serious intellectual work.3 In addition, it is important to acknowledge that naming and defining are acts of power. Who gets to define a given reality is important. Given the prestige historically attributed to scholarly investigations as opposed to concrete social interventions, it is thus understandable that, “In the community music movement, a fear of scholarly investigation is not uncommon.” The colonial metaphor that Kertz-Welzel brings up in her article acquires a new meaning in light of this. Besides potentially indicating “strong feelings against the ‘establishment’ which would like to ‘rob’ community music of the good things it has,” as Kertz-Welzel suggests, the colonial metaphor also sheds light on the problematic attached to having scholars define community music, despite community musicians explicitly voicing an objection to defining themselves or to being defined. Advancing a scholarly definition of community music might indeed be seen as an act of symbolic violence. Equally dangerous is to assume that theoretical definitions are somehow superior to operational definitions, which are the partial and provisional [End Page 221] ones community musicians tend to use in their concrete daily practices. Besides being read...