Referring to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven by only their surname discriminates against black or female composers who are called by their full names, a professor at Amherst has stated.
Prince, Adele, Kanye, Shakira, and Beyonce were not available for comment.
I want to clarify why I believe this level of wokeness isn't useful.
We commonly refer to giants in their field by mononyms: If we're talking about classical music, you know exactly who I mean if I say Beethoven or Mozart. If we're talking about physics, there's a very high likelihood you know who I mean if I mention Einstein or Newton or Curie. If we're talking about contemporary politics, you know exactly who I mean if I refer to Trump or Melania or Biden or Harris. If we're talking about hip-hop, I know who you're referring to if you talk about Beyonce or Kanye. If we're talking about the universal experience of myth, you know who I mean when I say Campbell. If we're talking about racism, you know who I mean when I say Kendi. If we're talking about musicals and the names "Rogers and Hammerstein" come up, I don't think there's any real confusion as to whom we're talking about.
I don't think it's helpful to single out classical music as a special exception to the general habit of referring to people who are very well known in their field by a single name.
We could have a long discussion about how much harm this does...but it's so utterly miniscule as to be worthy of ridicule. Calling them by their full names does nothing to bring attention to other composers.
But it adds yet another item to the list of pointless things liberals want to force people to change. There are very few bits of behavior that we can change society-wide over the next 10 years...do we really want to waste ammunition fighting for this one?
Every silly crusade like this one makes it easier to just tune out all "woke noise" as meaningless posturing.