Evolution or culture, but music may soothe the savage breast.: Commentary on Leonid Perlovsky, Musical emotions: Functions, origins, evolution
✍ Scribed by Daniel S. Levine
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 2010
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 75 KB
- Volume
- 7
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1571-0645
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Perlovsky carries on the welcome trend in neuroscience of respecting emotion as a partner with cognition (e.g., ). He makes the intriguing suggestion that music plays a particularly privileged role among all the arts in ensuring the balance in individuals between emotion and cognition, and in societies between what he calls differentiation and synthesis.
Perlovsky bases much of his theory on cultural and historical studies. So far, few scientific findings either support or refute his hypothesis. In fact, his work suggests a wealth of potential experimental studies of different types of music and their interactions with personality and learning. One can quibble with details of his theory on two points, but neither invalidates his basic outlook or the research program that it can drive.
My first point is that not all behaviors can necessarily be explained in classic neo-Darwinian evolutionary terms . The drive for meaning in human life is universal, yet there is no evidence that people with more meaningful lives live longer or reproduce more than those with less meaningful lives. So I am skeptical that "those of our ancestors who were able to acquire differentiated contradictory knowledge and still maintain wholeness of psyche . . . had tremendous advantage of survival". Differentiated consciousness does not always lead to long life or many descendants: it might lead to risk-taking and early death. Nor does musical genius: Schubert had no children, Mozart had no grandchildren, and both died before they were 40. Their lasting impact on us is cultural, not genetic.
My second point is that it is unclear that "music is different from other arts in that it affects emotions directly (not through concept representations)". Poetry and pictorial art can also affect emotions directly. Words stir feelings through their sounds as well as their meanings, and cathedral stained glass windows move me to awe despite my disbelief in their theology. Conversely, some music can be a conceptual exercise for the composer or for the listener. Throughout history, as Perlovsky notes, trends in music composition have often swung between the "classical" (less emotional, more conceptual) and the "romantic" (more emotional, less conceptual).
Neither point is central to Perlovsky's theory, which can generate years of research. For example, one can study the basis of individual tastes for different types of music (classical versus rock, loud versus soft, modern versus medieval, etc.). The reason-emotion imbalance is pervasive in Western culture but could take on many forms with different personality types and subcultures. Depending on the nature of their imbalances, people could be drawn toward reintegration via specific musical styles.