EXCERPT Arnold Schoenberg: All tones can be treated as equal. John Cage: All sounds can be treated as equal. Next logical step: Everyone can be treated as equal. Why is it that we can accept that all musical notes can be treated as equal, or even that all sounds can be treated as equal, but find it extremely difficult to envisage the possibility of all people being treated as equal? We live under an economic system that makes social equality impossible. One might object that these are different types of register: the first two are aesthetic, while the last is socio-economic and political. However, today these registers are very much interrelated. A couple of contemporary examples come to mind which blur the social with the aesthetic, the first in the field of music, the second that of art…