What Mozart Had and Tracey Hasn’t
By: Roger Scruton
From: The Sunday Times, May 20, 2001
Exercises: J. Geffen
Introduction
A liturgy of opposites has developed in the theory of education: creativity
versus routine, spontaneity versus rules, imagination versus rote-learning,
innovation versus conformity. Rousseau’s myth of the noble savage, good
by nature and corrupted by society, lives on; and in the face of all the
evidence to the contrary, educationists go on telling us that children learn
not by conforming to some external standard, but by “releasing their
inner potential” and expressing their creative skills. Hence rote learning,
facts and traditional routines are dismissed as irrelevant.
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1.
Children write poetry before they have memorized a single line of it, dance
before they have learnt a single step, paint and daub without the faintest knowledge of
figurative drawing. They are encouraged to empathise with historical characters, and
to express their “geographical skills”, without having the first idea of the history and
geography of their country. Grammar, spelling and punctuation are downgraded in the
interests of creative self-expression.
2.
Imagine an educational guru who told us that nothing mattered in mathematics
so much as creativity. Great mathematicians such as Euler, Cantor and Godel were
distinguished, the guru tells us, by their imaginative powers. They were able to break
through the hidebound rules of their predecessors, to cast aside the ordinary routines
of proof, and to take an imaginative leap to conclusions that could never have been
reached but for this creative adventure. We should therefore be teaching children to
release their mathematical creativity and to value spontaneity against rule-following.
We all know what such a philosophy would entail in practice – namely, ignorance.
3.
You can be a creative genius in mathematics only if you have acquired the
discipline of mathematical proof. When it comes to the hard sciences, therefore, even
educationists seem prepared to admit that discipline comes first, creativity later. They
recognise that chemistry taught with a regime of pure self-expression would soon
degenerate into alchemy, just as “creative” physics would be hard to distinguish from
witchcraft.
4.
Why do we think that things are so different in the case of language, literature,
history and the arts? The answer is to be found in the long tradition of woolly thinking
that began with Rousseau. On the one hand, educationists believe, there is the
objective world of facts, and this we must explore through disciplined learning and
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the building of theories. On the other hand there is the subjective world of opinions,
feelings and artistic urges, to be explored through self-expression.
5.
Any other approach is considered “authoritarian”. Grammar, style, art, even
history are all alleged to be matters of opinion. Hence the purpose of education is to
give children the confidence to express their subjective attitudes to these things –
subjective attitudes being all that we have.
6.
Such thinking is contradicted by the obvious fact that self-expression is not
innate but acquired: the self, too, is a social product. We do children a great wrong by
withholding the discipline, the knowledge and the store of examples that confer the art
of self-expression, since, by doing so, we damage the self. The anger of many young
people now leaving school is the anger of the inarticulate. The emphasis on the
creative act produces teenagers specialising in acts of destruction.
7.
Even in the arts – especially in the arts – the shibboleth of creativity has been
counter-productive. Consider Mozart, whose ever-fresh, ever-lucid melodies are
among the most original creations of mankind. Mozart did not become a creative
genius merely by letting it all hang out, even though he had more to hang out than
anyone. He was rigorously and relentlessly schooled by his father, subjected to the
ordeal of public performances, trained in the art of memory and in the grammar of the
classical style.
8.
Of course, Mozarts are few and far between, but it is all the more reason to be as
disciplined as Mozart. With the discipline, there is a chance of being creative; without
it, there is no chance at all. Visit a British art school for the finalists’ show and you
are almost certain to find an array of discarded objects, random cutouts, rehashes of
Duchamp’s urinal, maybe just an old coat with the artist’s name-tag pinned to it – all
praised and rewarded for their “creativity”, and all as dull and empty as the work of
caged chimpanzees.
9.
Hardly an art school in our country now insists on figurative drawing, clay
modelling, casting, or the mastery of pigments – still less a knowledge of art history,
or an ability to discern just why the planes of a Matisse interior intersect at an acute
angle, or the shadows of a Constable are done in yellows and browns.
10. Of course, artistic ability is not like scientific knowledge: you cannot acquire it
merely by diligent study. There comes a point where a leap of the imagination is
required. If in music, art or poetry you say something that has already been said, then
you say nothing. In Ezra Pound’s famous dictum, you have to “make it new”, and that
means imprinting your words, your notes or your forms with a distinct personality and
an inimitable life.
11. The myth that we are all instinctively creative goes hand-in-hand with the belief
in originality as the sole criterion of artistic merit. And, when rules and disciplines are
rejected, the only proof of originality becomes the ability to shock or surprise.
Nothing that Mozart did was intended to shock his audience, or to surprise them with
some outrageous gesture. The originality of his music is inseparable from its rule-
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guided objectivity. It has a logic and an orderliness that come from the supreme grasp
of musical grammar.
12. Real originality does not defy convention but depends on it. You can only
“make it new” when the newness is perceivable, which means departing from
conventions while at the same time affirming them. Hence originality requires
tradition if it is to make artistic sense.
13. But what about the rest of us? Why should we, who are not geniuses, acquire
the knowledge needed by those who are? This is a difficult question, but it is really
tantamount to asking why schools should teach art, literature and music at all. I like to
believe that people who acquire artistic, musical or literary skills, but who lack the
divine spark, are nevertheless an addition to the common good. We don’t go to
galleries to see exhibitions of Victorian watercolourists. But their paintings gave
pleasure to themselves and their neighbours, and still give pleasure today.
14. People who have learnt poetry by rote and who know how to compose the
occasional sonnet may not revolutionise the consciousness of mankind as
Shakespeare, Wordsworth or Baudelaire did. But they are likely to understand what
those great writers were saying, are likely to live on a more exalted plane as a result of
doing so, and are also able, through their life and example, to make a positive
contribution to the great war against Dullness.
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Answer in your own words.
Answer the question below in English.
1.
What does the introduction suggest about the author’s approach to the
traditional methods of learning? Substantiate.
Answer: _________________________________________________________
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Answer the question below in Hebrew.
2.
Those engaged in the teaching practices referred to in paragraph 1 support a
certain theory. What is it?
Answer: _________________________________________________________
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Answer the question below in English.
3.
What does the example of Euler, Cantor and Godel (paragraph 2) illustrate?
Answer: _________________________________________________________
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Answer the question below in English.
4.
What prerequisite would a mathematician have to meet in order to engage in
creative work? (paragraph 3)
Answer: _________________________________________________________
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Answer the question below in Hebrew.
5.
Why is discipline condemned by those who emphasize artistic creativity?
(paragraphs 4-5)?
Answer: _________________________________________________________
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Answer the question below in English.
6.
What is Mozart’s career meant to illustrate? (paragraph 7)
Answer: _________________________________________________________
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Answer the question below in English.
7.
What does the fact that students in most art schools no longer learn figurative
drawing suggest about their tutors’ approach? (paragraph 10)
Answer: _________________________________________________________
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Answer the question below in Hebrew.
8.
In the absence of rules and regulations how could originality be shown?
(paragraph 11)
Answer: _________________________________________________________
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Answer the question below in Hebrew.
9.
Why does real originality require convention and continuity if it is to be
perceived as such? (paragraph 12) (Not clearly stated but inferred)
Answer: _________________________________________________________
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Answer the question below in Hebrew.
10. Why should even moderate artistic achievements or abilities be tolerated and
encouraged? (paragraph 13)
Answer: _________________________________________________________
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Choose the best answer.
11. The writer does not include the Victorian watercolourists among the (paragraph
13)
a. painters.
b. craftsmen.
c. the great masters.
d. amateurs.
Answer the question below in Hebrew.
12. What is the main message of this article and for whom is it intended?
Answer: _________________________________________________________
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