To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dish...
Comments
"It is a sign of cultural defeat when you have to keep on assuring your audience that what they are listening to is wonderful."
Amen. In recent years, CBC Radio 2 (in Canada) increasingly exhibits the same tendency. They've pretty well lost my wife and I (and our daughter is probably more negative than we are).
Yet the Spectator's Charles Moore describes himself as "a musical ignoramus" and thinks "Radio 3 is becoming stupid".
The classical stations have lost knowledgable listeners like you and me. But they are not attracting new listeners, as is confirmed by RAJAR data here in the UK.
http://www.overgrownpath.com/2011/10/bbc-shows-world-how-not-to-do-classical.html
Yet still the dumbing out continues....