One story that's swirling around the blogosphere right now is a new religious survey which you can read about in America's Newspaper, USA Today. Probably the takehome figure from the survey is that the percentage of people declaring that they are part of no religion has risen from 8.2% in 1990 to 15.0% now. Quite an increase. Most of the religious dominations have lost ground, but Mainline Protestant has suffered the worst: from 18.7% to 12.9%.
One blog I like to read is Andrew Sullivan, and he pointed out that Catholicism is going kersplat in New England. Huge decreases: -12% in Connecticut, -15% in Massachusetts, -16% in Rhode Island. Hell - -16% in Louisiana. Sullivan figures it's because of the shameful behavior of the church in all those sex scandals. However, Catholicism as a whole has decreased 1.1% in the US. Why?
It's the Hispanics, of course: while Rhode Island is shedding Catholics like my cat sheds hair, the percentage of Catholics has increased by 9% in Texas, the largest percentage increase for Catholics in the nation. Everything's bigger in Texas. But percentages are zerosum: something's gotta give. That's "Other Christians" (=any Christian who's not Catholic) there has been a 20% decrease in Texas. That's quite something. Most states have had a decrease in their percentage of Other Christians.
Other religions: stayed mostly the same, although there has been 8% decrease in Wyoming. Go figure. 0% change in Texas. No religion: growth in every state, but 21% in VT, 20% in NH. 7% increase in Texas, about the middle of the pack. Don't know/refuse has also seen growth, albeit milder growth.
Sullivan also has a graph showing religious percentage by age. Take it with a grain of salt: the graph doesn't show the percentage of adherents of other religions or of nondenominational Christianity or the adherents of Don't Know/Refuse. Anyway. Praise Jesus, because he needs extra praising now that some of his adherents no longer praise him.
Oh yeah, and let's be careful here: all of these percentage figures are a bit disingenuous. When I say that Texas has a 9% increase in Catholics (or whatever), that means that in 1990, n% of Texans were Catholic and now (n+9)% of Texans are Catholic. I'm not sure I made that clear above. All of this stuff has important implications: I think of politics here. Now, we know that people of no religion aren't inherently Democratic, and Hispanic Catholics aren't inherently Democratic either, and - well, the Republicans sure are becoming a bit of a gated community. Only white people of particular faiths need be Republican, because Republicans believe in one nation under a very specific God, and He doesn't want immigrants or unbelievers. My point is that the demographics show trouble for the Republicans, unless they become more inclusive or delude more people into thinking they've become more inclusive. Judging from Steele, Jindal, Palin, etc. they're going the delusion route.
But politics is kind of a boring application. I think the Catholic fall is more interesting: I'm not familiar at all with New England Catholics, but the percentage falls are quite severe, so my guess is dioceses will have to be consolidated - and probably already are. I wish I knew more about that. Sullivan is Catholic, so I'm sure he'll be covering that story. I'd like to apply the survey to other things, but I don't really feel like it right now.
Deep thought: Horace ended some of his poetry (Satires) with Jew jokes. Jews are 1.2% of the population, down from 1.8% in 1990.
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Das Lied von der Erde
I've decided to reboot my blog, and have also decided that I really should make up a schedule for updates, lest I let this blog lapse again. So, new update schedule: every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. I think that should prove satisfactory and it will avoid my biggest work days.
In my continuing musical education I decided to listen to Mahler's penultimate symphony, Das Lied von der Erde. (When I say listen, I mean I listen to it with a score in front of me.) It's not a standard symphony, since each movement is really a song. All the songs are poems by ancient Chinese poets that were translated into French and then German and I understand the translations aren't great (partly because of Mandarin Chinese's austerity and economy) but Mahler certainly seemed to like the poems. So do I. And the music works. There are six movements, the first five being roughly equal in duration to the last.
I call the symphony penultimate because on principle I've decided to exclude Mahler's 10th, which was incomplete at his death. This symphony doesn't have a number because Mahler noted that Beethoven and Bruckner had written 9 symphonies and then died.
Anyway, it's a pretty strange symphony. Mahler's known for his excess, but this symphony is pretty austere. I feel like I don't understand it at all, and that perhaps I simply don't have the right temperament to understand it. The music has a lot of big empty spaces on the score, which is something more characteristic of Shostakovich, say. (By that I mean there are usually only a few instruments playing at a time and almost never the entire orchestra.) The bassoon part is not so good, but the oboe part is. I definitely don't understand how the songs' melodies interact with the orchestra. I liked the third and sixth movements the best.
The third movement is Von der Jugend (Of Youth) and is only 3 minutes, which probably qualifies it as the shortest of Mahler's symphonic movements. It has a pretty fast tempo and is the only one which uses the pentatonic scale quite obviously. (Old Chinese music uses the pentatonic scale.) The last movement is Der Abschied (The Farewell) which foreshadows some of the key motives of the 9th symphony - the turn, the falling second, 3-2. It's 27 or so minutes long, which is pretty expansive even for Mahler. The tamtam is used to chilling effect, and the music is quite empty, vast and desolate at some points. The singing borders on recitative. The movement is in C minor, but the end is in C major (+A) and seems to represent the finding of inner peace - the acceptance of things as they are. Or not - you can interpret it however you want.
Speaking of inner peace, I myself am doing something uncharacteristic - reading about religion. Specifically, Unitarian Universalism. Now, we all remember Senator Church, but let us not forget his son Forrest Church, a Unitarian minister. He co-wrote a book called A Chosen Faith, An Introduction to Unitarian Universalism. So that's my current reading. I'm only 40 pages or so in, but I'll report back once I finish the entire book.
And a postscript: Remember Barack the Magic Negro? Ugh - the Republicans have picked a new chairman, Michael Steele. He's the former LG of Maryland, a failed Senate candidate in 2006, and HE'S BLACK. But he was probably the best choice of chairman for the Republicans, at least from their viewpoint. I can see him trying to broaden the party. I would have preferred Katon Dawson, who entered politics because he was pissed at the enforced desegregation of his high school. He also was a member of an all white country club until last year. (Actually, I think he might still be a member.)
Time to work on math, I think! Bai!
In my continuing musical education I decided to listen to Mahler's penultimate symphony, Das Lied von der Erde. (When I say listen, I mean I listen to it with a score in front of me.) It's not a standard symphony, since each movement is really a song. All the songs are poems by ancient Chinese poets that were translated into French and then German and I understand the translations aren't great (partly because of Mandarin Chinese's austerity and economy) but Mahler certainly seemed to like the poems. So do I. And the music works. There are six movements, the first five being roughly equal in duration to the last.
I call the symphony penultimate because on principle I've decided to exclude Mahler's 10th, which was incomplete at his death. This symphony doesn't have a number because Mahler noted that Beethoven and Bruckner had written 9 symphonies and then died.
Anyway, it's a pretty strange symphony. Mahler's known for his excess, but this symphony is pretty austere. I feel like I don't understand it at all, and that perhaps I simply don't have the right temperament to understand it. The music has a lot of big empty spaces on the score, which is something more characteristic of Shostakovich, say. (By that I mean there are usually only a few instruments playing at a time and almost never the entire orchestra.) The bassoon part is not so good, but the oboe part is. I definitely don't understand how the songs' melodies interact with the orchestra. I liked the third and sixth movements the best.
The third movement is Von der Jugend (Of Youth) and is only 3 minutes, which probably qualifies it as the shortest of Mahler's symphonic movements. It has a pretty fast tempo and is the only one which uses the pentatonic scale quite obviously. (Old Chinese music uses the pentatonic scale.) The last movement is Der Abschied (The Farewell) which foreshadows some of the key motives of the 9th symphony - the turn, the falling second, 3-2. It's 27 or so minutes long, which is pretty expansive even for Mahler. The tamtam is used to chilling effect, and the music is quite empty, vast and desolate at some points. The singing borders on recitative. The movement is in C minor, but the end is in C major (+A) and seems to represent the finding of inner peace - the acceptance of things as they are. Or not - you can interpret it however you want.
Speaking of inner peace, I myself am doing something uncharacteristic - reading about religion. Specifically, Unitarian Universalism. Now, we all remember Senator Church, but let us not forget his son Forrest Church, a Unitarian minister. He co-wrote a book called A Chosen Faith, An Introduction to Unitarian Universalism. So that's my current reading. I'm only 40 pages or so in, but I'll report back once I finish the entire book.
And a postscript: Remember Barack the Magic Negro? Ugh - the Republicans have picked a new chairman, Michael Steele. He's the former LG of Maryland, a failed Senate candidate in 2006, and HE'S BLACK. But he was probably the best choice of chairman for the Republicans, at least from their viewpoint. I can see him trying to broaden the party. I would have preferred Katon Dawson, who entered politics because he was pissed at the enforced desegregation of his high school. He also was a member of an all white country club until last year. (Actually, I think he might still be a member.)
Time to work on math, I think! Bai!
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