So I recently came up with a social theory that I think that pol will appreciate

So I recently came up with a social theory that I think that pol will appreciate.

The TL;DR is that following laws and having good rhythm are negatively correlated.

Essentially, Europeans developed society independent of much influence from other groups of people from areas like Africa, Asia, and the New World. This makes sense as before modern times, travel across distances like that was more or less impossible. So as Europeans were setting up society, they stopped having a need for things like dance circles and whatnot. Meanwhile, they needed things like conformation to societal norms and rules. A self imposed artificial selection of sorts. Developing a strong society and civilization is what Europeans focused on, with things like strong, permanent settlements, farming, career specialization, etc. Meanwhile the people in places like Africa and the New World (think Hispanic) didn't develop as strong societies and therefore didn't need as much conformation to societal rules. Drums and dancing remained an important aspect of their societies because it brought them together and whatnot, thereby increasing their likelihood of survival.

So the lack of focus on advancing civilizations and technologies (such as farming) kept the need for drums as an important aspect of their relatively simplistic societal structures and traditions. So those who could dance and play drums well had a better chance of survival. The focus on drums and simplistic, beating rhythms is what gave rise to the good senses of rhythm (and can be seen in modern African-American music as well). Meanwhile law breakers are bad for advanced societies as a whole. So those not willing to follow the rules of society were weeded out in Europe.

If you accept this as true, then it becomes apparent that societies that place heavy importance on drums and simplistic music and dancing are more likely to be lawless and have simplistic societies, cultures, civilizations, and technologies.

Any thoughts, pol?

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/watch?v=mAOWxwULTi0
youtube.com/watch?v=wYJ6fSr-on4
youtube.com/watch?v=r3Iofwswze8
plato.stanford.edu/entries/africana/
youtube.com/watch?v=Dh08NPL0Dsk
twitter.com/SFWRedditVideos

not true. i've been to drum circles on Venice Beach. you should go to on any Saturday so you can experience it for yourself.

I am speaking specifically of evolutionary and sociological trends, not anything specific. We are all still human and still have a lot of the traits which came from our time before splitting off into the relatively distinct groups in Europe, Africa, etc. This includes an affinity for certain musical aspects such as a 4/4 time signature and rhythms that closely resemble a beating heart. But again, this post is more about the trends more than anything specific.

A load of shit. The reason why 'lawful' societies are memed about not having rhythm/whites can't dance is because they don't practice it anymore, simple as that. Look at musicians of any origin and you'll notice that they have excellent rhythm because they practice it.

If there are two people who aren't professional musicians, one who never dabbles into music at all, and the other who e.g freestyle raps or beatboxes frequently because its part of his culture, the latter will have a better sense of rhythm.

Again, I am speaking generally about the trends of societies. Sure anyone can learn to have rhythm, and sure practice will definitely help. But it comes more naturally to hispanics and blacks. That is something that I assumed that everyone had come to terms with by now. It is pretty apparent imo by just observing people. I didn't think that the "white peopel have no rhythm" stereotype was true at all until I was around a large group of them which originated from places that were not primarily black. It was very obvious that they had very little, if any sense of rhythm. Some white people that I know have to actively focus in order to maintain any semblance of rhythm, hardly able to clap on beat.

And those people who don't have any rhythm don't practice it? You practice just by listening to music. It is literally the most basic of musical structures. So by simply listening to music regularly, you should have at least a decent sense of rhythm. But I can attest that many white people don't. I didn't think that was something that was disputed.

>But it comes more naturally to hispanics and blacks
no it doesn't

> So by simply listening to music regularly, you should have at least a decent sense of rhythm
depends on the music

I have yet to meet a black person who has no rhythm. But I've met plenty of white people over the years who don't.

What music is popular that isn't 4/4? That alone should be enough to impart at least passable rhythm. But you can disagree with me on that if you want. The association is still there. Cultures that focus more on simplistic, drum based music also tend toward simpler societal structures and more lawlessness.

>Europeans developed society independent of much influence from other groups of people from areas like Africa, Asia, and the New World.

False, Most of Iberia and part of France were occupied by North African Berbers for almost a millenium, these berbers were in contact and heavily influenced by Arabs (Asia) and sub saharan Africans, also therehas always been a strong, though not as obvious in the years A.D.) between Eastern Europe, particularly the Baltics, and Persia, India, C. Asia.

The Chinese also ha a very advanced civilization albeit using a wide range of percussion instruments.

Although the cold climate=more advanced civilization due to having to be "tougher" in orer to survive theory has some validity it still has some voids to fill as for example why did the Aztecs and Mayans of tropical Central America have a more sophisticated civilization instead of the natives of the cold Patagonia region...

Also, all memes aside, Mediterranean peoples and Middle Age Arabs had civilizations eons more advanced than Northern Europeans of the time...

correlation doesn't equal causation, and there is a difference between generic pop music and very beat heavy rap/hiphop with the lyrics neatly divided into bars, it's a rhythm heavy genre

>Svenska making excuses for niggers beat boxing and rapping because it's 'cultural'

Rap has been around for like 30 years. Negroes have been stomping their feet around Africa since before they could figure out how to incorporate a bonfire into their savage ceremonies.

If only the Euros of the 1600s and 1700s could have seen what was going to happen. They would have exterminated the whole waste of a continent.

svensk*

Sorry, I thought that was how you feminize nouns.

So you agree that there is a correlation there? What I am doing is trying to explain it. I think that it makes decent sense that as societies advance, then tend to leave behind some of the traditions of the past. Europeans advanced music to more complex things from just simple drums. Classical music is a good example, as are the complicated string and wind instruments that have been developed there over the years. The society moved away from simple social structures as well as simple music because the role that the simplistic music was filling previously was no longer needing to be filled with the more advanced societies which offered greater incentives to congregate and work together.

think a lot about feminization, don't you faggot?

Rhythmic beats and chanting induces trance like states, niggers and spics are more susceptible to this because they have simpler minds.

There could easily be a multitude of factors which contribute to the development of complex societal structures. Cold weather being one of them. What I am proposing is less about how music tastes helped to create complex societies or simplistic music helped to maintain the older, more simplistic societies, and more to do with an explanation as to why there is an association between simple music, simple social structures, and therefore lawlessness.

Just trying to accurately portray your proud nation on my favorite Sri Lankan blanket knitting imageboard

you're mistaken if you believe that the advent of fancy instruments that were mostly enjoyed by a small percent of society made an entire race lose an inherent sense of rhythm in a few decades, and then they never regained it in the centuries to come

niggers train rhythm by rapping all the time because they're niggers
whites don't rap all the time so they don't train rhythm

trying and failing, but it's nice that you're trying to accomodate your superiors, you faggot

Shame on you. We aren't trying to state other races can't follow or create laws, only that our relative ethnostates don't need to enforce fake uniformity. The other ethnostates can try to copy mine, one we're set up and working properly.

>Europeans developed society independent of much influence
Topkek

Nope mate. It is a nice theory but it actually goes like this.
Humans develop because of need.
Humans that are few formed tribes and became the apex predators of that part.
If there were any tribes around, the constant warfare between them gave birth to a need for advancement, to get the upper hand.
Europe has tightly packed greatly different tribes in a small space, conflict inevitable.
Tribes have a need for advancement.
Warfare births patriachal system, as opposed to matriarchal system of conflictless tribes. They are highly structured, with a strong moral and justice foundation.
Fast forward 4000 years, after ww2 because of if, you split the atom and during cold war you went to the moon.

Well, Japanese music isnt exactly complex and Im pretty sure they havent historically been a "lawless culture". Also, African music and African American music are anything but simple, the reason why people call jazz music revolutionary is the fact that it sought to condense a classical orchestra into 4 or 5 people, to play a complex array of tones with fewer instruments, people and time. doesnt sound "simple" to me.

>This includes an affinity for certain musical aspects such as a 4/4 time signature and rhythms that closely resemble a beating heart.
But Africans use polyrhythms user...
And not all New World Hispanic music is rhythm based. Our heritage is very much influenced by the native Guarani culture yet it's string melody based.

youtube.com/watch?v=mAOWxwULTi0
youtube.com/watch?v=wYJ6fSr-on4
youtube.com/watch?v=r3Iofwswze8

this is clearly stupid if you know the polyrhythmic techniques and complexities regarding time signatures etc. which make african rhythms look like baby shit.

it's just the musical negro meme which jews push when they've never created anything which comes close to white classical music.

But all the same, advanced Eastern Asian cultures dropped the simplistic, drum based, beat heavy music which originated in Africa (where humans originated). The role that it played in society simply isn't needed in advanced societies. So it gets dropped in favor of other musical tendencies.

you are not even fucking close at all.

>no warrior dances

this actually only happens in africa and the americas for the most part.

You want to know why europeans became uncontested king of the world until we cucked?

Because we hunted eachother.

It has nothing to do with the fucking ice age. I gurantee you the average european population was sub-par before rome

it doesn't take hundreds of thousands of years. What happened was during european feudal times, the stupid people died off, and only the present day middle-class could have a lot of kids

nowadays, the lower class whites are having a lot of kids. So our population is losing it's IQ and testosterone advatage.

that's it. We are not fucking special. We can't have some mystical belief that we will always be superior. We need to reverse this dysgenic effect and promote only eugenic breeding, or we will lose our mantle.

Retard. I have great beat and I'm super white.

Classical music has the most matured, nuance understanding of rhythm. Drum chants and rock music are way more simple, but still enjoyable and easy to follow.

You just have a bad internal metronome.

Just take your time and read this: plato.stanford.edu/entries/africana/
Explains everything and it's mainstream.

And according to my theory, the tribes which developed more complex music structures would be more likely to be more advanced than those that didn't.

As for native New World societies, things get a little trickier. Because of how far removed they are from Africa, they likely were among the first groups of humans to leave the African region and start spreading out. The amount of time that they spent away from such influence would allow for other things to take the place of the simple, drum music in their societal structures. I'm not familiar enough with them to know. Similarly, they might also be advanced enough societies that, like the Europeans and East Asians, the social need for such music is no longer present, replaced instead by the drive to maintain a stable society and whatnot.

Perhaps I didn't voice this clearly enough in the OP since people seem to misconstrued my meaning, but what I am saying is that the advancement of societies removed the need that the simplistic drum music was fulfilling in society, allowing for its influence in the people in those societies to lessen. This resulted in a loss of rhythm. Therefore the societies who tend toward having less rhythm, tend toward lawlessness by way of a less imposed societal structure, where lawlessness is more advantageous to the individual than maintaining the society.

Soon

Traditional East Asian music is simple yet meditative. Music's goal is not to be complex, but to induce a state of mind. Traditional music tends to reflect the volkgeist, the spirit of the peoples who made it. Which is why classical Western music is usually so grandiloquent, majestic, massive, in contrast to the calm meditation of traditional East Asian music.

One of the few insightful posts that I have read in this thread thus far.

I agree with you on this. How we interpret that seems that it might be a little different though. I am proposing that purpose of the music in simple cultures is to bring the people together in a way that isn't as needed in more advanced cultures. In more advanced cultures, the music is allowed to go to more recreational places, branching out and developing and becoming more complex. Whereas the music in simpler cultures is more necessary for maintaining the societal structure. Having it be such an important part of their society and way of life enforces the need to live together and cooperate. This is something which isn't really necessary in the more advanced societies, so instead of music being something that everyone would gather around to experience together every night or every week or whatever, it was more of a fun pass time. It's role in maintaining the structure was not needed, so it was allowed to develop and change and branch out. We aren't likely to see much change in the sound of the music in simpler societies because of this important role that it plays in the society, whereas in more advanced societies where it isn't as necessary, it is free to try new things.

Of course, that isn't to say that the people are incapable of developing more advanced and varied musical structures. They just don't have the opportunity in more simplistic societies where the music is more important to the society and needs to be played more regularly by and for more people. Give the chance, away from such a society, black can and do develop more advanced and varied music such as jazz, hip hop, rock, blues, etc. Like I have been saying the music is a symptom of the society, not the other way around.

Exactly, yet OP posits that African music=simplistic which is in itself a simplistic argument: Music from the Sahel is way different from music from C. Africa which is a bit different from S. African music, OP is just assuming black people=spears, mud huts, drum circles, which isnt a surprising argument from Sup Forums but it does defeat the purpose of crafting a good theory about sociology and anthropology, a better yet still flawed theory on music and society would be something akin to what you just mentioned:

European music=grandiose; schizophrenic, overwhelming, refined.
Arab music=fast paced; complex, violent, schizophrenic, refined.
E. Asian music=meditative; humble, observant.
L. American music: Chaotic; complex, varied, fast paced
African music: Chaotic, noisy, "over the place etc,etc...

That still falls short since youll find all kinds of emotion evoking music from pretty much any culture for example the more laid back and contemplative "Lion King" style music from sub Saharan Africa or the extremely violent and overwhelming "Chinese new year" music.

BTW: Does the law that gives Colombian instant Paraguayan citizenship still exist?

While I wont agree with your African music=simplistic part, I can definitely agree with the "music as a way of social cohesion" for less advanced societies, I know this because I experience this everyday, Latin Americans cant go 5 minutes without listening to music (the crappier, older and more hackneyed the better, sadly).

Perhaps "simplistic" has too many negative connotations to be used effectively here. I mean more or less beat heavy and drum driven. Something that is easy to dance to.

Yeah, maybe we´re splitting hairs here.

Pre-Columbian America and Sub Saharan Africa did and still have a strong shamanistic and animistic tradition which is tightly linked with their musical tradition, whereas Europeans replaced said tradition with organized religion (which also served as a unifying factor between the different peoples of Europe later on). Europeans probably "compartmentalized" music more easily that SS Africans ie: whereas there were different types and setting of music for Europeans; religious music, social music, nationalistic music. to Africans the different settings for music are linked together. I dont know if Im making myself clear.

>tfw blonde blue eyed and i play drums for living

>We aren't likely to see much change in the sound of the music in simpler societies because of this important role that it plays in the society, whereas in more advanced societies where it isn't as necessary, it is free to try new things.
It's a very interesting theory in that respect, since it would explain why, say, African music in tribes still has the same percussion based polyrhythms, while traditional European and Asian music changed so much in the wake of modernity and industrialization. Basically, your point is that in such small scale, simple societies, music plays the role of keeping the fabric of society knit together; while in more large scaled industrialized societies with advanced technology art is made for its own sake. Relegated to the realm of culture and nothing more, it has more freedom to advance as it pleases without threatening societal order.

We could also then add that music not only reflects the volkgeist, but also the spirit of the times.

It's not as simple as that, since different peoples and tribes in a single continent have also different spirits. Austrian, Spanish, Irish and Italians are all very different.

>L. American music: Chaotic; complex, varied, fast paced
For example, Paraguayan music is actually very slow paced, string based, with no percussion. It's rather simple, orderly and sweet, with a noticeable tinge of melancholy.
youtube.com/watch?v=r3Iofwswze8
youtube.com/watch?v=Dh08NPL0Dsk

I've noticed the full natives here (Guarani) are just like that. Peaceful, simple, sweet, and melancholic.
This suggests different ethnicites among Latin American natives also have different volkgeists! It's very interesting.

>BTW: Does the law that gives Colombian instant Paraguayan citizenship still exist?
Had no idea this law existed lol

OK. Riddle me this.

If Western-European civilization is the paragon of achievement. Why were they having a continent wide wars that devastated their own continent every 30-40 years on average, since the Reformation, until 1945?

I think that I am understanding what you are getting at, and I think that we are more or less agreeing now about the causal link between societal/civilization complexity and musical complexity.


Now about the other main part of this theory of mine, which people seem to have mostly glossed over. The link between societal structure and willingness to break laws. I think that this one is less polarizing. It makes more sense too. If your people evolved in a society without much in the way of rules or regulations, then you would be less inclined to follow rules and laws in general. Now, whether or not the increased crime rate with these peoples can be attributed in at least some part to nature over nurture can be hard to determine. The impact of ones rearing can't be overstated, but the amount of crime in majority minority areas of developed countries (and by that I mean ghettos in the US and the like where minorities are the most common demographic) as well as in the countries that they hail from (South America and Africa) give a good indication that there is at least some amount of criminality which can be attributed to the nature of those people. Again, these are vague generalizations for the purpose of evolutionary and sociological theories. Of course not every S American or African or African-American commits many crimes, but the trend is apparent.

The obvious next step in evaluating this aspect of the theory would be to somehow evaluate the crime rates of minorities that were raised in environments which exactly matched that of a control, white group. The only way that I could see that being possible is to look at black and white adoptees of affluent white parents. And I highly doubt that there is a study or statistics which we could find about that to really investigate. And that wuold be ignoring the impact that society as a whole would have on those individuals.

I think that I have finally managed to explain at least this aspect of my theory sufficiently, as you seem to understand it the same as I do now. I guess that I could use some work on being easier to understand with things like this. But it is a rather complicated thing to convey, I think. Fairly multifaceted.

For whatever reason, it seems that northern peoples seem to have more introverted cultures, whereas tropical cultures seem to have more extroverted cultures. This could be part of the reason why Africans are known for their dancing.

That is a good point.
This could easily be related to the aspect of more complex societies of having specializations. In smaller societies, there is not nearly as much specialization. Whereas in Europe, you could easily find someone who, for example, would do nothing all their life but fix shoes (cobblers have been around for a long time), in smaller tribes and the like, most people have to have a wide variety of skills in order to make sure that everything gets done. There aren't enough people to have someone for every specialization.

This need for a sense of community with your immediate relatives in tribal societies would be met in part at least by their music and dancing practices. Extrovertedness, simplistic music, small and simplistic societies, etc all seem to be associated with each other for fairly logical reasons, I think.

While I agree with OP that rhythmic based music was used to uphold order and community in Sub-Saharan Africa, and more tribalistic/uncivilised areas of the planet, I disagree both that Western music is not similar in this regard, or that African music developed in this way necessarily by rhythm.

1). What does rhythmic music provide that creates a sense of community that non-rhythmic (or overly rhythmic) music won't suffice in doing?
2). You seem to forget that national anthems are a Western Invention (I believe the UK was the first country to create one) - is this not political/social music?
3). It seems that the role of church music is also forgotten, which is important as it can be seen to akin to national anthems in terms of societal order.
4). Some collection of artefacts that correlate to certain time periods and the likewise advancement in these time periods would greatly assist you in your argument (e.g., perhaps a decline in use of percussion upon entering the bronze age, etc.), however no such thing is provided. Instead the argument heavily relies on misconceptions (e.g. Western music has no rhythm), and stereotypes (black people have superior rhythm), and so on.

No.

Human populations always had to endure various inconveniences. What pushed for example - ancient Egyptians - to building civilisation was desertification of Sahara(until about 5000-7000 BC Sahara was like huge savannah), which led to quite huge population of people migrating towards Nile and having to figure out how to cope with this now. They've realised the existence of seasonal floods, knew some basic agriculture and made use of those two, building the foundations for the civilisation.

On the other hand, Bushmens or Capoids were pushed by Bantu from western parts of South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe - all pasture land - to the western parts of SA and Namibia - mostly deserts. This was about the time when whites started settling there.

Those populations adapted to the new conditions by choosing strategy more common among Africans.

Instead of trying to find another sources of food(granted, in this region this would be hard), they've been half-starving for some 400 years until the only ones that survived are the guys with super-light metabolism which allows them to survive on relatively low amounts of food while maintaining activity.

This is probably what the general thing black Africans did when Sahara was desertifying. Which is what made them so attractive as slaves - they could do quite a lot of work without being fed well. It's also why blacks are so obese when in western countries.

Both strategies have advantages and disadvantages. The African one allows the population to survive regardless of natural resources, but the Egyptian/MiddleEastern one leads to selection dictated by ability of performing abstract thinking. Good abstract thinkers are able to secure bigger crops, build better melioration systems and survive droughts better.

The reason why Europeans eventually outcompeted middle Easterns is the fault of - at one side - islam being cult of death - and Europe offering relatively harsher conditions to its inhabitants.

1) Heavily rhythmic music makes it easier to dance along in a large communal dance (tribal dances, line dancing, etc). This would help to incorporate as many people as possible, making the experience active instead of passive for the large number of those in the society.
2) I never said that Western music wasn't used for social or political purposes, just that it was no longer required in order to help maintain the societal structure. The societies in Europe wouldn't fall apart without music, no question about that. But the tribal societies? They would have a harder time, likely needing to resort to some other kind of societal "glue" as it were.
3) Political and religious beliefs are at least somewhat responsible for the displacement of the use of music to keep societies together in Europe. They more effectively brought people together, helping to promote larger, more advanced civilizations, and helped to remove teh need in the society for "tribal music" of any sort. That isn't to say that it eliminated the need or desire for it, but it replaced it enough that it is no longer necessary as it was in the more simplistic societies.
4) I have done exactly no research on this topic. Like I said earlier at some point, this is just something that I thought up on the fly. I figured pol would appreciate it, so I posted it. I'm not opposed to researching it at some point, but I don't have the time right now. If you want to do so, I would appreciate any evidence that you find in favor or opposition to this theory.

As for why African music relies so heavily on rhythms, I think that it is because it is old, and effective. It likely dates back longer than any modern humans, was easy to do (just beating on things, clapping, stomping basically) and that helped to shape the evolving minds of humans prior to the split that gave rise to European and Asian and New World civilizations, ingraining it in basically all of modern man. It is still effective and easy.

>I disagree both that Western music is not similar in this regard
Perhaps the answer lies in the degree of importance music has to keep people together in small, tribal societies vs large, civilized, modern ones.

In tribes, community life can almost revolve around music, whereas in "modern" configuration societies it plays a smaller role. Sure anthems and church music are social and create a sense of unity and identity, but how much do you personally care about them? I'm sure you care more about the music you personally listen to in privacy, and so do I and most people who live in cities. Our lives are more individualistic than tribal life. They still create unity in subcultures, but as far as being a major force in the order of society? Probably not. The music I listen to in privacy is to me more descriptive of my identity than the National Anthem.

I think that you ran into the same misunderstanding that others in this thread ran into. Namely that you seem to think that I was implying that music was somehow responsible for the development of civilizations or something to that effect. And that is not the case. What I am asserting is that as societies advanced, the need for music to keep the tribal society together lessened. This led to a noticeable split between the role and characteristics of music in tribal societies and larger, more modern ones. I think that it would benefit you to read the entire thread, if you haven't already, in order to get a good understanding of what exactly it is that I am trying to get across. I don't think that I did a good job in the OP.

I agree with you here. Music changed from being a societal glue in tribal societies to being relegated to something that people did for fun in more civilized societies.