1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,160 Imagine imagine for a second you are Plato. OK. 2 00:00:03,299 --> 00:00:06,120 You're you know one of the greatest most fiercely 3 00:00:06,120 --> 00:00:09,039 rational minds in all of human history. You're 4 00:00:09,039 --> 00:00:11,160 busy building this theoretical blueprint for 5 00:00:11,160 --> 00:00:14,679 a perfect utopian society the Republic. Right. 6 00:00:14,800 --> 00:00:16,960 The classic text. Exactly. And you were deciding 7 00:00:16,960 --> 00:00:20,359 what laws to pass what education should look 8 00:00:20,359 --> 00:00:22,620 like what forces are basically safe for your 9 00:00:22,620 --> 00:00:26,640 citizens and your absolute biggest fear. the 10 00:00:26,640 --> 00:00:28,940 thing you want to heavily regulate or even ban 11 00:00:28,940 --> 00:00:31,940 outright it isn't a weapon yeah it's not a rival 12 00:00:31,940 --> 00:00:35,560 army it is um a flute a literal flute right a 13 00:00:35,560 --> 00:00:38,390 flute why because you know deep down A single 14 00:00:38,390 --> 00:00:41,289 intoxicating melody has the power to just instantly 15 00:00:41,289 --> 00:00:43,729 short circuit human logic. It really does. You 16 00:00:43,729 --> 00:00:45,490 know that no matter how perfectly constructed 17 00:00:45,490 --> 00:00:48,189 an argument is, music can just completely derail 18 00:00:48,189 --> 00:00:50,329 it. It is a terrifying prospect, honestly. I 19 00:00:50,329 --> 00:00:52,789 mean, for anyone who relies on logic to make 20 00:00:52,789 --> 00:00:55,170 sense of the world anyway. Totally. The idea 21 00:00:55,170 --> 00:00:57,609 that something completely invisible, you know, 22 00:00:57,609 --> 00:00:59,509 something made nearly a vibrating air can just 23 00:00:59,509 --> 00:01:02,689 bypass our intellect entirely and hijack our 24 00:01:02,689 --> 00:01:04,909 nervous system. It's wild. It really is. And 25 00:01:04,909 --> 00:01:07,829 yet, for those of you listening right now. Think 26 00:01:07,829 --> 00:01:10,989 about your absolute favorite song. Really think 27 00:01:10,989 --> 00:01:12,969 about what it does to you. Yeah, that physical 28 00:01:12,969 --> 00:01:15,629 reaction. Exactly. When you put on your headphones 29 00:01:15,629 --> 00:01:18,329 and that first chord hits, are you mathematically 30 00:01:18,329 --> 00:01:21,170 calculating the harmonic progression? Definitely 31 00:01:21,170 --> 00:01:24,409 not. No. You're feeling something massive, something 32 00:01:24,409 --> 00:01:26,689 physical, like something entirely magical that 33 00:01:26,689 --> 00:01:28,930 you probably can't even put into words. Right, 34 00:01:28,969 --> 00:01:32,049 because it defies words. Exactly. And today, 35 00:01:32,170 --> 00:01:34,849 this deep dive is going to validate that exact 36 00:01:34,849 --> 00:01:39,159 feeling. we are exploring a truly profound and 37 00:01:39,159 --> 00:01:42,060 honestly a pretty rebellious book. Oh, very rebellious. 38 00:01:42,140 --> 00:01:44,519 Yeah, it's called Music and the Ineffable by 39 00:01:44,519 --> 00:01:46,659 the French philosopher Vladimir John Kalevich. 40 00:01:46,799 --> 00:01:50,540 Our mission today is to, well, traverse the ideas 41 00:01:50,540 --> 00:01:53,299 in this work chapter by chapter to uncover a 42 00:01:53,299 --> 00:01:55,299 radically different way of understanding music. 43 00:01:55,579 --> 00:01:57,340 And we really need a different way because the 44 00:01:57,340 --> 00:02:00,129 old way is just... It's flawed. It is. We're 45 00:02:00,129 --> 00:02:02,069 looking at the clash between human language, 46 00:02:02,189 --> 00:02:04,049 which is just desperate to explain everything, 47 00:02:04,250 --> 00:02:07,489 and what Jean Kalevich calls the ineffable. Which 48 00:02:07,489 --> 00:02:10,830 is this force that absolutely refuses to be explained. 49 00:02:11,189 --> 00:02:14,389 Right. But somehow it still offers infinite meaning. 50 00:02:14,750 --> 00:02:18,310 Jean Kalevich is, he's throwing down a gauntlet 51 00:02:18,310 --> 00:02:21,610 here. against centuries of Western philosophical 52 00:02:21,610 --> 00:02:23,849 tradition. He really is taking on the heavyweights. 53 00:02:24,009 --> 00:02:26,389 Oh, absolutely. Because for hundreds of years, 54 00:02:26,490 --> 00:02:29,389 philosophy and musicology, they've treated music 55 00:02:29,389 --> 00:02:32,469 like a cipher, like a puzzle to be solved. Right, 56 00:02:32,550 --> 00:02:34,909 like an escape room or something. Exactly. They 57 00:02:34,909 --> 00:02:37,530 approach a symphony as if it's a secret message 58 00:02:37,530 --> 00:02:40,389 written in code. And, you know, the job of the 59 00:02:40,389 --> 00:02:42,629 smart listener is to decode it, to translate 60 00:02:42,629 --> 00:02:45,090 it into a specific verbal meaning. Like, ah, 61 00:02:45,169 --> 00:02:48,789 this cello means sadness. Yes. But... John Kilovich 62 00:02:48,789 --> 00:02:51,210 steps in and says, no, we have been getting it 63 00:02:51,210 --> 00:02:53,689 completely wrong. Music does not mean anything 64 00:02:53,689 --> 00:02:55,389 in the way a dictionary means something. Which 65 00:02:55,389 --> 00:02:58,210 brings up the composer Gabriel Foray. He asks 66 00:02:58,210 --> 00:03:00,729 this incredibly simple question right in the 67 00:03:00,729 --> 00:03:03,250 preface of the book, which is just, what is music? 68 00:03:03,550 --> 00:03:05,949 It sounds so basic, but it's not. Not at all. 69 00:03:06,050 --> 00:03:08,729 Is it an enciphered language? Is it a mathematical 70 00:03:08,729 --> 00:03:11,189 puzzle? Or maybe just a frivolous diversion? 71 00:03:11,310 --> 00:03:13,949 So, okay, let's unpack this. If we aren't supposed 72 00:03:13,949 --> 00:03:17,210 to decode music, how are we supposed to approach 73 00:03:17,210 --> 00:03:19,939 it? Where do we even begin? Exactly. Where does 74 00:03:19,939 --> 00:03:23,280 John Kalovich even start to build this new framework? 75 00:03:23,800 --> 00:03:25,840 Well, we have to start with a foundational distinction. 76 00:03:26,039 --> 00:03:28,919 And this is beautifully teased out in the preface 77 00:03:28,919 --> 00:03:32,379 to the English edition by Arnold Davidson and 78 00:03:32,379 --> 00:03:34,639 Carolyn Abbott. OK, set the stage for us. They 79 00:03:34,639 --> 00:03:38,180 lay out John Kalovich's core philosophy by separating 80 00:03:38,180 --> 00:03:41,000 how we interact with the world into two totally 81 00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:43,689 different categories. the gnostic and the drastic 82 00:03:43,689 --> 00:03:46,289 see okay those sound like terms from a medieval 83 00:03:46,289 --> 00:03:49,129 theology seminar they kind of do yeah break down 84 00:03:49,129 --> 00:03:51,710 gnostic for me first like if i am approaching 85 00:03:51,710 --> 00:03:54,770 music in a gnostic way what am i actually doing 86 00:03:54,770 --> 00:03:57,110 you are treating it as an object of knowledge 87 00:03:57,110 --> 00:04:02,020 the word gnostic it relates to knowing to hermeneutics 88 00:04:02,020 --> 00:04:04,379 to interpretation so it's all in the head completely 89 00:04:04,379 --> 00:04:06,020 in the head if you were sitting in a concert 90 00:04:06,020 --> 00:04:08,939 hall with a furrowed brow You know, analyzing 91 00:04:08,939 --> 00:04:11,699 the sheet music. Looking for clues. Right. Trying 92 00:04:11,699 --> 00:04:13,939 to decipher the symbolic meaning of a recurring 93 00:04:13,939 --> 00:04:17,019 motif. Asking yourself what the composer intended 94 00:04:17,019 --> 00:04:20,899 to say about the human condition. You were trapped 95 00:04:20,899 --> 00:04:23,720 in the Gnostic. You're trying to extract a semantic 96 00:04:23,720 --> 00:04:26,240 truth from the sound. Exactly. So the Gnostic 97 00:04:26,240 --> 00:04:28,699 approach is basically treating a piece of music 98 00:04:28,699 --> 00:04:31,439 like a textbook. I read it. I extract the data. 99 00:04:31,560 --> 00:04:34,480 I pass the test. Precisely. And that is the exact 100 00:04:34,480 --> 00:04:36,819 opposite of what Jankelevich thinks we should 101 00:04:36,819 --> 00:04:39,519 be doing. OK, so what's the alternative? The 102 00:04:39,519 --> 00:04:43,360 drastic. Yes. He argues that music belongs entirely 103 00:04:43,360 --> 00:04:46,899 to the realm of the drastic. Now, drastic here 104 00:04:46,899 --> 00:04:51,310 doesn't mean extreme or severe. Like taking drastic 105 00:04:51,310 --> 00:04:53,850 measures. Right. It's not an emergency. No. It 106 00:04:53,850 --> 00:04:56,230 comes from the Greek word dran, which literally 107 00:04:56,230 --> 00:04:59,870 means to act, to do, to make. The drastic is 108 00:04:59,870 --> 00:05:03,170 the realm of physical action. Action. Okay. It's 109 00:05:03,170 --> 00:05:05,730 the irreversible lived experience of doing something 110 00:05:05,730 --> 00:05:08,149 with your body in real time. Wait, wait. But 111 00:05:08,149 --> 00:05:10,709 listening to music feels pretty passive to me. 112 00:05:10,750 --> 00:05:12,550 Like I just sit on my couch and let it wash over 113 00:05:12,550 --> 00:05:14,930 me. How is that an action? Because sound is a 114 00:05:14,930 --> 00:05:17,790 physical event. I mean, think about it. Composing 115 00:05:17,790 --> 00:05:20,310 it requires actual labor. That's true. Writing 116 00:05:20,310 --> 00:05:24,370 it all out. And playing an instrument is a grueling 117 00:05:24,370 --> 00:05:27,490 physical act. Striking keys, manipulating your 118 00:05:27,490 --> 00:05:31,189 breath, sweating on stage, and even truly listening 119 00:05:31,189 --> 00:05:33,670 is an event that acts upon your nervous system. 120 00:05:33,870 --> 00:05:35,870 Oh, wow. I never really thought about it like 121 00:05:35,870 --> 00:05:37,730 that. Yeah, music isn't a text to be read. It's 122 00:05:37,730 --> 00:05:40,069 a physical event to be endured and experienced. 123 00:05:40,829 --> 00:05:43,250 So if I'm trying to wrap my head around this. 124 00:05:44,360 --> 00:05:47,259 Approaching music gnostically is like, well, 125 00:05:47,420 --> 00:05:49,540 it's like reading the chemical breakdown of a 126 00:05:49,540 --> 00:05:51,939 perfectly cooked steak. Oh, I like that analogy. 127 00:05:52,160 --> 00:05:54,720 Right. Like I can sit there and analyze the amino 128 00:05:54,720 --> 00:05:57,660 acids. I can read a scholarly paper on the Maillard 129 00:05:57,660 --> 00:06:00,139 reaction. I can memorize the exact temperature 130 00:06:00,139 --> 00:06:02,980 at which the fat renders. I have total absolute 131 00:06:02,980 --> 00:06:05,139 knowledge of the steak. You're a steak expert 132 00:06:05,139 --> 00:06:08,040 on paper. Exactly. But that tells me absolutely 133 00:06:08,040 --> 00:06:11,300 nothing about the actual experience. The drastic 134 00:06:11,300 --> 00:06:14,160 approach is the sensory, physical, irreversible 135 00:06:14,160 --> 00:06:16,139 act of actually putting the steak in my mouth 136 00:06:16,139 --> 00:06:18,240 and eating it. That captures the friction perfectly. 137 00:06:18,459 --> 00:06:20,740 You cannot eat a chemical formula. No, you definitely 138 00:06:20,740 --> 00:06:23,319 can't. And building on that visceral reality, 139 00:06:24,000 --> 00:06:27,800 John Kolevich applies a very specific aesthetic 140 00:06:27,800 --> 00:06:31,220 morality to music because he views music as a 141 00:06:31,220 --> 00:06:34,839 drastic physical event. He champions composers 142 00:06:34,839 --> 00:06:37,579 who actually respect that rawness. Who aren't 143 00:06:37,579 --> 00:06:39,540 trying to feed us a chemical formula, basically. 144 00:06:39,839 --> 00:06:42,220 Right. He praises simplicity, reticence, and 145 00:06:42,220 --> 00:06:44,620 understatement. He constantly points to composers 146 00:06:44,620 --> 00:06:49,089 like Federico Mampu. Manuel de Falla and Claude 147 00:06:49,089 --> 00:06:51,870 Debussy. Because their music doesn't try to lecture 148 00:06:51,870 --> 00:06:55,149 you. It's more austere. Yes. But he had some 149 00:06:55,149 --> 00:06:57,009 pretty harsh words for the composers who do try 150 00:06:57,009 --> 00:06:59,629 to lecture you. Oh, he's unsparing, isn't he? 151 00:06:59,670 --> 00:07:01,889 Completely. He contrasts the modesty of someone 152 00:07:01,889 --> 00:07:04,709 like Debussy with the massive bloated excess 153 00:07:04,709 --> 00:07:08,569 of German romanticism. points his finger directly 154 00:07:08,569 --> 00:07:10,610 at Richard Wagner. Right. Wagner is like public 155 00:07:10,610 --> 00:07:13,529 enemy number one in this book. Pretty much. Yankelevich 156 00:07:13,529 --> 00:07:17,350 views Wagner's approach as magniloquence. Magniloquence. 157 00:07:17,350 --> 00:07:19,610 That's a great word. It means what? Pompous language? 158 00:07:19,910 --> 00:07:21,829 Yeah. Kind of arrogant, overblown, speechifying. 159 00:07:21,970 --> 00:07:24,790 Wagner famously used leitmotifs, right? Which 160 00:07:24,790 --> 00:07:26,709 are these little musical phrases that directly 161 00:07:26,709 --> 00:07:29,930 represent specific characters or ideas. Oh, like 162 00:07:29,930 --> 00:07:33,050 Darth Vader's theme in Star Wars. When you hear 163 00:07:33,050 --> 00:07:36,040 the brass playing that specific march. You know, 164 00:07:36,079 --> 00:07:38,600 immediately that Darth Vader is entering the 165 00:07:38,600 --> 00:07:40,680 room. It's like a musical name tag. That is the 166 00:07:40,680 --> 00:07:43,740 perfect modern example. And John Kilovich finds 167 00:07:43,740 --> 00:07:46,100 that deeply offensive to the true nature of music. 168 00:07:46,199 --> 00:07:49,660 Really? Offensive? Oh, yeah. He calls it musical 169 00:07:49,660 --> 00:07:53,040 incontinence. Ouch. He famously refers to Wagner's 170 00:07:53,040 --> 00:07:56,920 opera Siegfried as a diplodocus. You know. A 171 00:07:56,920 --> 00:07:59,560 massive, lumbering, prehistoric dinosaur of a 172 00:07:59,560 --> 00:08:02,399 piece. A dinosaur. That is brutal. Why does he 173 00:08:02,399 --> 00:08:04,420 hate it so much? Because Wagner is trying to 174 00:08:04,420 --> 00:08:07,000 force music into the Gnostic realm. He is trying 175 00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:09,379 to make music operate like a dictionary. Like 176 00:08:09,379 --> 00:08:12,100 this chord equals this character and this melody 177 00:08:12,100 --> 00:08:15,079 equals this philosophical concept. So he's stripping 178 00:08:15,079 --> 00:08:17,540 the mystery away. Exactly. It strips music of 179 00:08:17,540 --> 00:08:19,540 its mystery and turns it into a heavy rhetorical 180 00:08:19,540 --> 00:08:22,360 lecture. So John Kolevich wants music to strip 181 00:08:22,360 --> 00:08:24,399 away all that rhetorical fluff. He wants the 182 00:08:24,399 --> 00:08:26,500 spell, basically, not the explanation of the 183 00:08:26,500 --> 00:08:29,240 spell, which brings us to this really key concept 184 00:08:29,240 --> 00:08:32,200 of charm. Yes, charm. This is crucial. And I 185 00:08:32,200 --> 00:08:34,279 want to be careful here because when we say charm 186 00:08:34,279 --> 00:08:36,779 in English, you know, we usually mean someone 187 00:08:36,779 --> 00:08:39,840 who is good at cocktail party banter or maybe 188 00:08:39,840 --> 00:08:41,440 like a cute little bracelet. Right. It sounds 189 00:08:41,440 --> 00:08:43,600 very lightweight. But Shankalevich means something 190 00:08:43,600 --> 00:08:46,779 much older and more dangerous. Right. He means 191 00:08:46,779 --> 00:08:50,019 charm in the sense of a literal incantation, 192 00:08:50,019 --> 00:08:53,860 an enchantment. In his philosophy, charm is an 193 00:08:53,860 --> 00:08:57,340 active... efferent transformational force. It's 194 00:08:57,340 --> 00:08:59,539 not just passive beauty that you observe from 195 00:08:59,539 --> 00:09:01,840 a distance. Not at all. Think of a magic spell. 196 00:09:02,179 --> 00:09:04,500 A spell doesn't ask for your intellectual consent. 197 00:09:04,799 --> 00:09:07,419 It doesn't present a logical argument for why 198 00:09:07,419 --> 00:09:10,840 you should turn into a frog. Right. Excuse me, 199 00:09:10,840 --> 00:09:12,480 sir. Here are three reasons you should be an 200 00:09:12,480 --> 00:09:15,139 amphibian. Exactly. It just acts upon you. And 201 00:09:15,139 --> 00:09:16,860 John Kilovich argues that the charm of music 202 00:09:16,860 --> 00:09:19,600 operates the exact same way. It bewitches you. 203 00:09:19,740 --> 00:09:23,840 It bypasses the brain entirely. Yes. As he puts 204 00:09:23,840 --> 00:09:27,100 it. This charm has the power to make every listener 205 00:09:27,100 --> 00:09:30,580 into a poet. But wait, if music is purely this 206 00:09:30,580 --> 00:09:35,220 physical, drastic, enchanting spell, why do we 207 00:09:35,220 --> 00:09:37,960 fight it so hard? I mean, think about human history. 208 00:09:38,120 --> 00:09:40,399 We spend enormous amounts of energy. We write 209 00:09:40,399 --> 00:09:42,740 thousands of dissertations trying to talk about 210 00:09:42,740 --> 00:09:45,320 what a Beethoven symphony actually means. We 211 00:09:45,320 --> 00:09:47,700 do. We're obsessed with it. If the spell's the 212 00:09:47,700 --> 00:09:50,120 whole point, why are we so desperate to decode 213 00:09:50,120 --> 00:09:53,379 it? Well, we suffer from what... Jankolewicz 214 00:09:53,379 --> 00:09:56,600 diagnoses as a metaphysical prejudice. A metaphysical 215 00:09:56,600 --> 00:09:59,379 prejudice. Yeah. Human beings are profoundly 216 00:09:59,379 --> 00:10:01,980 anxious creatures. Yeah. We are terrified of 217 00:10:01,980 --> 00:10:04,139 the dark and we are terrified of things that 218 00:10:04,139 --> 00:10:06,559 don't have a concrete verbal meaning that we 219 00:10:06,559 --> 00:10:09,019 can control. Oh, that makes so much sense. Right. 220 00:10:09,100 --> 00:10:11,379 When we experience the visceral physical shock 221 00:10:11,379 --> 00:10:14,240 of music, when a piece of music literally brings 222 00:10:14,240 --> 00:10:16,740 us to our knees emotionally, we feel vulnerable. 223 00:10:16,899 --> 00:10:19,049 We don't like losing control. We hate it. So 224 00:10:19,049 --> 00:10:21,409 we use words to try and tame it. We try to throw 225 00:10:21,409 --> 00:10:25,190 a net over it. Exactly. We assign specific ideologies 226 00:10:25,190 --> 00:10:27,350 or historical narratives to a piece of music 227 00:10:27,350 --> 00:10:30,029 to make it feel safe. If I can convince myself 228 00:10:30,029 --> 00:10:33,330 that a symphony is actually just an essay about 229 00:10:33,330 --> 00:10:35,389 the triumph of the human spirit. Then you've 230 00:10:35,389 --> 00:10:38,269 put it in a neat little box. Right. I can control 231 00:10:38,269 --> 00:10:40,049 it with my intellect. I don't have to be afraid 232 00:10:40,049 --> 00:10:42,899 of the spell anymore. That fear of music's raw 233 00:10:42,899 --> 00:10:45,840 power is just fascinating. And it isn't just 234 00:10:45,840 --> 00:10:49,000 a modern phenomenon either. It leads us directly 235 00:10:49,000 --> 00:10:51,639 into how the greatest thinkers in history have 236 00:10:51,639 --> 00:10:53,980 reacted to this spell, which is what he covers 237 00:10:53,980 --> 00:10:56,320 in chapter one. Yes, the ethics and the metaphysics 238 00:10:56,320 --> 00:10:59,039 of music. Sienkiewicz points out that music acts 239 00:10:59,039 --> 00:11:01,259 physically on the nervous system and our vital 240 00:11:01,259 --> 00:11:04,639 processes. It completely bypasses reason. He 241 00:11:04,639 --> 00:11:06,860 says it takes up residence in our intimate self. 242 00:11:07,080 --> 00:11:09,679 It's an invasion almost. Yeah. And you mentioned 243 00:11:09,679 --> 00:11:12,240 Plato earlier in the intro, but let's talk about 244 00:11:12,240 --> 00:11:14,580 the specific Greek myth he uses to illustrate 245 00:11:14,580 --> 00:11:18,299 this. The contrast between Orpheus and the sirens. 246 00:11:18,399 --> 00:11:20,679 It's a critical dichotomy in understanding how 247 00:11:20,679 --> 00:11:23,620 humanity views music. On one side, we have the 248 00:11:23,620 --> 00:11:26,179 Apollonian lyre, which is represented by Orpheus. 249 00:11:26,340 --> 00:11:29,720 The good, safe music. Right. Orpheus played music 250 00:11:29,720 --> 00:11:32,740 that was civilizing. It pacified wild beasts. 251 00:11:32,980 --> 00:11:35,600 It brought order to chaos. And it's really worth 252 00:11:35,600 --> 00:11:38,019 noting how the lyre works physically. It's a 253 00:11:38,019 --> 00:11:40,279 stringed instrument. Which is very mathematical. 254 00:11:40,919 --> 00:11:43,639 Exactly. It relies on precise mathematical ratios. 255 00:11:43,779 --> 00:11:45,759 You divide a string perfectly in half, you get 256 00:11:45,759 --> 00:11:48,700 an octave. It's clean. It's predictable. It represents 257 00:11:48,700 --> 00:11:51,220 order and rational boundaries. Well, and to build 258 00:11:51,220 --> 00:11:53,480 on your point about the mechanics, contrast that 259 00:11:53,480 --> 00:11:55,740 string with the Dionysian flute or the music 260 00:11:55,740 --> 00:11:58,519 of the sirens. Oh, right. The scary stuff. The 261 00:11:58,519 --> 00:12:01,419 flute requires breath. It requires the body, 262 00:12:01,519 --> 00:12:04,820 spit. Physical exertion. The siren's music wasn't 263 00:12:04,820 --> 00:12:07,840 orderly or pacifying. It was intoxicating, dangerous, 264 00:12:08,059 --> 00:12:10,639 and destructive. It seduced sailors to crash 265 00:12:10,639 --> 00:12:13,379 their ships against the rock. Precisely. When 266 00:12:13,379 --> 00:12:15,480 Plato wanted to regulate music, he wasn't worried 267 00:12:15,480 --> 00:12:18,159 about the Apollonian math. He was terrified of 268 00:12:18,159 --> 00:12:20,759 the Dionysian breath. He recognized that the 269 00:12:20,759 --> 00:12:23,889 wrong melody could, as Jankolevich says, Derail 270 00:12:23,889 --> 00:12:26,190 the dialectic. Meaning it could ruin a perfectly 271 00:12:26,190 --> 00:12:29,110 good philosophical argument. If you and I are 272 00:12:29,110 --> 00:12:31,509 having a rigorous logical debate and suddenly 273 00:12:31,509 --> 00:12:34,850 we hear this haunting, intoxicating melody, we 274 00:12:34,850 --> 00:12:37,110 just lose our train of thought. We stop thinking 275 00:12:37,110 --> 00:12:40,129 and we start feeling. The logic just evaporates. 276 00:12:40,169 --> 00:12:42,429 And that evaporation of logic causes immense 277 00:12:42,429 --> 00:12:44,870 resentment among people who base their entire 278 00:12:44,870 --> 00:12:47,210 identity on being rational. They feel threatened. 279 00:12:47,659 --> 00:12:50,080 Deeply threatened. Jan Kulewicz explores how 280 00:12:50,080 --> 00:12:52,799 this fear evolved into a literal grudge against 281 00:12:52,799 --> 00:12:55,220 music, harbored by some of the most brilliant 282 00:12:55,220 --> 00:12:58,679 minds in history. Look at the novelist Leo Tolstoy. 283 00:12:58,799 --> 00:13:01,919 OK, yes. Tolstoy wrote The Kreutzer Sonata, which 284 00:13:01,919 --> 00:13:04,519 is a fascinating, super dark novella. Give us 285 00:13:04,519 --> 00:13:07,059 the context of how Tolstoy viewed music in that 286 00:13:07,059 --> 00:13:10,120 story. So the protagonist of The Kreutzer Sonata 287 00:13:10,120 --> 00:13:14,120 actually murders his wife and he largely blames 288 00:13:14,120 --> 00:13:16,600 music for his actions. Wait, he blames a song 289 00:13:16,600 --> 00:13:19,220 for a murder? Specifically Beethoven's music. 290 00:13:19,899 --> 00:13:23,320 Tolstoy essentially viewed music as this derationalizing 291 00:13:23,320 --> 00:13:25,679 force that leads directly to illicit passion 292 00:13:25,679 --> 00:13:28,559 and moral corruption. Wow. In the novella, the 293 00:13:28,559 --> 00:13:31,340 music acts as a kind of invisible seducer. It 294 00:13:31,340 --> 00:13:33,340 breaks down the social and moral boundaries between 295 00:13:33,340 --> 00:13:35,240 the protagonist's wife and the violinist that 296 00:13:35,240 --> 00:13:38,399 she plays with. So Tolstoy felt that music manipulated 297 00:13:38,399 --> 00:13:40,539 the nervous system in a way that was fundamentally 298 00:13:40,539 --> 00:13:43,159 unhealthy, like dangerous to civilized society. 299 00:13:43,419 --> 00:13:46,159 Yes. It's like he views a violin solo the way 300 00:13:46,159 --> 00:13:50,139 a modern parent views unregulated screen time. 301 00:13:50,259 --> 00:13:53,320 Huh. Yes. It's a total hijacking of the brain's 302 00:13:53,320 --> 00:13:55,320 reward center. It just unplugs your morality. 303 00:13:55,639 --> 00:13:57,799 That's exactly how he saw it. And then you have 304 00:13:57,799 --> 00:13:59,799 Friedrich Nietzsche, whose relationship with 305 00:13:59,799 --> 00:14:02,289 music was even more agonizing. Because Nietzsche 306 00:14:02,289 --> 00:14:05,350 actually loved music. He did. Nietzsche wasn't 307 00:14:05,350 --> 00:14:07,669 just a philosopher. He was an amateur composer. 308 00:14:07,870 --> 00:14:12,250 He genuinely, deeply loved music. But he developed 309 00:14:12,250 --> 00:14:15,490 a profound, almost venomous resentment toward 310 00:14:15,490 --> 00:14:18,370 it later in life. He famously called it a narcotic, 311 00:14:18,409 --> 00:14:21,250 didn't he? He did. He viewed music as a swamp 312 00:14:21,250 --> 00:14:24,389 of solitude. You see, Nietzsche was deeply concerned 313 00:14:24,389 --> 00:14:27,470 with human agency, with the will to power, and... 314 00:14:27,700 --> 00:14:30,220 active, vital engagement with the real world. 315 00:14:30,379 --> 00:14:32,559 He wanted people to be dynamic. Right. So he 316 00:14:32,559 --> 00:14:35,240 began to fear music's power to put what he called 317 00:14:35,240 --> 00:14:38,340 non -dialectical consciences to sleep. Meaning 318 00:14:38,340 --> 00:14:40,620 people who aren't constantly thinking critically. 319 00:14:40,860 --> 00:14:43,639 The average person. Yes. He saw music acting 320 00:14:43,639 --> 00:14:45,980 as a lullaby for the masses. Instead of taking 321 00:14:45,980 --> 00:14:48,799 real civic action to change their lives or change 322 00:14:48,799 --> 00:14:50,679 the world, people would just go to the concert 323 00:14:50,679 --> 00:14:53,259 hall. They'd listen to Wagner and zone out. Exactly. 324 00:14:53,259 --> 00:14:55,919 They would substitute real action with mere twilight 325 00:14:55,919 --> 00:14:59,029 dreams and emotional reverie. Music was a drug 326 00:14:59,029 --> 00:15:01,669 that pacified the populace. Jean Kalevich calls 327 00:15:01,669 --> 00:15:04,250 this the Puritan grudge, which I think is just 328 00:15:04,250 --> 00:15:06,490 such a brilliant diagnosis. That's accurate. 329 00:15:06,750 --> 00:15:09,289 Imagine a highly logic -driven philosopher, right? 330 00:15:09,409 --> 00:15:13,269 He prides himself on his impenetrable rationality. 331 00:15:13,429 --> 00:15:16,190 Then he goes to a parlor, hears someone play 332 00:15:16,190 --> 00:15:18,450 a Chopin ballade, and suddenly finds himself 333 00:15:18,450 --> 00:15:21,389 weeping in the corner. He's horrified by himself. 334 00:15:21,649 --> 00:15:24,490 He feels duped. He feels like a charlatan reached 335 00:15:24,490 --> 00:15:27,340 into his chest and pulled a string. He actually 336 00:15:27,340 --> 00:15:30,340 blushes at his own nocturnal exhilaration, to 337 00:15:30,340 --> 00:15:33,419 use John Kilovich's phrasing. And what is the 338 00:15:33,419 --> 00:15:36,159 philosopher's defense mechanism here? How does 339 00:15:36,159 --> 00:15:38,539 he regain his dignity after weeping at a pretty 340 00:15:38,539 --> 00:15:41,179 melody? He rationalizes it. He demands that music 341 00:15:41,179 --> 00:15:43,789 justify itself. He insists that the music must 342 00:15:43,789 --> 00:15:47,009 possess some deep moral function or some profound 343 00:15:47,009 --> 00:15:49,570 metaphysical truth. Because if the music is actually 344 00:15:49,570 --> 00:15:52,269 a secret map of the universe, then weeping to 345 00:15:52,269 --> 00:15:55,029 it is an intellectual response, not a base emotional 346 00:15:55,029 --> 00:15:57,990 one. Exactly. He tries to amputate music's raw 347 00:15:57,990 --> 00:16:01,330 to make his reaction intellectually safe. Which 348 00:16:01,330 --> 00:16:04,210 perfectly explains why thinkers like Arthur Schopenhauer 349 00:16:04,210 --> 00:16:07,090 went to such extreme lengths to intellectualize 350 00:16:07,090 --> 00:16:09,450 it. Oh, Schopenhauer is the ultimate example 351 00:16:09,450 --> 00:16:11,769 of this. Schopenhauer didn't just think music 352 00:16:11,769 --> 00:16:14,789 was pretty. He believed it was a direct metaphysical 353 00:16:14,789 --> 00:16:17,809 copy of the will, right? The fundamental driving 354 00:16:17,809 --> 00:16:20,769 essence of the entire universe. He literally 355 00:16:20,769 --> 00:16:23,629 thought music was ontology, the study of being 356 00:16:23,629 --> 00:16:26,629 translated into sound. But Jankilevich completely 357 00:16:26,629 --> 00:16:30,590 dismantles Schopenhauer's idea here. He exposes 358 00:16:30,590 --> 00:16:33,230 how arbitrary this elevation of music really 359 00:16:33,230 --> 00:16:37,080 is. He really does. He asks, Why should hearing, 360 00:16:37,259 --> 00:16:39,679 out of all our five senses, be the only one that 361 00:16:39,679 --> 00:16:42,340 gets a VIP pass to peer into the metaphysical 362 00:16:42,340 --> 00:16:44,980 realm? Right. Why don't we say that the smell 363 00:16:44,980 --> 00:16:47,580 of baking bread is a direct copy of the universe's 364 00:16:47,580 --> 00:16:50,259 will? Or the taste of an apple. We give music 365 00:16:50,259 --> 00:16:52,919 this unearned ontological superpower just because 366 00:16:52,919 --> 00:16:55,159 its physical effect on us is so overwhelming 367 00:16:55,159 --> 00:16:57,820 we feel it must have cosmic significance. But 368 00:16:57,820 --> 00:17:00,419 Jankilovic argues, no, music does not have a 369 00:17:00,419 --> 00:17:02,820 hidden metaphysical significance. It doesn't 370 00:17:02,820 --> 00:17:05,720 contain a blueprint of the cosmos. There is a 371 00:17:05,720 --> 00:17:07,920 phrase Jankilevich uses here that really struck 372 00:17:07,920 --> 00:17:10,420 me, actually. He says, music has broad shoulders. 373 00:17:10,740 --> 00:17:12,940 Oh, I love that part. What does it mean for music 374 00:17:12,940 --> 00:17:15,519 to have broad shoulders? It means that music 375 00:17:15,519 --> 00:17:17,799 is fundamentally defenseless against our words. 376 00:17:18,339 --> 00:17:20,680 Because music is silent on the level of language, 377 00:17:20,940 --> 00:17:24,259 it cannot speak up and say, actually, I disagree. 378 00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:27,279 It has broad shoulders that can carry whatever 379 00:17:27,279 --> 00:17:29,819 ideological baggage we force onto it. It just 380 00:17:29,819 --> 00:17:32,220 takes whatever we give it. Yes. Think about a 381 00:17:32,220 --> 00:17:35,779 sweeping orchestral piece. A Marxist might claim 382 00:17:35,779 --> 00:17:37,740 it represents the inevitable triumph of the working 383 00:17:37,740 --> 00:17:40,380 class. A theologian might claim it represents 384 00:17:40,380 --> 00:17:43,180 the grace of God. And a nihilist might claim 385 00:17:43,180 --> 00:17:45,700 it represents the beautiful, meaningless chaos 386 00:17:45,700 --> 00:17:48,339 of the void. And the music will not correct any 387 00:17:48,339 --> 00:17:52,240 of them. It just plays. But that meaning is entirely 388 00:17:52,240 --> 00:17:54,680 projected. It comes from the listener, not from 389 00:17:54,680 --> 00:17:56,539 the notes. Okay, let's play Devil's Advocate 390 00:17:56,539 --> 00:17:59,619 here for a second. Even if music isn't a secret 391 00:17:59,619 --> 00:18:02,000 cosmic blueprint, and even if it's not a moral 392 00:18:02,000 --> 00:18:05,470 textbook, What about the actual physical notes 393 00:18:05,470 --> 00:18:08,029 on the page? What do you mean? Well, when I listen 394 00:18:08,029 --> 00:18:10,029 to a classical symphony, it feels like it's saying 395 00:18:10,029 --> 00:18:12,009 something. It has a structure. It has a beginning, 396 00:18:12,210 --> 00:18:14,970 a middle, and an end. Doesn't that mean it operates 397 00:18:14,970 --> 00:18:18,009 like a language? That assumption is exactly what 398 00:18:18,009 --> 00:18:21,190 Jankolevich attacks next in Chapter 2. He takes 399 00:18:21,190 --> 00:18:23,730 aim at the very structural foundations of how 400 00:18:23,730 --> 00:18:27,410 we appreciate classical music, specifically the 401 00:18:27,410 --> 00:18:29,890 concept of musical development. Right, like sonata 402 00:18:29,890 --> 00:18:32,769 form. If you take a basic music appreciation 403 00:18:32,769 --> 00:18:35,970 101 class, they teach you that sonata form is 404 00:18:35,970 --> 00:18:38,329 the backbone of classical music. It's the holy 405 00:18:38,329 --> 00:18:40,589 grail of music theory. You have the exposition 406 00:18:40,589 --> 00:18:43,430 where you introduce a theme, then the development 407 00:18:43,430 --> 00:18:45,549 where you chop the theme up, put it in different 408 00:18:45,549 --> 00:18:48,289 keys, create tension, and finally the recapitulation 409 00:18:48,289 --> 00:18:50,569 where the theme comes back and everything resolves. 410 00:18:50,730 --> 00:18:53,029 Right. It feels exactly like reading an essay. 411 00:18:53,150 --> 00:18:55,630 You have an introduction, a body paragraph full 412 00:18:55,630 --> 00:18:57,490 of arguments, and a conclusion. It does feel 413 00:18:57,490 --> 00:19:00,250 that way. But Jen Kalevich argues... that this 414 00:19:00,250 --> 00:19:03,690 entire concept is a mirage. We have falsely borrowed 415 00:19:03,690 --> 00:19:06,089 the rules of rhetoric and logical language and 416 00:19:06,089 --> 00:19:08,769 just pasted them over music. A mirage, but we 417 00:19:08,769 --> 00:19:11,109 can hear the theme changing. A symphony is not 418 00:19:11,109 --> 00:19:14,670 a form of discourse. A fugue is not a PhD dissertation. 419 00:19:15,150 --> 00:19:18,670 But it feels so logical. I mean, Beethoven takes 420 00:19:18,670 --> 00:19:22,490 a simple four -note motif, da -da -da -dum, and 421 00:19:22,490 --> 00:19:25,470 builds an entire universe out of it. How is that 422 00:19:25,470 --> 00:19:27,890 not a logical argument? Because a musical theme 423 00:19:27,890 --> 00:19:29,890 does not function like a premise in a debate. 424 00:19:30,150 --> 00:19:32,589 In an essay, if I state a premise, let's say, 425 00:19:32,750 --> 00:19:35,910 all men are mortal, the subsequent paragraphs 426 00:19:35,910 --> 00:19:38,549 must logically stem from that semantic meaning. 427 00:19:38,789 --> 00:19:41,049 Right, they have to prove the point. But in music, 428 00:19:41,230 --> 00:19:43,269 the development of a theme is purely aesthetic 429 00:19:43,269 --> 00:19:46,230 and acoustic. When a theme returns in the finale, 430 00:19:46,470 --> 00:19:48,670 it isn't a logical conclusion that proves a point. 431 00:19:49,089 --> 00:19:52,369 It's simply a return to a sonic home base. It 432 00:19:52,369 --> 00:19:54,509 just sounds good to go back to the start. Exactly. 433 00:19:54,670 --> 00:19:56,750 When we listen to a symphony and think we are 434 00:19:56,750 --> 00:19:59,150 following a train of thought, we are hallucinating. 435 00:19:59,410 --> 00:20:01,849 We are just projecting our habitual, everyday 436 00:20:01,849 --> 00:20:04,829 ways of speaking onto an art form that operates 437 00:20:04,829 --> 00:20:07,150 on a completely non -semantic plane. He also 438 00:20:07,150 --> 00:20:09,569 tackles this idea of musical language by looking 439 00:20:09,569 --> 00:20:11,650 at polyphony, which I found fascinating. Oh, 440 00:20:11,670 --> 00:20:13,309 the polyphony argument is brilliant. For you 441 00:20:13,309 --> 00:20:15,730 guys listening, polyphony is when multiple voices 442 00:20:15,730 --> 00:20:17,630 or instruments are playing entirely different 443 00:20:17,630 --> 00:20:20,329 melodies at the exact same time. Think of a Bach 444 00:20:20,329 --> 00:20:23,190 choir. Right. We so often describe that as a 445 00:20:23,190 --> 00:20:25,769 dialogue or a conversation between the instruments, 446 00:20:25,849 --> 00:20:28,390 like the cello says something and the violin 447 00:20:28,390 --> 00:20:31,109 replies. And John Kalevich points out a glaring 448 00:20:31,109 --> 00:20:34,690 flaw in that analogy. Think about how human language 449 00:20:34,690 --> 00:20:38,369 actually works. A true dialogue requires sequential 450 00:20:38,369 --> 00:20:41,369 turn -taking. I present my thesis, you listen 451 00:20:41,369 --> 00:20:44,250 in silence, then you speak your antithesis and 452 00:20:44,250 --> 00:20:46,680 I listen. Right. If we both speak our competing 453 00:20:46,680 --> 00:20:49,579 ideas at the exact same time, what happens? It's 454 00:20:49,579 --> 00:20:52,140 a cable news debate. Yeah. It's total cacophony. 455 00:20:52,140 --> 00:20:54,759 If you and I talk over each other, our brains 456 00:20:54,759 --> 00:20:58,400 cannot process the competing semantic data. The 457 00:20:58,400 --> 00:21:01,660 meaning is destroyed. Precisely. But in music, 458 00:21:01,859 --> 00:21:04,680 polyphony operates entirely differently. In a 459 00:21:04,680 --> 00:21:07,279 choir, four voices are singing entirely different 460 00:21:07,279 --> 00:21:09,680 melodic lines at the exact same time. They are 461 00:21:09,680 --> 00:21:12,150 not taking turns. No. They're not addressing 462 00:21:12,150 --> 00:21:14,009 each other. They're singing in concert for a 463 00:21:14,009 --> 00:21:16,470 third party, the listener. This just blew my 464 00:21:16,470 --> 00:21:18,809 mind when I read it. If two people talk at the 465 00:21:18,809 --> 00:21:21,170 same time, it is an argument and a breakdown 466 00:21:21,170 --> 00:21:24,410 of communication. In music, if two people sing 467 00:21:24,410 --> 00:21:26,869 at the same time, it is harmony. It's a completely 468 00:21:26,869 --> 00:21:29,349 different paradigm. Our brains process competing 469 00:21:29,349 --> 00:21:31,849 sound waves as a unified emotional landscape. 470 00:21:32,650 --> 00:21:35,210 Yankelevich calls this a Concordia discourse, 471 00:21:35,369 --> 00:21:39,380 a harmonious discord. It is a simultaneity of 472 00:21:39,380 --> 00:21:42,539 opposites. I love that phrase, harmonious discord. 473 00:21:42,819 --> 00:21:45,819 In language, two opposing ideas cannot exist 474 00:21:45,819 --> 00:21:48,220 simultaneously without canceling each other out. 475 00:21:48,500 --> 00:21:51,619 In music, two opposing melodies played simultaneously 476 00:21:51,619 --> 00:21:54,920 create a richer, deeper truth. It is a phenomenon 477 00:21:54,920 --> 00:21:56,880 that only makes sense in the realm of sound. 478 00:21:57,180 --> 00:21:59,279 Let's look at another place where music totally 479 00:21:59,279 --> 00:22:02,119 breaks the rules of language, repetition. Oh, 480 00:22:02,140 --> 00:22:03,940 this is a big one. Because if I am writing you 481 00:22:03,940 --> 00:22:06,339 an email and I write the exact same sentence 482 00:22:06,339 --> 00:22:08,440 four times in a row, you're going to think my 483 00:22:08,440 --> 00:22:10,779 keyboard is broken or I'm just losing my mind. 484 00:22:10,940 --> 00:22:13,299 I'd probably call a check on you. Right. In prose, 485 00:22:13,500 --> 00:22:15,900 repeating yourself is a flaw. It's stammering. 486 00:22:15,920 --> 00:22:18,500 Because didactic language seeks to communicate 487 00:22:18,500 --> 00:22:21,299 a factual truth. Once I have told you that the 488 00:22:21,299 --> 00:22:24,019 meeting is at 3 p .m., repeating it adds zero 489 00:22:24,019 --> 00:22:26,720 new information. It is useless. The meeting is 490 00:22:26,720 --> 00:22:29,759 at 3 p .m. The meeting is at 3 p .m. Yeah, it's 491 00:22:29,759 --> 00:22:32,789 annoying. Exactly. But music does not transmit 492 00:22:32,789 --> 00:22:36,029 factual data. Therefore, repetition serves an 493 00:22:36,029 --> 00:22:38,990 entirely different function. Think of an ostinato 494 00:22:38,990 --> 00:22:42,269 in classical music or a heavy bass loop in modern 495 00:22:42,269 --> 00:22:45,549 electronic music. Like daft punk, they can repeat 496 00:22:45,549 --> 00:22:48,990 the phrase around the world 144 times in a single 497 00:22:48,990 --> 00:22:51,609 song, and it doesn't feel like a mistake. It 498 00:22:51,609 --> 00:22:54,009 feels like a groove. It wins a Grammy. That is 499 00:22:54,009 --> 00:22:56,849 the perfect example. Chankalevich argues that 500 00:22:56,849 --> 00:22:59,029 musical repetition is a biological necessity. 501 00:22:59,529 --> 00:23:01,549 It is an incantation. It's part of the spell. 502 00:23:01,690 --> 00:23:04,950 Yes. When a musical phrase repeats, it does not 503 00:23:04,950 --> 00:23:07,029 represent a failure to move an argument forward. 504 00:23:07,210 --> 00:23:10,349 It acts as a form of rejuvenation. With every 505 00:23:10,349 --> 00:23:12,670 repetition, the music forces the listener to 506 00:23:12,670 --> 00:23:14,589 sink deeper and deeper into the present moment. 507 00:23:14,710 --> 00:23:17,410 It drills down rather than moving forward. Precisely. 508 00:23:17,670 --> 00:23:19,829 Instead of moving horizontally toward a logical 509 00:23:19,829 --> 00:23:22,750 conclusion, repetition drills vertically into 510 00:23:22,750 --> 00:23:24,829 the depth of the now. This all loops back to 511 00:23:24,829 --> 00:23:27,730 why he admires composers like Debussy and Mussorgsky. 512 00:23:28,009 --> 00:23:31,049 They represent what he calls true modesty in 513 00:23:31,049 --> 00:23:33,309 music. What's fascinating here is how Jankilevich 514 00:23:33,309 --> 00:23:36,750 defines modesty. False modesty would be a composer 515 00:23:36,750 --> 00:23:39,589 writing a massive, complicated symphony, but 516 00:23:39,589 --> 00:23:42,329 then claiming, oh, it's just a little tune. Right, 517 00:23:42,490 --> 00:23:45,130 fishing for compliments. But true modesty is 518 00:23:45,130 --> 00:23:49,029 what Debussy achieves. and inexpressive objectivity. 519 00:23:49,740 --> 00:23:52,859 Debussy strips away all the rhetorical amplification, 520 00:23:52,940 --> 00:23:56,640 all the grand fist -pumping finales that German 521 00:23:56,640 --> 00:23:59,559 Romanticism relied on. No Diplodocus. No Diplodocus. 522 00:23:59,779 --> 00:24:02,319 He presents the naked truth of sound, almost 523 00:24:02,319 --> 00:24:05,099 like observing an unvarnished natural phenomenon. 524 00:24:05,480 --> 00:24:08,160 The music isn't trying to deliver a sermon. It 525 00:24:08,160 --> 00:24:10,519 is just offering you the sound itself in its 526 00:24:10,519 --> 00:24:14,039 pure, immediate rawness. Okay, let's pause and 527 00:24:14,039 --> 00:24:17,200 figure out where this leaves us. If music deliberately 528 00:24:17,200 --> 00:24:20,940 dodges the rules of language, if it refuses to 529 00:24:20,940 --> 00:24:23,299 be an essay, if its development is a mirage, 530 00:24:23,480 --> 00:24:25,640 if it refuses to speak clearly, doesn't that 531 00:24:25,640 --> 00:24:27,799 mean it's just empty noise? A lot of people might 532 00:24:27,799 --> 00:24:29,619 assume that. Does it have no meaning at all? 533 00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:31,880 The answer, according to John Kolevich, is an 534 00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:34,920 emphatic no. It has meaning, but we have to completely 535 00:24:34,920 --> 00:24:36,720 change our definition of what meaning is. We 536 00:24:36,720 --> 00:24:38,740 really do. We need to understand the difference 537 00:24:38,740 --> 00:24:41,819 between two crucial concepts. And this brings 538 00:24:41,819 --> 00:24:44,400 us to the absolute thematic climax of our deep 539 00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:47,160 dive. the difference between the untellable and 540 00:24:47,160 --> 00:24:50,529 the ineffable. This distinction is the very core 541 00:24:50,529 --> 00:24:53,190 of Jankelevich's philosophy. In our everyday 542 00:24:53,190 --> 00:24:55,730 lives, we use these two words interchangeably. 543 00:24:55,849 --> 00:24:57,690 Right. If someone sees something shocking, they 544 00:24:57,690 --> 00:25:00,210 might say it was untellable or it was ineffable. 545 00:25:00,470 --> 00:25:03,029 But for Jankelevich, they are complete opposites. 546 00:25:03,269 --> 00:25:05,710 They are enemies. Let's start with the dark side. 547 00:25:05,890 --> 00:25:09,130 What is the untellable? The untellable is a purely 548 00:25:09,130 --> 00:25:12,509 negative state. It represents death. It is the 549 00:25:12,509 --> 00:25:15,670 black knight. The void, non -being. It is an 550 00:25:15,670 --> 00:25:18,130 impenetrable shadow. So why can't we talk about 551 00:25:18,130 --> 00:25:20,690 it? If I experience the untellable, why do my 552 00:25:20,690 --> 00:25:23,410 words fail? Your words fail because there is 553 00:25:23,410 --> 00:25:26,309 absolutely nothing to say. The untellable is 554 00:25:26,309 --> 00:25:29,130 a closed door, a blank wall that completely bars 555 00:25:29,130 --> 00:25:31,529 us from entry. It's just empty. It is a sterilizing 556 00:25:31,529 --> 00:25:33,789 inexplicability. You cannot speak of it because 557 00:25:33,789 --> 00:25:35,869 it contains no data, no meaning, no substance. 558 00:25:36,109 --> 00:25:39,049 It is a vacuum. Okay, if the untellable is a 559 00:25:39,049 --> 00:25:41,470 void where there's nothing to say, then what 560 00:25:41,470 --> 00:25:44,549 is the ineffable? Because I can't put the ineffable 561 00:25:44,549 --> 00:25:47,150 into words either. So from my perspective as 562 00:25:47,150 --> 00:25:49,309 a speaker, aren't they practically the same thing? 563 00:25:49,490 --> 00:25:52,190 My tongue is tied either way. Your tongue is 564 00:25:52,190 --> 00:25:54,910 tied, but for the exact opposite reason. The 565 00:25:54,910 --> 00:25:58,089 ineffable is a positive state of infinite plenitude. 566 00:25:58,529 --> 00:26:01,730 Plenitude. Fullness. Exactly. It is the realm 567 00:26:01,730 --> 00:26:05,569 of God, of love. of true freedom, and crucially 568 00:26:05,569 --> 00:26:09,289 of music. You cannot explain the ineffable not 569 00:26:09,289 --> 00:26:11,650 because there is nothing to say, but because 570 00:26:11,650 --> 00:26:13,849 there is an infinite and interminable amount 571 00:26:13,849 --> 00:26:16,490 to say. It's too full. It is overwhelmingly full. 572 00:26:16,569 --> 00:26:18,890 You can never exhaust its depths. Every time 573 00:26:18,890 --> 00:26:21,069 you try to define it, you only capture a microscopic 574 00:26:21,069 --> 00:26:23,849 sliver of its reality, leaving an ocean of meaning 575 00:26:23,849 --> 00:26:26,279 untouched. So what does this all mean? Let me 576 00:26:26,279 --> 00:26:28,619 try a visual analogy to see if I'm tracking this. 577 00:26:28,759 --> 00:26:30,940 The untellable is like a totally blank piece 578 00:26:30,940 --> 00:26:32,720 of paper. If you ask me to read it to you, I 579 00:26:32,720 --> 00:26:34,740 can't. There's nothing there. Right. Total void. 580 00:26:34,900 --> 00:26:37,559 The ineffable, on the other hand, is a piece 581 00:26:37,559 --> 00:26:39,539 of paper that someone has covered in a million 582 00:26:39,539 --> 00:26:42,660 intricate overlapping drawings and equations, 583 00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:45,900 writing over the same space again and again and 584 00:26:45,900 --> 00:26:47,900 again until the entire page just looks pitch 585 00:26:47,900 --> 00:26:50,640 black. I love that. If you ask me to read that, 586 00:26:50,700 --> 00:26:53,190 I also can't. They both defy reading, but for 587 00:26:53,190 --> 00:26:56,130 entirely opposite reasons. One is perfectly empty. 588 00:26:56,210 --> 00:26:59,630 The other is overwhelmingly full. That is a phenomenal 589 00:26:59,630 --> 00:27:02,390 way to visualize it. And this perfectly explains 590 00:27:02,390 --> 00:27:05,190 the massive friction between human language and 591 00:27:05,190 --> 00:27:09,079 music. Language, by its very nature, is designed 592 00:27:09,079 --> 00:27:11,559 to be univocal. Meaning one voice, one meaning. 593 00:27:11,720 --> 00:27:14,539 Right. We need a specific word to carry a specific 594 00:27:14,539 --> 00:27:16,839 limited meaning so we can navigate the world 595 00:27:16,839 --> 00:27:19,759 without confusion. If I say, hand me that apple. 596 00:27:20,079 --> 00:27:21,960 I need you to picture an apple. Not an orange. 597 00:27:22,140 --> 00:27:25,259 Exactly. If the word apple also meant car and 598 00:27:25,259 --> 00:27:27,779 sadness and the concept of justice, our communication 599 00:27:27,779 --> 00:27:30,279 would collapse. Language functions by drawing 600 00:27:30,279 --> 00:27:32,599 strict boundaries around meaning. But music doesn't 601 00:27:32,599 --> 00:27:36,299 do that. No. Music is plurivocal or equivocal. 602 00:27:36,480 --> 00:27:39,759 It expresses everything precisely by seeming 603 00:27:39,759 --> 00:27:43,150 to express nothing specific. Yankelevich calls 604 00:27:43,150 --> 00:27:46,609 this music's inexpressive expressiveness. Because 605 00:27:46,609 --> 00:27:49,130 music doesn't have a strict dictionary, because 606 00:27:49,130 --> 00:27:51,150 a C minor chord doesn't have a legally binding 607 00:27:51,150 --> 00:27:54,130 definition, it acts as an allegory for absolutely 608 00:27:54,130 --> 00:27:57,430 everything at once. Think about a single, unresolved, 609 00:27:57,430 --> 00:28:01,549 lingering chord played slowly on a piano. Just 610 00:28:01,549 --> 00:28:04,690 one chord. If you gather ten different people 611 00:28:04,690 --> 00:28:06,789 in a room and ask them what that chord means, 612 00:28:07,109 --> 00:28:09,210 you will get ten different answers. Definitely. 613 00:28:09,210 --> 00:28:11,430 One person might say it sounds like profound... 614 00:28:11,599 --> 00:28:13,880 devastating grief. Another might say it sounds 615 00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:15,960 like the cautious, fragile hope of a new morning. 616 00:28:16,380 --> 00:28:19,299 Another might feel the tense, electric anticipation 617 00:28:19,299 --> 00:28:22,119 before a thunderstorm. And in human language, 618 00:28:22,220 --> 00:28:24,539 a single word cannot simultaneously mean devastating 619 00:28:24,539 --> 00:28:27,559 grief and cautious hope without being a contradiction. 620 00:28:27,819 --> 00:28:30,980 It breaks the rules of logic. But in music, there 621 00:28:30,980 --> 00:28:33,960 is no contradiction. That single piano chord 622 00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:36,839 holds a thousand contradictory emotions simultaneously, 623 00:28:37,039 --> 00:28:40,890 effortlessly. Its plenitude of meaning is infinite. 624 00:28:41,009 --> 00:28:43,710 It is ineffable. That's beautiful. And this is 625 00:28:43,710 --> 00:28:47,349 exactly why our univocal language simply cannot 626 00:28:47,349 --> 00:28:49,930 handle it. When we try to write a review of a 627 00:28:49,930 --> 00:28:52,430 symphony, we are trying to force an infinite, 628 00:28:52,569 --> 00:28:56,029 plurivocal phenomenon through the tiny, narrow 629 00:28:56,029 --> 00:28:59,869 funnel of univocal words. It always feels insufficient. 630 00:29:00,289 --> 00:29:02,569 It makes you realize why we feel so fiercely 631 00:29:02,569 --> 00:29:05,470 protective of the music we love. When a song 632 00:29:05,470 --> 00:29:08,390 means the world to you, you sense that infinity 633 00:29:08,390 --> 00:29:11,230 you feel its ineffable fullness you feel it in 634 00:29:11,230 --> 00:29:12,930 your bones and then you don't want some critic 635 00:29:12,930 --> 00:29:15,109 coming along and shrinking it down to a single 636 00:29:15,109 --> 00:29:17,809 clever sentence it feels like an insult to the 637 00:29:17,809 --> 00:29:20,410 music to define it is to limit it but this brings 638 00:29:20,410 --> 00:29:23,829 up a massive practical question if music is this 639 00:29:23,829 --> 00:29:26,970 infinite ineffable force that defies logic and 640 00:29:26,970 --> 00:29:29,720 language How do the people who actually make 641 00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:31,359 it interact with it? You mean the composers? 642 00:29:31,599 --> 00:29:33,299 Yeah, the composers and the performers, because 643 00:29:33,299 --> 00:29:35,339 they can't sit around just philosophizing about 644 00:29:35,339 --> 00:29:37,500 the void and the plenitude. They have deadlines. 645 00:29:37,619 --> 00:29:39,700 They have to actually put ink on a page and put 646 00:29:39,700 --> 00:29:42,000 their fingers on a keyboard. How does a composer 647 00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:44,500 work with the ineffable? Yeah, and Kelevich explores 648 00:29:44,500 --> 00:29:47,259 this in what he calls the poetic operation. And 649 00:29:47,259 --> 00:29:48,920 he brings us right back to the beginning, to 650 00:29:48,920 --> 00:29:53,180 the concept of the drastic. Action. Right. When 651 00:29:53,180 --> 00:29:56,460 a composer creates, they are not functioning 652 00:29:56,460 --> 00:29:59,619 as philosophers. They are deeply physically immersed 653 00:29:59,619 --> 00:30:03,079 in the drastic act of doing. He uses a wonderful 654 00:30:03,079 --> 00:30:06,259 metaphor from nature here. The composer is like 655 00:30:06,259 --> 00:30:09,160 a nightingale producing song or a bee producing 656 00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:12,099 honey. Okay, I like this. A nightingale doesn't 657 00:30:12,099 --> 00:30:14,779 sit on a branch and read an academic paper about 658 00:30:14,779 --> 00:30:17,359 the aerodynamics of its vocal cords. No, it certainly 659 00:30:17,359 --> 00:30:19,779 doesn't. It doesn't philosophize about the heroism 660 00:30:19,779 --> 00:30:22,420 of singing. It just sings. Its entire existence 661 00:30:22,420 --> 00:30:25,140 is bound up in the action. The composer's business 662 00:30:25,140 --> 00:30:28,180 is entirely absorbed in the blind toil of creation. 663 00:30:28,519 --> 00:30:30,839 Their intelligence is in their hands, in their 664 00:30:30,839 --> 00:30:33,359 ears, in their intuition. It's like asking a 665 00:30:33,359 --> 00:30:35,299 professional center fielder to write a physics 666 00:30:35,299 --> 00:30:37,440 dissertation on how they catch a fly ball on 667 00:30:37,440 --> 00:30:39,869 the run. Oh, that's a great comparison. If you 668 00:30:39,869 --> 00:30:42,569 ask them to calculate the arc of the ball, factor 669 00:30:42,569 --> 00:30:44,829 in the wind resistance, the velocity of the bat, 670 00:30:44,950 --> 00:30:47,470 the trajectory of their sprint, they can't write 671 00:30:47,470 --> 00:30:49,750 that math on a chalkboard. No one could do that 672 00:30:49,750 --> 00:30:52,069 in real time. But when the bat cracks, their 673 00:30:52,069 --> 00:30:55,589 body just knows exactly where to run. The doing 674 00:30:55,589 --> 00:30:58,670 is the intelligence. For the composer, the only 675 00:30:58,670 --> 00:31:02,069 true mode of reflection is creation itself. Consider 676 00:31:02,069 --> 00:31:05,150 a massive historical shift. Like the crisis of 677 00:31:05,150 --> 00:31:07,950 atonality in the early 20th century, when traditional 678 00:31:07,950 --> 00:31:09,890 harmonic rules were just completely breaking 679 00:31:09,890 --> 00:31:13,130 down. A huge moment in music history. A true 680 00:31:13,130 --> 00:31:16,250 composer doesn't answer that crisis by writing 681 00:31:16,250 --> 00:31:18,630 a theoretical essay about the death of the tonic 682 00:31:18,630 --> 00:31:21,130 chord. They answer the crisis instinctively, 683 00:31:21,130 --> 00:31:24,230 by writing new music that navigates that unfamiliar 684 00:31:24,230 --> 00:31:27,430 landscape. They are workers, taken up by the 685 00:31:27,430 --> 00:31:30,130 deep, absorbing act of making. And Yankelevich 686 00:31:30,130 --> 00:31:32,089 points out that this act of making is entirely 687 00:31:32,089 --> 00:31:34,910 bound to the concept of time. He leans heavily 688 00:31:34,910 --> 00:31:37,349 on the philosopher Henri Bergson here, discussing 689 00:31:37,349 --> 00:31:40,789 temporality and nostalgia. Why is time so crucial 690 00:31:40,789 --> 00:31:43,490 to understanding music? Because music is fundamentally 691 00:31:43,490 --> 00:31:46,369 an art of becoming. Think about a painting or 692 00:31:46,369 --> 00:31:48,869 marble statue. A statue exists all at once in 693 00:31:48,869 --> 00:31:50,930 space. You can walk around it, you can look at 694 00:31:50,930 --> 00:31:52,390 the foot, then the head, then back to the foot. 695 00:31:52,509 --> 00:31:55,089 The statue waits for you. It's static. But a 696 00:31:55,089 --> 00:31:58,140 piece of music... only exists in the irreversible 697 00:31:58,140 --> 00:32:02,160 forward flow of time. It unfolds. The moment 698 00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:04,660 you hear a beautiful note, it is already dying. 699 00:32:04,799 --> 00:32:07,160 It is already slipping into the past. You cannot 700 00:32:07,160 --> 00:32:09,299 hold on to it. Which means music is inherently 701 00:32:09,299 --> 00:32:12,680 tied to loss. Just by existing, it is vanishing. 702 00:32:12,900 --> 00:32:15,900 Because of this purely temporal nature, Jankolewicz 703 00:32:15,900 --> 00:32:18,900 argues that music is inherently nostalgic. It 704 00:32:18,900 --> 00:32:22,569 creates a profound space of reminiscence. Phrase 705 00:32:22,569 --> 00:32:25,549 nocturnes, or the piano pieces of Mampu, these 706 00:32:25,549 --> 00:32:27,769 aren't just pretty melodies. They act as vessels 707 00:32:27,769 --> 00:32:30,650 for an effective reminiscence. They evoke memories 708 00:32:30,650 --> 00:32:33,150 that cannot be explicitly described. He calls 709 00:32:33,150 --> 00:32:36,009 it a past that has never abandoned us. It might 710 00:32:36,009 --> 00:32:38,690 be the vague echo of a childhood afternoon, or 711 00:32:38,690 --> 00:32:40,549 something even deeper like the maternal heartbeat. 712 00:32:40,890 --> 00:32:43,430 The charm of music, the enchanting spell we talked 713 00:32:43,430 --> 00:32:45,549 about, heightens itself exactly through this 714 00:32:45,549 --> 00:32:48,569 fleeting, precarious, temporal nature. It is 715 00:32:48,569 --> 00:32:51,210 precious, because it cannot last. Because it's 716 00:32:51,210 --> 00:32:54,329 dying. Yes. To demand that music stop and explain 717 00:32:54,329 --> 00:32:57,109 itself linguistically is an insult to its temporal 718 00:32:57,109 --> 00:32:59,910 magic. Because the magic only exists in that 719 00:32:59,910 --> 00:33:02,549 fleeting present moment. You can't pause a live 720 00:33:02,549 --> 00:33:05,470 symphony, ask it a question, and expect the spell 721 00:33:05,470 --> 00:33:08,009 to hold. Exactly. You break the spell. But inevitably, 722 00:33:08,230 --> 00:33:10,869 every performance must end. The conductor lowers 723 00:33:10,869 --> 00:33:13,589 the baton, the final chord rings out, the vibration 724 00:33:13,589 --> 00:33:16,849 stops, and the notes fade away. Which brings 725 00:33:16,849 --> 00:33:19,410 us to the ultimate canvas of music. the space 726 00:33:19,410 --> 00:33:22,170 where the ineffable lives most vividly, and the 727 00:33:22,170 --> 00:33:25,009 final chapter of Jean Kalevich's book, Music 728 00:33:25,009 --> 00:33:28,730 and Silence. This is perhaps the most poetic 729 00:33:28,730 --> 00:33:30,670 and challenging part of his entire philosophy. 730 00:33:30,990 --> 00:33:33,789 We tend to think of silence as a negative. We 731 00:33:33,789 --> 00:33:35,910 think of it as just the absence of noise, an 732 00:33:35,910 --> 00:33:37,930 empty container waiting to be filled. Right. 733 00:33:38,049 --> 00:33:40,829 But Jean Kalevich asserts that silence is an 734 00:33:40,829 --> 00:33:44,690 active, profound force. It is music's precursor, 735 00:33:44,690 --> 00:33:47,500 its canvas, and its ultimate destination. He 736 00:33:47,500 --> 00:33:49,720 describes music beautifully as an island that 737 00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:52,880 is art so precious, floating on an immense ocean 738 00:33:52,880 --> 00:33:55,359 of prose and silence. And he doesn't treat silence 739 00:33:55,359 --> 00:33:57,160 as a monolith either. There are different flavors 740 00:33:57,160 --> 00:33:59,299 of silence. He draws a striking contrast between 741 00:33:59,299 --> 00:34:01,240 the silence of the night and the silence of noon. 742 00:34:01,480 --> 00:34:03,539 Okay, the silence of the night is what we typically 743 00:34:03,539 --> 00:34:06,839 imagine, right? It is full of mystery, the unknown, 744 00:34:07,099 --> 00:34:10,440 a kind of dark, trembling expectancy. It's the 745 00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:13,079 silence of holding your breath in the dark. Exactly. 746 00:34:13,280 --> 00:34:16,840 But what is the silence of noon? That sounds 747 00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:19,380 like a contradiction. Moon is usually chaotic. 748 00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:22,000 It's the middle of the day. He calls it the silentium 749 00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:25,639 meridianum. Imagine the blinding, immobile plenitude 750 00:34:25,639 --> 00:34:28,559 of a scorching summer afternoon in the countryside. 751 00:34:28,800 --> 00:34:30,539 Okay, I can picture that. The sun is directly 752 00:34:30,539 --> 00:34:33,559 overhead. There are no shadows. The heat is so 753 00:34:33,559 --> 00:34:35,920 intense that nothing moves, yet the air itself 754 00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:38,730 feels heavy and vibrating. Everything exists 755 00:34:38,730 --> 00:34:42,150 at once in a hypnotic, buzzing drone. You can 756 00:34:42,150 --> 00:34:44,389 hear this perfectly in Debussy's work, like Prelude 757 00:34:44,389 --> 00:34:46,730 to the Afternoon of a Faun. Oh, totally. Silence 758 00:34:46,730 --> 00:34:49,010 here isn't a dark void. It is a state of hyper 759 00:34:49,010 --> 00:34:51,969 -awareness bathed in blinding light. It is a 760 00:34:51,969 --> 00:34:54,789 silence that is overwhelmingly full. So silence 761 00:34:54,789 --> 00:34:56,849 can be environmental, but he also talks about 762 00:34:56,849 --> 00:34:59,630 silence as a behavioral choice, a form of reticence, 763 00:34:59,710 --> 00:35:01,889 like a deliberate moral choice not to speak. 764 00:35:02,130 --> 00:35:04,050 And this connects deeply to the aesthetic morality 765 00:35:04,050 --> 00:35:07,710 of those modest composers he loves. Look at Monpoux, 766 00:35:07,889 --> 00:35:09,889 who literally titled a collection of his piano 767 00:35:09,889 --> 00:35:13,309 pieces Musica Caleta Silent Music, or Hushed 768 00:35:13,309 --> 00:35:17,039 Music. Silence here is a refusal to participate 769 00:35:17,039 --> 00:35:19,960 in the cacophony of conversation. It's of a positive 770 00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:22,760 choice. It is a form of continence and sobriety. 771 00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:24,900 It's looking at a world filled with people screaming 772 00:35:24,900 --> 00:35:27,360 their opinions and choosing to just close your 773 00:35:27,360 --> 00:35:30,280 mouth. It says no to the temptations of verbosity, 774 00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:33,539 to loquacious puffery, to the Wagnerian diplodocus 775 00:35:33,539 --> 00:35:36,300 that wants to lecture you for five hours. And 776 00:35:36,300 --> 00:35:38,579 the profound paradox that Dien Kalevich arrives 777 00:35:38,579 --> 00:35:41,460 at is this. Music is the very thing that allows 778 00:35:41,460 --> 00:35:44,219 us to actually hear this profound silence. Wait, 779 00:35:44,300 --> 00:35:46,699 music allows us to hear silence. How does noise 780 00:35:46,699 --> 00:35:49,500 illuminate silence? Think about your daily life. 781 00:35:49,699 --> 00:35:52,199 You are surrounded by a constant low -grade hum 782 00:35:52,199 --> 00:35:55,519 of prose, machinery, and chatter. You never actually 783 00:35:55,519 --> 00:35:57,659 experience true silence. That's fair. There's 784 00:35:57,659 --> 00:36:00,340 always an air conditioner running. Right. But 785 00:36:00,340 --> 00:36:02,900 when a piece of music ends, When a delicate, 786 00:36:03,099 --> 00:36:06,260 unvarnished melody slowly fades into nothingness 787 00:36:06,260 --> 00:36:08,719 in a concert hall for those few seconds after 788 00:36:08,719 --> 00:36:11,960 the final note, before the applause begins, you 789 00:36:11,960 --> 00:36:15,940 hear a silence that is thick, heavy, and totally 790 00:36:15,940 --> 00:36:19,159 transformative. The music carved out a space 791 00:36:19,159 --> 00:36:21,480 for the silence to be felt. It's exactly like 792 00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:24,059 how you only really notice the total crushing 793 00:36:24,059 --> 00:36:26,940 darkness of a massive underground cave when someone 794 00:36:26,940 --> 00:36:29,019 lights a single match. Oh, that's a beautiful 795 00:36:29,019 --> 00:36:31,500 way to put it. The tiny flame doesn't illuminate 796 00:36:31,500 --> 00:36:33,360 the whole cavern, right? It doesn't give you 797 00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:35,539 knowledge of the cave. It just gives your eyes 798 00:36:35,539 --> 00:36:37,579 a reference point so you can finally understand 799 00:36:37,579 --> 00:36:40,320 the terrifying, beautiful scale of the dark. 800 00:36:40,670 --> 00:36:42,909 Music is the match that makes us aware of the 801 00:36:42,909 --> 00:36:45,250 immense ocean of silence. If we connect this 802 00:36:45,250 --> 00:36:48,070 to the bigger picture, look at how Debussy uses 803 00:36:48,070 --> 00:36:51,150 this specific kind of silence in his opera, Pelleas 804 00:36:51,150 --> 00:36:53,750 et Mélisande. If you look at a traditional romantic 805 00:36:53,750 --> 00:36:56,809 opera, how do characters die? They usually get 806 00:36:56,809 --> 00:36:59,489 stabbed, and then they stand up and sing a massive, 807 00:36:59,550 --> 00:37:02,030 booming 15 -minute carmia at the top of their 808 00:37:02,030 --> 00:37:04,469 lungs about how much it hurts. Right. It's absurd. 809 00:37:04,570 --> 00:37:06,730 It's a refusal to accept the limits of expression. 810 00:37:06,989 --> 00:37:09,429 But in Debussy's opera, characters die almost 811 00:37:09,429 --> 00:37:13,369 without a word. Debussy uses these almost nothing 812 00:37:13,369 --> 00:37:16,409 deck crescendos fading into indistinguishable 813 00:37:16,409 --> 00:37:19,750 whispers. It's realistic. And humble. The music 814 00:37:19,750 --> 00:37:21,590 doesn't try to conquer death with a loud brass 815 00:37:21,590 --> 00:37:24,190 section. It humbly approaches the threshold and 816 00:37:24,190 --> 00:37:27,230 stops. Silence here becomes the ultimate expression 817 00:37:27,230 --> 00:37:30,630 of the ineffable. When words fail, and when even 818 00:37:30,630 --> 00:37:32,789 the musical notes themselves reach their absolute 819 00:37:32,789 --> 00:37:36,090 limit of expression, silence takes over to carry 820 00:37:36,090 --> 00:37:38,300 the infinite meaning forward. That is incredibly 821 00:37:38,300 --> 00:37:40,559 moving, and it brings all the threads of the 822 00:37:40,559 --> 00:37:43,619 steep dive perfectly together. We started with 823 00:37:43,619 --> 00:37:46,179 the physical drastic magic of charm, the idea 824 00:37:46,179 --> 00:37:49,039 that music is a spell that acts on our bodies. 825 00:37:49,260 --> 00:37:51,559 We saw how it completely bypasses the brain. 826 00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:54,519 Yeah, we saw how music actively rejects the rules 827 00:37:54,519 --> 00:37:56,860 of language. It isn't an essay, it's a harmonious 828 00:37:56,860 --> 00:37:59,860 discord that thrives on repetition. We explored 829 00:37:59,860 --> 00:38:02,500 the infinite, unnameable depth of the ineffable, 830 00:38:02,619 --> 00:38:04,300 proving that just because something can't be 831 00:38:04,300 --> 00:38:06,920 spoken doesn't mean it's empty. And finally, 832 00:38:06,940 --> 00:38:09,219 we saw how all of this drastic action ultimately 833 00:38:09,219 --> 00:38:11,820 returns to this profound, shimmering silence. 834 00:38:12,199 --> 00:38:14,800 John Kelevich leaves us with a deep appreciation 835 00:38:14,800 --> 00:38:18,719 for the limits of our own intellect. He shows 836 00:38:18,719 --> 00:38:21,579 us that sometimes trying to forcefully decode 837 00:38:21,579 --> 00:38:24,420 and explain a beautiful thing is actually a way 838 00:38:24,420 --> 00:38:26,780 of destroying it. So to synthesize this entire 839 00:38:26,780 --> 00:38:29,619 journey for you, the listener, John Kelevich 840 00:38:29,619 --> 00:38:32,159 wants us to stop interrogating music. Put the 841 00:38:32,159 --> 00:38:35,239 microscope down. Exactly. Stop treating your 842 00:38:35,239 --> 00:38:37,500 favorite album like a rhetorical argument that 843 00:38:37,500 --> 00:38:40,139 you have to solve or a secret code you have to 844 00:38:40,139 --> 00:38:42,739 crack to prove you're smart. Stop projecting 845 00:38:42,739 --> 00:38:45,019 your own philosophies, your politics, and your 846 00:38:45,019 --> 00:38:47,360 emotional baggage onto music's broad shoulders. 847 00:38:47,840 --> 00:38:50,320 Instead, start treating it as a drastic physical 848 00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:52,960 enchantment. Let it be what it is. Recognize 849 00:38:52,960 --> 00:38:54,980 that it is the ineffable. It is not an empty 850 00:38:54,980 --> 00:38:57,960 void. It is an infinite well of meaning that 851 00:38:57,960 --> 00:39:01,039 our tiny univocal language simply isn't equipped 852 00:39:01,039 --> 00:39:03,599 to handle. It is a reminder to embrace a form 853 00:39:03,599 --> 00:39:05,519 of grace and humility in the presence of art. 854 00:39:05,820 --> 00:39:08,659 Let the mystery remain a mystery. So the next 855 00:39:08,659 --> 00:39:10,079 time you put on your headphones, whether you're 856 00:39:10,079 --> 00:39:12,099 trying to prep for a stressful meeting or you 857 00:39:12,099 --> 00:39:14,500 just need to escape the absolute crushing information 858 00:39:14,500 --> 00:39:17,420 overload of your day, remember that you don't 859 00:39:17,420 --> 00:39:19,780 need to analyze the track. You really don't. 860 00:39:19,780 --> 00:39:22,400 You don't need to intellectualize why the bass 861 00:39:22,400 --> 00:39:25,079 line drops or what the lyrics symbolize. Give 862 00:39:25,079 --> 00:39:27,340 yourself permission to just be bewitched by the 863 00:39:27,340 --> 00:39:30,239 charm. Let it be a purely drastic experience. 864 00:39:30,440 --> 00:39:33,019 Let the spell work. Just let the music do its 865 00:39:33,019 --> 00:39:36,309 work on you. But before we go, I want to leave 866 00:39:36,309 --> 00:39:38,869 you with a paradox to mull over on your own. 867 00:39:39,250 --> 00:39:42,110 We just spent an hour using language to explain 868 00:39:42,110 --> 00:39:44,690 a book that uses language to explain why language 869 00:39:44,690 --> 00:39:47,090 can't explain music. It's a bit of a mind bender. 870 00:39:47,190 --> 00:39:50,550 It really is. But if music is truly ineffable 871 00:39:50,550 --> 00:39:53,769 and resists all our words, What happens if we 872 00:39:53,769 --> 00:39:55,789 view our own lives that way? Oh, that's interesting. 873 00:39:56,010 --> 00:39:58,010 We spend so much time trying to neatly define 874 00:39:58,010 --> 00:40:00,769 who we are. We write these tidy corporate bios. 875 00:40:00,869 --> 00:40:03,050 We come up with clever one -liners for our dating 876 00:40:03,050 --> 00:40:05,789 profiles. We practice our elevator pitches. We 877 00:40:05,789 --> 00:40:08,510 try to compress our entire existence into univocal 878 00:40:08,510 --> 00:40:11,110 language. And never quite fits. It doesn't. But 879 00:40:11,110 --> 00:40:13,510 what if the most profound parts of your own identity 880 00:40:13,510 --> 00:40:15,710 aren't the things you can articulate in a sentence 881 00:40:15,710 --> 00:40:18,570 at a dinner party? What if the truest parts of 882 00:40:18,570 --> 00:40:21,309 you are the silent, ineffable actions you simply 883 00:40:21,309 --> 00:40:25,429 do every day? The drastic actions. Exactly. The 884 00:40:25,429 --> 00:40:27,889 way you instinctively comfort a friend, the way 885 00:40:27,889 --> 00:40:30,670 your breath changes when you're afraid, the quiet 886 00:40:30,670 --> 00:40:34,349 daily rhythms of your life. What if you, just 887 00:40:34,349 --> 00:40:37,269 like music, are a drastic act of living that 888 00:40:37,269 --> 00:40:39,869 defies translation? That is a wonderful question 889 00:40:39,869 --> 00:40:41,889 to carry forward into the silence. Thank you 890 00:40:41,889 --> 00:40:43,969 so much for joining us on this deep dive. Go 891 00:40:43,969 --> 00:40:45,989 find something beautiful to listen to today. 892 00:40:46,070 --> 00:40:48,449 Let it completely overwhelm you. And when it's 893 00:40:48,449 --> 00:40:50,449 over, say absolutely nothing about it. Catch 894 00:40:50,449 --> 00:40:50,949 you next time.