VI. The Sustained Note; the Rest; Discords

Now, why is there such a strong urge in our modern age to deviate from the purely musical realm? Something quite beautiful may sometimes result from this deviation from what is purely musical, but why is the urge to deviate from it so strong? It is because the contemporary person has gradually acquired an attitude of mind in which he is no longer able to dream, no longer able to meditate. He has nothing within to set him into movement, and wants to be set into movement from outside. But this being-set-into-movement from outside can never produce a musical mood. In order that modern civilization could furnish proof of its unmusical nature, it has laid hold of a drastic means to do so. It is really as though, in its concealed depths of soul, modern civilization wanted to provide the clearest proof that it is unmusical. And the proof is given in that it has produced the film. The film is the clearest proof that those who like it are unmusical. For the whole basis of films is that they only permit those things to be active in the soul which do not arise out of the inner life of the soul, but which are stimulated from outside [See Appendix 6].