Marie Winn, in The Plug-In Drug, tells us that it's not enough to substitute good television shows for bad, because the process of watching television has physical and psychological effects that are independent of content. Andrew Pudewa makes the same point for music, in The Profound Effects of Music on Life. Most of us are reluctant, for good reason, to believe that harm can be inherent in a particular technology, but take the view that good or evil is a matter of intent: the question is whether the knife is in the hands of a surgeon, a chef, or a hit man.
The Chinese government, however, understands:
Carmina Burana—the gateway drug. :)Amid post-Olympics shifts in China's attitude toward the West, the government decided that sacred music should disappear. "Quietly and without publicity, the Chinese authorities have let it be known that Western religious music should no longer be performed in concert halls. It's an unexpected decision, and one for which there is no obvious explanation or trigger," Catherine Sampson wrote in The Guardian. Even things that merely seem like Western sacred music—including Carl Orff's decidedly unsacred Carmina Burana—have been stopped.
