Censorship is not the issue here, since no films are either banned or destroyed under Bill C-10 (“Expressing ourselves,” Editorial Digest, April 24). In fact, “film producers can represent whatever perspective and depictions of violence or sex they wish, provided they are not contrary to the Criminal Code,” as the National Post put it. So, are some films too violent or too sexy for a tax credit? Or just too plain “offensive” to deserve one? Yes. Should foreign films shooting in Canada be exempt from the bill? No. So, fix the double standard and let the private sector finance these edgy, meaningful and occasionally offending films.

As to the human rights tribunals of late, they have managed to morph themselves into modern-day barbarians at the gate with their efforts to suppress any speech deemed offensive to minorities and/or special interest groups.

That said, there is a larger, threefold concern at hand: individualism, which lends itself to personal interpretation of “public policy” based on subjective experiences; secularism, which undermines or even rejects transcendent truth; and the relativist approach, which relegates everything to the sphere of individual feelings.

Until these problems are acknowledged and debated in a public forum, we will have to persevere and fight the good fight in expressing ourselves.
 RICARDO DI CECCA

Off key Critic
I must say I found Pierre Savoie’s attempt to use even-tempered intonation (which he seems to confuse with well-tempered intonation) as a stick with which to beat various forms of music rather bizarre (“Musical relativism,” Letters, April 24).

Western classical music didn’t employ true even-tempered intonation until the 20th century. Prior to the 19th century, most tunings were closer to just-tempered, which Mr. Savoie (by implication) might find “monotonous,” but composers, performers, and listeners of the day presumably did not.
I’m not sure how key changes in older tunings that made various keys sound more distinct than they do today would have promoted monotony. More the opposite, I would think. True, even temperament isn’t even consistently employed by modern classical musicians. Ask any string player if they always play an E flat the same as a D sharp.

For that matter, the concept of keys is foreign to many forms of music, including a significant body of music that grew out of the Western classical tradition in the 20th century, which treats all 12 notes of the Western system as one series that must be constantly employed in its entirety. This kind of makes the key change argument moot. (Though I suspect Mr. Savoie, for all his embracement of complexity, probably is one of those many conservative classical listeners who ignores this music.)
I could expand from here to other topics, like classical Indian musicians referring to (traditional) Western music as “baby music” because the rhythms are much less complex. I had a composition professor in university who played classical Indian music for us, and he wasn’t doing it to be politically correct. But I digress.

Obviously, the basis of Mr. Savoie’s argument is that he finds the musics of other cultures “monotonous,” a choice he’s free to make. Let’s not cloud the issue by making spurious claims about the superiority of tuning systems.
 DAVID GUTTERIDGE

For your (reading) pleasure
Re “Here Come the Warm Jets (of Semen?),” Love Bites, April 24: Utterly inspired! JASON D’CRUZ

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