Music and the Dignity of Difference

This paper will critique the values embedded in the Western classical tradition from a Foucauldian perspective. It will identify issues of power as a central problem for Western culture which is developing into a monoculture in which many people are disempowered. It identifies the role of the dialogic imagination in challenging the dominant culture and how this might inform work with children. It will see a way forward as the valuing of difference, drawing on the work of Martin Buber, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jacques Derrida. It will examine the origins of the hierarchy of the Western classical music tradition in the development of patriarchal values in early Christianity. It will analyze the use of the arts as cultural intervention for personal and cultural re-empowerment, drawing examples from Improvisation Theatre, Carnival, heteroglossia in contemporary poetry and Victor Turner’s notion of liminality. It will draw on examples from a variety of art forms and then look at how music might be re-envisioned. It will interrogate a musical event drawing on these strands to encourage children to think outside the cultural conventions and to value difference.