4. Deer Whiteness and Maleness

Being Part 4 of Philip Ewell Go Down In History
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 5 | Part 6

Contents

• • Citation Chains
  • Why Be Concerned?
  • White Women
  • The Problem With the Virus Metaphor
  • Is Philip Ewell a “Bad Apple”?
  • Difficult Adult Conversations
  • Allies in Name Only (“AINOs”)
  • Deer in Headlights
  • Language and Belief
  • Power
  • Jazz
  • Blackwashing
  • “I’m a Cellist”
  • Keeping the Focus on Race
  • John Ewell
  • “The Sixty-Plus Crowd”
  • We Have Not Yet Even Begun

Citation Chains

For his work covered in Parts II and III, Philip Ewell received the Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal from Yale Graduate School, his alma mater, all the media attention covered at the end of Part II and more, and has been invited to speak or present at Oberlin College of Music, Dartmouth University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Toronto, Duke University, Oxford University, University of Rio de Janeiro, York University, the University of Miami Frost School of Music, Temple University, UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, Illinois State University, New Hong Kong Philharmonia, Ithaca College Department of Music, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of California at Berkeley, Emory University, Princeton University, Cornell University, University College Dublin (Ireland), Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Leipzig (Germany), Columbia University, the Eastman School of Music, and many others. He has a book published by the University of Michigan Press and another forthcoming from W.W. Norton.

What exactly is Ewell’s work? It is hard to say.

Ewell, in his papers and talks, uses quotes, terms, ideas, explications and corroborations from others. The majority of his SMT plenary paper is ideas by other people. Its title, “Music Theory’s White Racial Frame”, comes from sociologist Joe Feagain‘s book, “The White Racial Frame.” Ewell calls Feagin a “great American,” though “great” is one of many euphemisms he cites for “white” and “whiteness.”

At times Ewell imports language and method nearly word-for-word from other authors, often culled in multiple paragraphs, lengthy video excerpts, or elaborate metaphors. He often supports his views on the basis that others have held them, sometimes quoting people quoting other people. Among these many quotes is one from Sara Ahmed describing this very phenomenon:

“Some work becomes theory because it refers to other work that is known as theory. A citational chain is created around theory: you become a theorist by citing other theorists that cite other theorists. […]”

“This ‘citational chain,’ theorists citing other theorists,”, Ewell writes, “is essential to white-male-framed music theoretical research.”

In fact, to identify a single original idea in Ewell’s work is really quite difficult. Far from being “pathbreaking”, “brave” or “bold,” as has been said by various writers in praise of his recent book, Ewell can be said to have done little more than take work others have done, prewritten almost word-for-word, and added to it music theory. The academic rush to respond to the JSS affair, and its media aftermath, distracted from the main outcome, which was that it elevated Philip Ewell to international visibility in academic music, without his having made a single actual contribution to, or accomplishment in, music, music theory, musicology, or anything related. He did what people in liberal academia everywhere are doing: using Critical Theory to debunk the legitimacy of their own or others’ fields. When everything unoriginal in Ewell’s paper is excluded, there is precious little to justify all the attention.

Even diminishing Beethoven is an old trick that began while the great composer was alive. Beethoven’s music and impact have survived the remaking of world order several times over and are not about to crack under Philip Ewell. By singling Beethoven out, Ewell inadvertently concedes to him yet another unimpeachable place, now in our own historic moment, for all the reasons Ewell himself finds objectionable, while asking everyone do the opposite.

It is easy to locate similar contradictions, circular reasoning, and all sorts of other mistakes in Ewell’s work. That agenda is foregone here in favor of higher purposes. It is not that Ewell is a poor Critical Race Theorist, but that he is such an effective one, that his work is helpful: it can be used to lay bare the workings of Critical Theory in general.

Why Be Concerned?

Philip Ewell is careful to say his work is about only “the academic study of music theory in the United States.” He says critics of his work have been almost exclusively white males, since, standing to lose the most power in academia, they are the most threatened.

Why, then, should Ewell’s work bother individuals other than white males with power in academic music theory? Stanley Barnes is no music theorist and has no power in academia. Why should he find it troubling to hear a music professor refer to Beethoven as an “above average composer”, or to find out that Ewell asks white colleagues to “reconsider their view that Brahms is any better than black composer X from the nineteenth century”? Why should anyone worry if Philip Ewell thinks a piano proficiency requirement is racist? Academics say all sorts of things.

There are two reasons.

One is that many of us correctly sense much more going on. Ewell’s work affects much more than music theory, much more than academia, and much more than the United States. He says he does not intend this and at the same time makes no effort to stop it. Not a single instance can be located where Ewell corrects a misunderstanding of his work, other than in service of antiracism. He was just as surprised by the spread of his ideas outside of music theory and outside of the United States as he was by the JSS affair.

Ewell’s ideas have propagated and been interpreted in myriad ways. Ewell is not in control and appears unconcerned; to the contrary, he is content to let his words and ideas run amok in the mouths and minds of others. Meanwhile, he can be heard speaking with claim to authority on a wide range of topics: the missions of music schools and conservatories, conductor training programs, politics and legislation of the United States and of other countries, personnel and programming in ensembles ranging from college orchestras to the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Metropolitan Opera, Vladimir Putin, the origins of white supremacy in medieval Christendom, papal decrees, and so on. He also identifies himself as a cellist, has coached and taught the instrument, and has posted public performances. It is clear that containing his influence within academic music theory in the United States not a priority.

But the main problem is that antiracism is clearly more important to Philip Ewell than music. He has, for all practical purposes, switched fields, turning his initial advocacy of antiracist policies in music theory upside down, and now utilizes his status as a tenured music theory professor as a platform from which to propagate Critical Race Theory. He appears to do this to the fullest reach of his domain, bragging in Zoom calls about the number of places he has been invited to speak, the large amounts of money he is paid, and so forth.

To a race scholar, Ewell’s musical vocation might add novel erudition to otherwise familiar concepts. To a musician, he is far out of his depth. It is worrying to imagine that such a man could succeed in implementing even some of the policies and changes he wishes, and that future music students, colleagues, teachers, and institutions will have their training and priorities so compromised. That some affected individuals may matriculate to the professional world of music, as many Critical Theorists already have to journalism, politics, and the media, affects everyone in both the business and the audience.

Not a single music theorist has publicly assessed Ewell’s music theory scholarship prior to his 2019 plenary talk, but have only rushed to reply to his work on Schenker and antiracism. The attention distracted from Ewell’s substance as a musician and musical thinker, which seems to be exactly what he wanted.

In short, Philip Ewell is not trustworthy. To anyone who finds problems with antiracism as understood by Critical Race Theory, or who values music more highly than antiracism, all of this matters deeply.

White Women

By including maleness in his scourge against white supremacy, Ewell impugns himself and appears thereby more credible. This is an effective play, since it may cause unsuspecting white females to feel included in his cause.

The effect is quickly lost when he says “white women are the second most invested in the whiteness of the system,” or “often times strong allies to white men are unsurprisingly white women,” as he does in two virtual symposia. Disregarding that such remarks seem to speak past the ability of females to form independent worldviews, they may land unfavorably with any female who sees herself in no way “second in command” in her own life or within her domain of agency. After these and other statements are considered, Ewell’s antisexism appears less radically inclusive and more complicated than before.

The Problem With the Virus Metaphor

Ewell says racism is “not a disease,” but a system. Some writers on Critical Theory have attempted to frame Theory as just that — a disease. Using words like “virus”, “infectious”, “contagious”, they suggest Theory feeds on the “host” of the field it seeks to “colonize.” Two recent authors troubled many by advocating that their field train students “to serve as symbolic ‘viruses’ that infect, unsettle, and disrupt traditional and entrenched fields,” going to so far as to use cancer as a metaphor, and saying it was a good idea to “frame” their field as “dangerous”.

Critical Theory has propagated with such stealth and rapidity that most in academia, the media, and the general public were unaware until it had already happened. Many, especially in older generations, continue to mistake Critical Theory language and method for those of earlier civil or human rights movements, feminism, or some descendant thereof. That Ewell says (as shown in Part III) whiteness and maleness tries to “pass off” DEI as antiracism may well be because many do not understand the difference.

The virus metaphor is in fact most helpful in explaining the behavior of Critical Theory’s adversaries. The most visible response to Critical Theory has thus far been vocal and aggressive counterattack. It is precisely disagreement leading to misguided debate and, ultimately, emotionally charged reaction, that Critical Theory exploits and harnesses to its own ends. Recall that the JSS affair brought Ewell attention not for his own actions, but for those it provoked in an unwise group of opponents. “I didn’t have to say a thing,” Ewell says in the “JSS Response” film in Part II. As the description of his book at the University of Michigan Press website states, Ewell “kicked the hornets’ nest.” The hornets made the mess.

It is an effective virus indeed that leverages inoculation (by “Doctor” Timothy Jackson, for example), into far more effective transmission vectors. To witness grown university professors so easily provoked to argument, each alternately citing or shouting over the other, holding forth like imbibing graduate students, all in response to nine minutes of talk at a conference, bypassing peer review and all professional standards, is so utterly inexcusable that it really does look like a form of illness or intellectual instability. Ewell is correct that their reaction was wildly out of proportion to the stimulus and did little other than to further harm Schenker and bolster Ewell’s career and objectives.

The differences between antiracism and traditional civil or human rights views are easy to miss, but the penalties are enormous. The JSS authors were victims of a powerful Critical Theory method known as destabilization: deliberately throwing people, groups, or institutions into imbalance and confusion, by introducing ideas that cause sudden and dramatic disagreement and conflict; then, weaponizing the response through public denouncement. The ethos of crucifixion here is not Christian but Roman: militant, authoritarian, dominating, manipulative, painful, and designed to incite fear, silence, and obedience. As he says in the film above, Philip Ewell hopes he gets more hate mail, so he can do this again and again. He’s “collecting data” and wants people to know he will use it all against them in public, complete with their full names.

The catastrophe for the Journal of Schenkerian Studies arose not from the virus, but from an attempt at cure gone haywire. They could have ignored the whole thing, or at least appeared to, and none of this would have happened. Instead, in Ewell’s words, they “lost their shit.”

Once Critical Theory ideas are heard, they cannot be unheard. The impulse to react is alone destabilizing; it can cause loss of control by provoking almost involuntary words and behavior. But any time a Critical Theorist is given attention, positive or negative, their voice is inevitably amplified, exacerbating the problem, and risking making the speaker or author into another example

No reply to Critical Theorists is in fact mandatory. If Critical Theory is a virus, then to simply not respond is to become an asymptomatic carrier. Though it can lead to other problems, discussed below, to withhold response, at least initially, preserves clear thinking on the individual level and protects individual stability that Theory undermines. From there, other options can be identified and examined. Even short of that, merely to overcome the belief that debate or argument are useful against Critical Theory is an important step toward understanding of and freedom from it. This will be the topic of Part V.

But the main flaw in the virus metaphor is the same one Ewell finds in “white” views of racism (see Part III): to frame Critical Theory as virus suggests it is a “disease” rather than a system. It further destabilizes by inducing anxiety; “virus” implies something invisible, mysterious, and hard to detect and contain. Approached correctly, Critical Theory turns out to be none of these.

From this point, this article focuses on Critical Theory as a system, framing Philip Ewell as an example. Neither Philip Ewell nor Critical Theory invented framing, destabilization, decentering, redefinition, difficult conversations, or any of the other language or method it employs; these were all known to philosophers, linguists, scientists, mathematicians, psychologists, musicians, and many others for centuries. They can be deployed upon Critical Theory as easily as Critical Theory deploys them.

Is Philip Ewell a “Bad Apple”?

The question might be asked whether Philip Ewell represents an extremist viewpoint within Critical Race Theory, that Theory is not as punitive and manipulative as he exemplifies, and that it really is an ideologically neutral system that wishes to consider all views equally, as many official descriptions and definitions represent.

It is fair here to borrow a maneuver from Ewell himself. When speaking in Part III on the posture of The Society For Music Theory during the JSS affair, Ewell debunks the “bad apple theory” — the idea that Timothy L. Jackson and other authors of JSS vol. 12 were just “a few bad actors.” They are music theory, Ewell says.

Similarly, Philip Ewell is Critical Theory. If he is not, he is at least an extremely effective example of it, and that is enough for the present purpose. If, as Ewell says, Schenker is our exemplar of music theory, Ewell is our exemplar of Critical Race Theory. It most useful in fact to view Philip Ewell not as an independent thinker but as a conduit for Theory. This both preserves Ewell’s humanity and depersonalizes his claims so that we may examine them with less emotional stake.

Difficult Adult Conversations

The JSS authors fell into a trap that should be studied so as not to be repeated: Critical Theorists appear to invite dialectic where consensus may be formed through reason and argument, with common rules of order, as in classic liberalism and democratic systems. The JSS contributors wrote of the “exchange of ideas”, the value of a “variety of thoughts and perspectives”, “informed debate,” as so on.

But Critical Theory seeks nothing of the sort. It is skeptical, on the whole, of reason and argumentation, since it views those too as outgrowths of white supremacy and patriarchy. Critical Race Theorists arrive to any conversation with pervasive systemic racism operating as a belief, not as a topic on the table for debate. To question or doubt the belief is equivalent to violating the terms of engagement and rejecting Critical Theory itself. This is termed “refusal to engage.” Ultimately, any debate against Critical Race Theory is therefore a debate over either the existence or the extent of this basic premise. Such debates are typically reframed as themselves exemplary of systemic racism.

To “invite people into conversations properly,” Philip Ewell describes the type of debate, or conversation, he wishes to have. The conversation will be “adult”, it will be “difficult”, and the person will have to “sit with discomfort.” The conversation will be on Ewell’s own “playing field,” and it will not be about a particular piece of music, but about race and exclusion, the impact of a racialized system, about the composers who were shunted to the side, and about legacies of injustice, so that the subject may begin self-reflecting.

As heard in the short film above, Ewell does not wish to legitimize debate of his humanity, nor whether white supremacy is okay. These seem perfectly reasonable and acceptable terms, until one remembers Ewell considers most of academic music theory, the entire system and foundation of American music schools and conservatories, along with the idea of Western civilization itself, to be white supremacist, and that when referring to humanity he seems to be mostly referring to his own. This reduces the content for debate significantly.

In fact, the only two possible outcomes of “difficult adult conversations” are either to agree with Critical Theory and begin the work of self-reflection, or to be disengaged from the conversation. In Ewell’s words, “From the point of view of race, the only intellectually honest response to my work is that of white supremacist figures.”

This all becomes much easier to understand once it is recognized that redefinition has taken place. Redefinition, introduced in Part II, uses familiar words but changes their meanings. Redefinition can be so confusing that individuals can agree to believe or do things they do not even understand, making it a very powerful tool.

Ewell himself speaks of “coded language” that hides whiteness and systemic racism. For example, we must not say “music theory is not diverse”, but say clearly that “music theory is white.” He writes, “these things must be named so that they can be discussed”.

But Critical Theory holds no monopoly on uncovering coded language or on naming things. In “difficult adult conversations,” the word “difficult” means “one-sided“. The Theorist will explain aspects of Theory, and the subject(s) will agree to sit with discomfort while this takes place, asking questions when needed, and working towards understanding. “Discomfort” means “willingness to not debate the fundamental premise of Theory.” Thus, the word “debate” means “question pervasive systemic racism.” If the subjects(s) can sustain discomfort to the end of the conversation and agree to self-reflect, the conversation ends successfully. If they cannot, the subject becomes disengaged by the Theorist. Here, “disengaged” means “excluded.” If the subject(s) wish(es) to try again, still only these two outcomes are possible. Therefore, the word “conversation” means “attempt at agreement to Theory.”

So: a “difficult adult conversation” is a “one-sided attempt at agreement to Theory throughout which the subject(s) will agree not to debate pervasive systemic racism, the consequence of ultimate failure being exclusion.”

As other redefinitions are revealed, it is important not to perceive redefinition as Critical Theory perceives racism — that is, to start looking for it everywhere, or to believe all words have a hidden meaning. That leads back to instability, replacing one problem with another. Identify redefinition only where it is really being used, and when it is helpful in restoring clarity and stability.

Allies In Name Only (“AINOs”)

As a result of everything covered so far, it is often impossible to know for certain whether any individual, even a close colleague or friend, understands and supports Critical Race Theory or merely speaks and behaves in ways consistent with it. Even when it can be determined someone fully understands antiracism, it may still be impossible to know whether that person supports it.

Ewell is frustrated many colleagues and friends who say they support his work are not willing to take action when the time comes. Such persons, for instance, wear “Black Lives Matter” T-shirts or put signs in front of their homes, but do not seem to behave consistently with their words. He calls such persons “Allies in Name Only”, or “AINOs.”

Here, Ewell simply underestimates the power of language control. Having compelled colleagues to show support in words, he is confused when they do not do so in action. He interprets this behavior as deliberate subterfuge and reads in it something insidious: the upholding of white supremacy.

But there are much simpler explanations. As covered in Part I, most in academia are up to their ears in responsibilities of all sorts and are worked at times far beyond cognitive capacity. Some are just not able to add “racializing” every aspect of their field to their workload. If this seems petty or dismissive, recall precisely what Ewell is demanding: that not just some people, but every single person, re-examine the entire foundation of American music theory, dig into the the past, uncover the injustices that contributed to white male supremacist language and subject matter, and only then even begin to talk about how first to dismantle it and then to reframe it entirely in the vision of antiracism. For many, this is simply asking too much.

Others may be sympathetic to some or even all of Ewell’s ideas, see some good intentions, but recognize that his presentation, which represents that of Critical Theory and antiracism in general, is abrasive, exhausting, and seems never to offer an endpoint that permits return to the work they value. Though they may not be white supremacists in any standard meaning of the term, they hold some view differing significantly enough with antiracism or Critical Theory that they cannot express it without being associated with the white supremacy Ewell believes they are upholding. Here, then, hides another redefinition: “white supremacist” means a “person who does not agree that there is pervasive systemic racism everywhere and that it should be dismantled.”

In summary, while most people either think something different from Ewell, or else do not know exactly what to think, they do know what they have to say. They have been compelled to vocally support something they do not fully understand or have time or desire to consider. Other than dissent or silence, this represents the only option. These individuals are protecting their jobs by saying they agree but doing nothing about it. An “AINO“, or a “false ally” is therefore a “person who is compelled to speak in support of antiracism while thinking or feeling some other way.”

Far from being a step in the right direction, this compounds the problem by adding the destructive element of mutual distrust. As seen in the film above, Ewell is reduced to having to guess at the number of “true allies” he has. Meanwhile, many colleagues are not white supremacist, but simply “reeling.”

Deer in Headlights

The growth of the corporatized academic administration, with all concomitant bureaucracies, committees, politics of donor and budgetary policy, issues of rank and power, coupled with the imperative to maintain a public image that attracts students and therefore money, make most universities slow to respond to just about anything. A major change in a department or college structure or degree track may take years or decades, passing through dozens of reviews, revisions and approval stages.

Critical Theory arose in academia and knows its surroundings well. The slow pace of academia at one time helped maintain stability by keeping change gradual. Critical Theory exploits the vulnerability that no one expects or is prepared for sudden or drastic change, by demanding just that. The main way is by threatening either the image of the institution as a whole, or else particular individuals through sudden loss of reputation, status, collegial regard, employment, or ultimately, employability.

As individuals and fields recognize their situation, feelings of anxiety, anger, confusion, fear, and intimidation arise. Ewell describes the response to antiracist ambush as “deer in the headlights,” which he sees among his white colleagues, especially senior ones.

“Social Justice” as understood by Critical Theory, along with issues of race in particular, have so gripped the consciousness of people at all levels of academia that almost any values or priorities will be sacrificed to appear on the right side of the issue. Individuals in places of power can make sudden and drastic decisions in order to appear aligned with social and political trends, even as they scramble to keep up. (For an example, review the Late Summer 2020 timeline in Part II.)

The American university has proven itself impotent to rebut, ignore, or take any official position besides total agreement with Critical Theory. Many universities, when threatened, issue immediate official public apologies for historic and ongoing complicity, publicly firing or demoting accused professors, often without due process, and sometimes in violation of contract. If systemic institutional racism is in debate, one thing is certain: the American university is riddled with systemic institutional fear. It is without a doubt complicit in the spread of Critical Theory.

For persons with lower rank, including untenured faculty or staff, there may be less urgency to act. Many who do not overtly dissent or counterattack simply remain quiet, since they are not certain what else to do. Others submit to using the correct language, as covered earlier. Either option can bide time and even seem to solve the problem.

But they do neither. Compelled agreement and abstention both carry heavy psychological cost.

Most workplaces are full of difficult human interactions, and the necessity to work around or against others’ interests and agendas is by no means new. What is new about Critical Theory is its powerful intrusion upon psychic, moral and intellectual space. It induces a mixture of confusion, frustration, anger, anxiety and doubt over deeply held personal values and beliefs. Some of what Critical Theory asks people to agree with seems difficult to contradict directly, yet cannot be easily reconciled with other knowledge and experience. As a result, individuals may find themselves trapped in seemingly unresolvable self-conflict, with rumination, rehearsed conversations, and self-doubt coexisting or alternating maddeningly with certainty. When sufficient trust for honest expression has been removed, the necessity to hide all of this, even at times from close family and friends, can be intensely isolating. The deprivation of personal agency may be existentially frightening and lead to problems of mental or physical health.

A position must be conceded to Critical Theory among the most effective nonviolent ideologies ever devised to so completely confound, humiliate, and silence its opponents, and to dominate its purview in so short a time, so unnoticed.

Language and Belief

Some may be skeptical that Critical Theory practitioners are all so clever and insidious as to so expertly employ the methods described here with such consistent success. This is correct. The literature of Theory is vast, complicated, and some of it deliberately obfuscating. The majority who employ language and method of Critical Theory do not possess expert, or even casual, understanding of its theoretical foundations, which will be covered in Part V.

Recall that even Philip Ewell was surprised both by the response to the JSS affair and the subsequent spread of his ideas outside of academic music theory and outside of the United States. He also remains puzzled about “AINOs.”

This occurs because language and belief are effective alone. Antiracism trains people not in understanding, but in language and belief. From these, method and behavior follow easily and with little error, somewhat like a religious orthodoxy.

Young people are especially vulnerable; having almost no intellectual preparation to question Theory, and little recourse against consequences of resisting or disagreeing, the academic and social pressure on many undergraduates to conform is hard to imagine.

Whether new adherents to Theory are persuaded in earnest by examples of real systemic racism, fear of being made into examples themselves, or mere confusion, is immaterial; the objective is to discredit and discourage opposition in any way possible.

There is no inherent problem here, since it is not understanding, but compliance, that Critical Theory seeks. Like the white male supremacy it sees everywhere, Critical Theory is concerned not with self-consistency, rationality or morality, but with power.

Power

“I simply would like everybody to acknowledge the fact that white people have had the power,” Ewell says.

But he would like something much more. Behind the antiracist vision for equity and inclusion is an authoritarian stance that acts out, using threats and force, the same measures Theory practitioners believe history and society have taken upon them. In a film in Part III, Ewell clarifies why antiracism is better that DEI: it is “much more threatening.” In his plenary paper, he advocates forced inclusion: “Only through forcing the issue will music theory diversify with respect to race and gender —- it will not happen organically. Because of self-interest, white-male power will not cede power by itself.” But, “[i]f we were to take antiracist action” — that is, use threats and force — “[…] I believe we would see the number of POC rise quite naturally and organically in our field.”

Here then can be recognized two more redefinitions: equity is an antiracist euphemism for power. Antiracism is a system of threats and force to displace persons in positions of power, based on their race.

Jazz

Like most in academic music theory, Philip Ewell avoids the topic of jazz. He mentions it only once in his SMT plenary paper and not at all in the preceding talk or on his blog and he is not known publicly to play jazz. However, he speaks with authority on it in several virtual symposia. Using the story of a national single-payer healthcare system advocated by Harry Truman as an analogy, he portrays jazz as a segregated field omitted from mainstream music theory curricula and relegated, as in hospitals in the mid-twentieth century, to “black floors.”

Jazz theory is largely not known or comprehended by individuals who are not accomplished jazz performers. Its concepts and terminology sound vernacular and are mistaken easily for facile or familiar concepts. Talent, aptitude and proclivity for these difficulties, in addition to joy in the music itself, most easily explain why study of jazz theory takes place mostly in jazz studies departments populated with student and faculty performers who transcribe, listen to and practice these elements on a daily basis. The vast majority of these are now, in fact, white, and are not on “black floors.” Many top music schools in America stake their reputation foremost on jazz programs, with some offering study up to the doctorate level.

To include jazz theory in mainstream academic music training would indeed be helpful to many. But any jazz musician will immediate recognize the obstacle: In order to teach jazz theory, academic music theorists will first have to learn it. It is nearly comical to imagine the average theory professor or TA as described in Part I, suddenly fumbling to teach “Giant Steps” or analyze the harmonic voicings of Herbie Hancock. Further, replacing two years of Western tonal theory with theories from other continents, then dismantling the piano proficiency requirement, will hardly help anyone learn jazz theory, since many of its concepts are most easily grasped with help of a harmonic instrument and prior facility with tonal theory. As the one anonymous JSS contributor wrote (Part II), “most undergrads are bad enough [at music theory] after four years!”

Among the interest groups in the The Society For Music Theory is one on jazz, linking to a jazz theory bibliography maintained by a white professor, as well as a space on Humanities Commons and the Journal of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University. Ewell, by his own account the only black associate professor of the Society of Music Theory, has not contributed a single article. His interest in jazz music seems to be mainly to enlist it in the service of antiracism. In fact, not a single black contributor to the Journal of Jazz Studies could be identified as of this writing.

In his SMT plenary paper, Ewell writes, “For too long we music theorists have made excuses for the untenability of some of our core positions with respect to race.” He is correct at least with respect to himself.

Questions of Ewell’s competence and understanding do not end here.

Blackwashing

If whitewashing (covered in Part III) is the practice of ignoring the deeds or beliefs of (here) white males to make their ideas palatable for academic study, blackwashing can be redefined as the opposite: diminishing or belittling the musical achievements of historically great figures to appear “just composers, like all the rest,” as Ewell describes Beethoven in Part III.

To co-opt and redefine this term will undoubtedly provoke distaste or offense, due both to its inflammatory racial connotations and its typical use to describe a practice that, like whitewashing, is presumed to harm only blacks.

At such moments it is important to remember the seriousness of the predicament: Critical Theory perverts language to such a degree that it is difficult to ever fully know what is being talked about. To undo this problem is urgent if clear thinking is to be restored.

A way to stabilize the confusion is to borrow from Theory itself and redefine words that name clearly what Theory wishes to obfuscate. It is not necessary to compel anyone else to use the term this way, only to use it by choice for individual clarity.

The main problem in assessing musical meaning and value is its extreme subjectivity. Unlike, for instance, number theory, theories of musical valuation can be neither proven nor disproven in any meaningful sense. They often even complicate matters by deferring valuation to a range of aesthetic theories or criteria which then must in turn be value-assessed themselves somehow. Seldom can any outcome be hoped for beyond thorough familiarity with the many difficulties of any definitive aesthetic judgement and a sense of having learned and exhausted all known possibilities. Frustration with the open-ended search to pin down meaning and value through varying frames of rational criteria helped give rise to postmodernism, a form of Critical Theory skeptical toward any objective truth or certainty about meaning or value. Postmodernism favors relativism, the idea that all value is relative to an observer. This still does not escape the issue. There remains such a thing as musical value, it is now just relative.

From there, it is an easy step to politicize the matter, as Philip Ewell has done: specifically, to correlate musical valuation historically with white male supremacy. An opportunity was missed, since the language and method of Critical Theory can in fact be applied to music itself to great effect in locating expressive power — a topic to come in Part VI. Instead, and almost unnoticed, the focus has been taken off music and onto race. It is then easy to intimidate many people away from even thinking about musical value, since doing so is now associated with white supremacy.

Conspicuous in all of Ewell’s public talks or papers is a refusal to advance any musical assessments or value statements of any kind, or even any means to do so, other than by racial, gender, or other identity equality. In a film in Part III, he asks white colleagues to self-reflect on whether they believe “Brahms is really better than X black composer from the nineteenth Century,” where “X composer” is not even specified except by race. In his plenary paper he writes elusively, “we must accept a measure of a ‘diminishing societal position,’ cede some music-theoretical territory to nonwestern, nonwhite music theories […]”.

Like Ewell, we must name clearly that the intention of antiracism is not only to elevate non-white and non-male composers, but also explicitly to blackwash white male composers, especially those of the classical canon.

More broadly, Ewell’s unstated belief seems to be not just that all races have inherently equal musical ability, but that individual composers and possibly even individual works — it is hard to tell exactly — are also equal, or indistinguishable, in musical value. Once that belief is accepted, it becomes plausible that differences in musical value, or even musical value itself, do not exist. This is redefinition in musical form: it asks everyone to change their understanding of meaning not of words, but of particular works of music, willfully overlooking differences among composers and individual works, especially those that may give rise to value assessments that place one composer above another, and especially if that composer is white and male.

Here again Ewell inadvertently does exactly what he wishes to avoid: he poses a “mythically higher standard.” The mythology is not whiteness or maleness, but equality in the vision of antiracism. The mythology of antiracism, as applied to musical valuation, is that all works and composers can be “lifted up” (or lowered down, as needed) to a plane of equality, positioned here as a moral high ground replacing musical genius or greatness.

If this all seems confusing, that’s because it is. When meanings of words are so perverted, to untangle exactly what is going on is really difficult. To regain clarity, recall from above that equity means power. The goal of antiracist value assessment in music is to diminish white male composers who are considered “great,” using threats and force, and to replace them with others, chosen for their race and gender. This is no fringe interpretation: Ewell spells it out in exactly these words.

Into this blackwashing maneuver might easily be read a downright nefarious intent were it not for one feature of Ewell’s work that reveals more of his musical worldview than any of his writings or talks: his cello playing.

“I’m a Cellist”

Ewell’s turn from cello to music theory, and more recently to Critical Race Theory, suggests a gradual retreat from musical priorities. That musical perception varies so widely among people, and is responsive to practice and development, is another reason musical valuation is so difficult. In Ewell’s own perception, his valuations — specifically his equating of one composer to another — must seem to him plain and obvious. It is then easier to understand why he finds it puzzling that others cannot hear the same, and that they rather “refuse to make the connection to whiteness and maleness,” as he repeatedly puts it.

His cello performances certainly support this assessment. Unfortunately, the unpleasant work that began Part I of this article must here be revisited. To blackwash so completely the expressive power of these compositions by Tchaikovsky, Debussy, and Prokofiev with such poor playing quite successfully portrays them as interchangeable indeed with those of any other composer, if one does not already know better. Readers are encouraged to listen to the full performances on Ewell’s website, both to verify that cherry-picking has not been applied, and to form an assessment of Ewell’s breadth and depth of musical understanding, considered as part of the totality of his scholarship.

“I believe my mandate as a teacher is to help my students become better musicians,” Ewell writes on his website. To hear these performances, it is a wonder how he imagines he will teach anyone anything.

To be precise, the problem is not the poor playing, but that Ewell appears not to imagine much more to be necessary. He is shown playing contentedly at the absolute limits of his abilities, without the slightest impression of reaching for greater expressive nuance, urgency to communicate, experiencing joy, or awareness of the extent of his deficiencies.

Clearly the problem has not to do with race, as there are many cellists of all races who play at extremely high levels to be found in orchestras, chamber, commercial, jazz, electronic, and solo music of all genres. (Examples are not furnished; individuals not aware of these players should investigate for themselves and not expect information provided for them.)

It is not, of course, required that every academic professor of music play an instrument at a professional level. But Ewell has made these performances, along with his identity as a cellist, a public aspect of his profile as a teacher, scholar, and musician. If he hadn’t, to disparage them in this way would be nothing short of savage. But owing partly to the musical deficits they expose, Ewell has built a lucrative career of causing overt harm to music programs, musicians, and students.

The most stabilizing way to assess the total picture covered so far is simply to realize Ewell is in way over his head. His attainment to international attention came suddenly, and it caught him up short on capacity to sustain credibility at scale. It should be pointed out, in consideration for Ewell, that most people in his situation would do the same. Distressed or financially threatened by a position of disadvantage, such as feeling sidelined in a field, or denied tenure, most people would use to their advantage any available ideology that helped explain the situation and offered leverage out of it. Since employing Critical Theory to fault everything Western and European has become a career in itself, the work of learning to play in tune, in time, or with musical depth, may seem more oppressive and less rewarding by comparison. Some may even suspect such expectations to be, like tonality, the canon, equal temperament, and the piano proficiency requirement, ways to enforce white supremacy.

Only once in his publicly released talks or papers on music does Ewell ever use the word “joy”. He writes rather in his plenary paper, “I wish to be considered both a feminist and antiracist killjoy in music theory by consistently pointing out race and gender inequities, among other inequities, in the field.” He seems enormously proud of this work, unaware how much of the worldview that he frames as white supremacist has made possible his position at Hunter College, CUNY, and his freedom to express his ideas. Worse, he seems certain his work will do no harm, but to the contrary, that “everyone benefits”.

Keeping the Focus on Race

One of the main purposes of the white racial frame of music theory, Ewell says in his SMT plenary talk, is to take the focus off of whiteness. Ewell wishes his students and academic colleagues to “racialize” their work — that is, to look for the racial elements everywhere. With Ibram Kendi, as covered in Part III, Ewell believes race operates in every interaction, and the question is only where and how.

Put differently, Ewell wishes to take the focus off music. After his deficits as a musician and thinker have been noticed and named, his motivations should be clear. His commitment to, and effectiveness in, race scholarship has exceeded both his musical capacity and his interest in music and music theory, taking their place as his route to success and recognition in his field.

The stabilizing antidote, for all who view these priorities as problematic, is to return focus to music. That is the topic of Part VI, the final part, of this article. But first there remains more to understand.

John Ewell

Philip Ewell identifies as black, and that identity has been respected throughout this article. In fact he is of mixed race, born of a white Norwegian mother and a black American father. As early as his 2019 SMT plenary talk, Ewell advances his own father as his “favorite example” of the racist assimilationism to which he objects. Dr. John Ewell held a Ph.D. in number theory from UCLA (1966) and taught at Southern University, California State University Long Beach, York University Ontario, California State University Sonoma and finally Northern Illinois University, from which he retired as Professor Emeritus. He published nearly fifty papers.

Cuttingly, Philip Ewell refers to John’s marriage to a white European woman as “his assimilationist coup de grâce“. What he means is not exactly clear; the term means “stroke of mercy” and may have been a malapropism in addition to having been mispronounced. Taken literally, it suggests John Ewell saw assimilation as absolution, or forgiveness, for being black. In any case, it can hardly be construed as a compliment. Philip says he “loved both [his] folks”, but it is hard to hear a word of affection for John Ewell in his remarks.

Unlike music theory, which names, analyzes, systematizes and codifies the work of musicians, number theory is the work of mathematicians, in this case those concerned with pure mathematics. It is not known for its ease. It attracts minds, especially young ones, possessing unusual gifts at grasping and synthesizing ideas incomprehensible to most of the rest of humanity. John Ewell’s heroes, Leonhard Euler, Pierre de Fermat and Carl Friedrich Gauss were indeed the very sort of genius minds Philip Ewell believes do not exist.

To reconsider Ewell’s work prior to 2019, covered briefly in Part I, in the context of a now clear ideological conflict with a highly accomplished father, it is tempting to fill in the narrative gaps. Ewell appears in his youth to have committed to the performance of classical music on the cello, until some point, when his focus shifted the theoretical realm of music as his father did with mathematics. Music theory does not offer the rigor of number theory in its knowledge claims however, and it easily gets lost, as described in part I, in highly speculative abstraction about musical processes, compositional, perceptual, cognitive, and otherwise, which cannot be meaningfully “proven” to commensurate acclaim. Philip Ewell describes himself to have been complicit in perpetuating the white racial frame by practicing “white music theory” for most of his earlier career. The shock of tenure denial and the two-year legal battle led to an immersion in Critical Race Theory, leading to an “antiracist snap.” Combined with his level of accomplishment on the cello, it is easy to infer the disillusionment that must have occurred, and the growing sense that white supremacy was responsible.

The generational rebellion Philip Ewell describes against his father is the same one he acts out in his work, in particular, his reaction against assimilationism. It is surprising and embarrassing to witness him reveal himself on the subject of his father so vehemently and repeatedly in public, without fully recognizing the family drama’s role in influencing his ideologies. Notably, Ewell also married a white woman of European descent and has a son of mixed race.

It might be wondered, how will antiracism appear to the next generation, and what predominant racial view will replace it?

“The Sixty Plus Crowd”

Indeed, Philip Ewell has a curious and consistent confidence in young people to “get it” — to understand antiracism, and to be eager to adopt its language and method. He notes most of the criticism and “nasty” responses he has received have been from senior, white males, the “sixty-plus crowd,” as he calls them. It is hard, he says, for senior white men to understand their privilege, and Ewell is at pains to “be sympathetic” to colleagues who are “having a hard time.”

But once again, much simpler explanations are available. The pressure on college age people to conform to institutional trends, and their general intellectual inexperience, has already be pointed out. Many in early or middle career stages of academia or elsewhere may not possess the job security to risk open criticism by objecting vocally — or worse, in writing, which might quickly make it onto YouTube in one of Ewell’s symposium slides as more evidence of white racial framing.

To lighten the mood, the final film in this section shows Ewell squirming after an anonymous questioner, along with California State University Professor of Musicology Alexandra Monchick, force him to consider these possibilities, apparently for the first time. Armed with “over a thousand replies” that he embarrassingly believes to be a “statistic”, he sits with discomfort for a full ten minutes, defending himself on the topic of age discrimination.

(Moderated by Wolfgang Marx, Associate Professor of Historical Musicology at University College, Dublin.)

We Have Not Yet Even Begun

“We have not yet begun the conversation on how we can begin to deframe what sociologist Joe Feagin calls America’s white racial frame, because we in music theory have yet to comprehend its very existence,” Ewell wrote in 2019.

A beginning implies an end. “Reckoning” with a racist past might seem at first a finite project that will run its course and consummate one day in Ewell’s vision that “everyone is doing their work unimpeded, without this crazy idea that one group of musicians is superior.”

But Critical Theory, by design, is open-ended, ongoing. Antiracist work posits permanent transience, reckoning, ruminating, self-reflecting, redefining, acknowledging, and apologizing, as ever more injustices are researched and exposed and their legacies dismantled. The alternatives, hiding indefinitely as a false ally in secret dissent, or else stomaching the consequences of overt opposition, might be worse. Already the liberal arts, most of the soft sciences, and even some of the hard sciences, both in and out of academia, have learned to endure the most immediate effects of Critical Theory and antiracism. The longer term effects are yet to be discovered. Critical Theory permanently engages a problem it defines as insoluble. Is any response possible? Part 5 offers a way to find out.

Meanwhile, a sobering conclusion is put forth: Philip Ewell is actually doing his best. He may not have more than this to offer, at least not now.

> Part 5: Critical Critical Theory Theory