who asked the first question? - International Research Center For ...

381PostScript:Moral and ethics issuesof the study of vocal polyphonyOn 22 nd March 1991 I delivered possibly the most controversial paper of myentire professional carrier at the conference at Mainz University, Germany. As theconference title (“Ethnomusicology and Historical Musicology: Common Goals, SharedMethodologies?”) suggested discussing the possibilities of interdisciplinary research inethnomusicology and historical musicology, I decided to talk about the interdisciplinaryresearch of the origins of choral polyphony. One of the parts of my paper was dealingwith the fact of geographic distribution of the traditional polyphony and the correlationwith the data of physical anthropology. This was less than a week before my Doctor ofMusic public defense at Kiev Conservatory. I had very good reports from all threeofficial reviewers (including one from Valeri Pavlovich Alexeev, then the director of theInstitute of ethnography and Archaeology and the number one physical anthropologistand population geneticist in Soviet Union), and I was quite confident in my results.Besides, I did deliver papers on this topic few times at different conferences, includinginternational conferences, so the content of the paper was not new. But this was different.Only after delivering my paper at the conference in Mainz I realized how sensitive wasthe subject for ethnomusicologists, and particularly in Germany. My paper was published(Jordania, 1997), and I was even congratulated on very interesting paper by colleagues(even those attending the Mainz Conference), but I still clearly remember the awkwardsituation that followed my paper.The problem of the morality and ethics in science is one of the fundamental issuesthat scholars may face. I am not going to discuss this problem in detail, as theresponsibility of scholars in bringing new ideas and technologies to the knowledge ofhumanity is widely known. It was not only the creation of the nuclear weapons or LSDdrug that teaches us to be responsible with the new knowledge and ideas. Charles Darwinwas long agonizing before deciding to publish his ideas about the evolution.We all can agree, that morality and ethics are the backbone of our society. Thematter is more complicated by the fact, that we do not have one model of morality andethics. Although humanity is living in increasingly interconnected society, there are stilltoo many fundamental issues that divide our societies. As the Football World Cup goeson, I have a big poster on the wall that has few facts about the popularity and globalimpact of world game in contemporary world. Two amazing facts: the first states thatAmerican footballer Mia Hamm has scored the most goals for her country, more than anyother soccer player in the game (female or male), and the other fact states that in 2006,just few months ago, for the first time in the history of Saudi Arabia, female spectatorswere allowed to watch a football game on the stadium.Morality and ethics of our societies change in front of our eyes. Such fundamentalelement of our lives, as gender segregation, norms of sexuality, gai and lesbian rights,have transformed enormously within last few decades. There is a long way still to go, butthe changes are striking.