Music as a target of (and an imperfect answer to) inhumanity

I am thankful that Harvey Mason Jr. reminded an audience of music makers and their fellows that the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack in Israel brutalized a music festival. 

The festival wasn't the only target of attack, and the points I'm trying to make are tangential to the awful trajectory of violence. However, let those who have expertise on the politics and the history of this conflict, which sometimes seems eternal (it's been going on all 71 of my years), to debate those larger issues, including whether rape and killing of civilians can be justified as tactics of warfare. 

I simply hate the violence and want to talk about the part that I can talk about, the part that's pretty much been ignored and not mentioned enough. The part that Mason, who is the Grammys' CEO, talked about during his speech on the televised primetime Grammy Awards show this past Sunday evening (Feb. 4). 

Mason reminded his audience that music events have been attacked by both organized and lone-wolf terrorists. 

"Music must always be our safe space - when that is violated, it strikes at the very core of who we are," he said. "We felt that at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris. We felt that at the Manchester Arena in England. We felt that at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas. And on Oct. 7, we felt that again when we heard the tragic news from the Supernova Music Festival for Love, that over 360 music fans lost their lives, and another 40 were kidnapped."

Music is a visceral thing that appears to have been a community builder since humans first gathered food, and Mason said as much: "Let us all agree that music must remain the common ground upon which we all stand together in peace and harmony. Because music has always been one of humanity's great connectors. Think about it: Every song that we're honoring or hearing tonight moved someone, no matter where they were from or what they believed. It connected them to others who were moved in the same way."

Zealots don't care. The cause is secondary to the havoc they can wreak. They hate music and music fans (not to mention art and the other humanities) and love to kill and maim them, because, well, "Why should anyone have fun if others are suffering? How can you be blind to our cause? You are the enemy because your decadence is complicit in this oppression?" 

I have an imperfect answer in the face of atrocities and war crimes. Remember those videos of people from all over the world, of any color, of any religion, all going nuts as they danced and sang Pharell Williams' "Happy"? If that can happen, then maybe rather than kill one another, we should appeal to what Abraham Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature." I think we ought to recognize that this planet is one boat with all of us passengers. We either get along or the whole vessel tilts over and we drown. What will drown us? 

Hatred. 

Lack of reason. 

Music and art murdered equals humanity debased.