What's bothering me about this short story in the Independent claiming that playing "classical music" in public places "could improve people’s behaviour... as it creates 'a calming effect by releasing pleasure-inducing dopamine and inhibiting the release of stress hormones'"?

More dopamine and fewer stress hormones sounds nice—but the idea as a whole makes me a little itchy. It recalls the various downtown businesses—from McDonald's to condos—playing opera and country music to "reduce crime." The implication is as clear as a bell: White-dominated music (and, in the case of classical, "civilized, white-dominated music") will chase away the violence, chaos, and crime. If a passer-by can't enjoy our notion of what music should sound like, she's probably a threat of some kind.

Maybe it's just because I've spent the morning reading Terra Nullius by Sven Lindqvist, in which he charts the hideous way Australian Aborigines were mentally exterminated by Europeans long before they broke out the guns and infections—because whites couldn't see anything they recognized, or anything they considered civilized, they considered the land empty. Terra nullius.

"This solid wall of white incomprehension ends with a death sentence couches in a tone of forced jocularity." Lindqvist writes. "'They'll soon be gone.'" Whether "gone" meant chased away or cut down didn't particularly matter—as long as they were out of sight, the colonizers were satisfied.