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Chapter 1 - Empathy

In the opening chapter, Felicity Laurence sets out to locate the concept of empathy within the overall structure of the ensuing volume. An initial position for this concept is derived within the area of music and ‘musicking’, Laurence positing that music offers a specific potential to enable, catalyse and strengthen empathic response, ability and relationship, and that it is this potential capacity which lies at the core of music’s function within peace building. Empathy’s importance is reiterated within discourses of peace building, peace education and reconciliation, and the chapter then proceeds to take a historical look at what is in fact a relatively new theoretical construct.

The work and hypotheses of certain “key’ explorers in the field, including that carried out by the phenomenologist Edith Stein, are briefly examined, with a focus upon selected aspects of empathy, identified in these theoretical accounts, which offer a specific relevance to the wider ongoing concerns of this book. Empathy is argued as a process, with antecedents and outcomes, involving an initial cognitive act of intellectual comprehension of another’s feeling and inner state, with ensuing reflection leading to one’s own feeling in response to the other’s perceived feeling. The chapter offers a concluding glimpse of a possible framework in which to establish conceptual linkage between empathy and music, and a working definition of the human activity of empathising.

Chapter 2 - Music: A Universal Language?

In this chapter the authors asks: is music truly a universal language? Music’s power derives, in part, from its ability to create and strengthen feelings of affinity and group cohesion. These feelings can be cultivated in the service of peace, but also for evil. Warriors obviously can use music’s resources with harmful results, but many artist-peacebuilders who try to create feelings of affinity without doing the hard work necessary to challenge dynamics of oppression can do a lot of harm too. Furthermore when musical elements are borrowed from different contexts, it is important to pay attention to distinct cultural meanings, such as the sacred dimensions of performance. Examples drawn from practitioners working in different conflict regions show that, in many instances, it is not music’s universal appeal that gives it much of its power as a peacebuilding resource, but rather recognition of the distinctive meanings that emerge from its place in historical events and cultural traditions.

This chapter ends with a discussion of some of the ethical issues that arise when we bring musical elements from one culture into another. Especially in the face of globalization, we should be aware of the differences in access to resources and power enjoyed by musicians of different cultures. Finally, the author offers a set of questions we can consider in order to enhance the efficacy and minimize the ethical risks inherent in musical work for peace.

Chapter 3 - Music and Value in Cross-cultural Work

My question is how can the way we bring cultures together musically reflect ethical ways of cultural interaction? How can we use music to promote empathy, creativity and non-violence? How can it be used in active peace-making? Can we see the exploration of ways of examining music as resistance to dominant Western value systems? Is this a way of challenging the individualistic, materialistic, consumerist, earth-ravaging Western? To examine these questions, I shall use a frame for looking at music through various lenses that interact, which I have entitled Materials, Expression, Construction, Values and Spirituality.

Chapter 4 - Peace, Music and the Arts: in Search of Interconnections

Three hypotheses are explored in this chapter: art can lift us up, this uplifting may unite us, and such unity can be conducive to peace. Music can indeed lift us up, but sometimes in a violent direction, like military music that stimulates people to march and to kill. Music and the arts have to power to touch us and move us, but sometimes it does not happen at all. Instead of considering uplifting as an instant rapture, it might be more useful to see it as a gradual, step-by-step process. Music can also create unity, but it could be the vertical unity imposed by a dictator. The horizontal unity of a guerrilla movement is not conducive to peace either.

For peace to come about, besides creativity, we must add empathy and nonviolence. There must also be a sense of process, of striving and struggling to attain a reality where harmony is nevertheless possible, just like in some of Beethoven’s music. Music has tremendous power to uplift us and unite us, but the step to peace has to be worked out very carefully. Art and peace both address two human faculties, the compassion of the heart and the constructions of the brain. This interconnection of emotions and intellect, made possible by the power of music and the arts, is very promising for efforts towards peace.

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