Reddit reviews The Musical Structure of Plato's Dialogues

“And in light of how grossly physicalist and materialist Western culture is”

This is a fallacy. The greatest figure by in the development of Western musical theory, J.S. Bach, lived and worked in a culture that had virtually nothing in common with the 21st-century “West.” Just because these two cultures happened to inhabit some of the same land, does not imply they have anything essential in common.

I also reject the implication that the gross “physicalism and materialism” of contemporary culture have anything to do with our traditional system of music. In fact, as the culture has degenerated morally, so too has the music, which we are in the process of abandoning. To me, this implies the opposite: the most quintessentially “Western” music is not compatible with the cultural phenomena you’ve named.

And lol at anyone who thinks that perfect fifths are a “Western” invention. Fifths appear in literally every system of music on the planet. These are probably the same people who think that the Historical Dialectic has taken us providentially from Corelli to Skrillex.

But, anyways, this is a really cool post. The esoteric ideas of harmony and scale-invariance run through everything if you look closely enough. Seven or eight years ago I read a scholarly book about how the structure of Plato’s dialogues is actually patterned on a diatonic scale. Worth a read for anyone who’s philosophically inclined:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/184465267X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_pvqQBbXW52JWG_nodl

Plato, by the way, is the one who wrote that cultures must take great care in their choice of music, because music irresistibly conditions every part of the soul to behave a certain way. That’s probably why you don’t see wannabe hustlers bumping the Goldberg Variations from their Benz.