The Beethoven Revolution: A Case Study in Selection by Consequence
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The Beethoven Revolution: A Case Study in Selection by Consequence Ruth Anne Rehfeldt 1
& Stephanie
Chan 1
& Brian
Katz 1
Accepted: 4 November 2020/ # Association for Behavior Analysis International 2020
Abstract Music as a pervasive cultural practice serves many functions for a community, and its selection is determined by the interaction between multiple contingencies at individual, group, and society levels. An analysis was recently conducted on the dynamic interaction between contingencies in frescoes art that promoted the Mexican Muralist movement (Malott, 2019, 2020). Following this example, we provide a selectionist account of the music of Ludwig van Beethoven in the 250th anniversary of his birth. We explored the variation, selection, and transmission of his music over the course of his life and career in the sociopolitical milieu of his time, as well as after his death. The dissemination of Beethoven’s music was characterized by aggregate products resulting from a number of interlocking contingencies, which created a high demand for his music. Our analysis highlights two levels of relational processes in the selection of Beethoven’s music: The relational repertoire that enabled Beethoven to compose masterpieces while he was completely deaf, and the symbolic meaning of his music in promoting the values of freedom and democracy in many societies. Keywords Music . Beethoven . Metacontingency . Selection . Cultural cusp . Relational
responding
. . . styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions. Plato Music is a pervasive cultural practice that serves many functions for a community. In his analysis of the contingencies selecting the practices of a culture, Skinner (1981)
* Ruth Anne Rehfeldt [email protected]
1
The Chicago School of Professional Psychology, Chicago, 325 North Wells Street, Chicago, IL 60654, USA
Perspectives on Behavior Science
acknowledged that a culture evolves when its practices contribute to the success of the practicing group, and such practices are perpetuated because they do so. Music may be a source of entertainment, a means of stimulating one’s senses and imagination, an opportunity to escape from aversive stimulation, and a shared experience among people that propagates an artist’s religious, political, or philosophical views (Machlis, 1977; Machlis & Forney, 2007). Scholars of culturobehavior science have suggested that the shared aesthetic experiences created by arts such as music “provide the loom upon which culture is woven” (Thompson, 2018, p. 365). The selection of cultural practices related to the creation and dissemination of music is likely determined by the interaction between multiple contingencies at multiple levels. First, there are individual behavioral contingencies influencing the behavior of the composer, some of which may be personal and others of which may be tied to the sociopolitical climate of the time. Second, there are group-level contingencies that select those musical practices that
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