Can We Imagine A Better World?

And that kind of is the subtext behind these panel discussions, to try and see how we can contribute to making the world a better place.

And Jonathan, I suppose another subtext of it is that I really wanted these discussions to, to be kind of a morale booster, to kind of to show the world this is why our research matters, this is why the arts and humanities matters, this is why it is important.

And is there a sense, Jonathan, that you find that music is seen as, as something to enjoy separate to the challenges of the day, but that there, there is a time then when people have to sh- pe- you have to almost show people how the creativity that Jude was talking about is essential to the, to the, to the critical work that's going on.

It's not just something that you do when you're finished the other important stuff.

Yeah, it's a, it's a really, it's a really thorny question.

Um, thinking about, thinking about on, on, in, in one, in one, in one light the way that music has had success stories in that regard, so maybe a really obvious example would be Live Aid and Live Aid, where you have an, a, you, you have an event that's themed around music that is having a really tangible influence on, on people's lives.

It, it sets out with a particular goal, and it manages to achieve that goal, and music in a way is the mechanism for that.

In this case, obviously it was a hu- human, a big humanitarian effort.

But there's a flip side to that in thinking about the value of music and in part maybe the value of music, certainly for some people and in some contexts, is precisely that it sits outside day-to-day concerns.

Certainly this was a common way of looking at it in the 19th century.

When you get into the 20th century and you look at Theodor Adorno's work, for example, he talks about how the kind of music we listen to is very much a reflection of the broader ideology of the society.

So it's very hard to cut oneself off from society, uh, through the music that you listen to, or it's naive to think that in listening to music you're somehow, you're somehow sitting outside society or, or not, uh, or, or able to sort of take a back seat.

So it's, it's, it's hard to say, um, I suppose this goes back to this issue of the individual versus the, the collective.

There is a sense in which music could be harnessed towards, towards altruistic goals, and it, it is used like that.

There are cases of it being successful in that regard and also failures as well, but that's not necessarily what music is for, and, uh, individuals may not choose to engage with it in that, in that way.

And yet, as we saw with the Ed Sheeran concert controversy, you know, musicians get dragged into politics and, and sometimes they actively engage in politics.

So how do, how does that fit in? Is that, is that just something that's optional or that it's kind of integral to it?

Well, that's a great question.

That Ed Sheeran, that Ed Sheeran controversy of late is, is very instructive and really interesting.

He, I think, tried to be apolitical, and it, it didn't work.

The, uh, environment that he's working in wouldn't in this case allow him to be apolitical.

He tried being that for a long time, which is not uncommon for people working in a pop space, as opposed to working in a rock space, where I think there is a bit of a, an understanding that you're going to have an opinion about things, and you're going to say controversial things pot- potentially or say radical things.

He deliberately was trying to avoid that, but it's an interesting moment that we're living in now where even in that space he was expected to somehow pick a side, and, um, it's, it's interesting how his fans, his fans and the greater public reacted to the, um, to- To his throwing his musicians under the bus.

[laughs]

D- did he throw...