I have some defenders of status-quo music theory pedagogy following me, so to you, I offer a thought experiment.

Imagine that I run a travel agency. Any time anyone wants to go anywhere, I insist that they first get in my time machine and go to 1820s Vienna.

New York, Nairobi, Shanghai, Patagonia, doesn't matter where, first everyone has to go to 1820s Vienna. "But why?" they ask. I explain that before you can travel, you have to have a basic understanding of places, and you get that by visiting 1820s Vienna.

The experience of 1820s Vienna is so universal and transcendent that it necessarily informs all travel to all other places. I don't consider a travel experience complete unless it includes a long trip to 1820s Vienna.

Furthermore, I also run a school for training and licensing travel agents. They must all know 1820s Vienna like the backs of their hands.

Actually, they can't even apply to my tour guide and travel agent school without extensive prior knowledge of 1820s Vienna.

And now there are all these woke SJWs demanding that I reduce the focus on 1820s Vienna. What, you don't believe in excellence in travel agents and tour guides? Obviously no one can be good at those things without knowing all about 1820s Vienna.

Okay, fine, maybe I'll start suggesting my travel agents and tour guides get familiar with a few other big cities. But that has to come on top of their studies of 1820s Vienna, obviously.

Meanwhile, I'm noticing that an awful lot of people don't actually want to go to 1820s Vienna. That mostly just shows their ignorance. Still, the fact remains that the numbers for my travel agency are trending downwards.

The problem is that people can just go places with or without my travel agency. They can even become tour guides in those places, though of course they can't be licensed to do it.

People are now starting to suggest that my fixation on 1820s Vienna isn't just old-fashioned, it's actually kind of racist. I don't see that at all, of course. There's nothing racist about demanding that everyone visit 1820s Vienna! It's just travel, why make it political?

What these people don't understand is that if they just visited 1820s Vienna, they would understand how beautiful it is, and how much it informs your understanding of other places.

Saying that there's something racist about insisting that all travel include a long stay in 1820s Vienna is itself racist.

And there are all these people saying, okay, well, sure, there's a lot to be gained by a visit to 1820s Vienna, but you're turning off a lot of people from travel. Well, tough. If they were serious about travel, of course they would go to 1820s Vienna first.

Okay. I know there are some problematic aspects of 1820s Vienna. I get that it's an uncomfortable environment for women, and black people. But look! There are women there! There are even some black people! What are they complaining about?

Now I have this one guy going around saying that 1820s is an "above-average city." HOW DARE HE.

Someone else is questioning the validity of 1820s Vienna as preparation to lead backpacking trips through the Colorado Rockies. They're both places, right? Travel is a universal language.

Though not all places are as... shall we say... illuminating as others. Now there are all these people wanting to visit the Bronx, Detroit, Atlanta, New Orleans. According to my travel agent father who went to travel agent school, those are not really valid destinations.

In order to be a destination, a place has to have a lot of ornate clocks and marble busts. The Bronx has hardly any of those things. So I don't even really consider it to be a "destination" at all. It certainly isn't one worth traveling to.

Though there are some other people who say, well, the Bronx does have some statues in it, and clocks, and those are really the same thing as the ones in 1820s Vienna.

As to this idea that there's more to travel than looking at ornate clocks and marble busts? I'm not familiar with it and not open to considering it.