Journal Response

I listen to music as a way to escape what I have to do in life or to make certain mindless activities more enjoyable. When listening to music I typically do not devote a lot of attention to lyrics. Whether or not a song is enjoyable to listen to is what matters the most. However, there are some exceptions where it is impossible not to appreciate the political or societal observations that some songs subtly unveil through creative lyrics.
Music plays a very unique role in how it influences conflicts. Music seems to generally strengthen the  emotional resolve of one side of a conflict. The counterculture movement of the 1960s is a fitting example of this idea. The hippy movement certainly structured itself around drug use, but also around the new styles of music that really came into being in the 1960s. The 60's freestyle music certainly encouraged disgruntled youths to challenge the highly controversial policies of the U.S. government en masse. The case Jazz musicians of the 1920s and 1930s is similar to that of the 1960s. Jazz's very unreformed, free, and vibrant sound certainly didn't lessen the scofflaw attitude that permeated throughout the speakeasies of prohibition America.
While it is well understood that music can incite social tensions, like that between a government and its citizenry, I am really not sure as to how music affects armed conflicts. I don't know of a conflict where one fighting entity utilized music in its call to arms.
 One famous instance where music wasn't used to lessen a conflict but to encourage the favorability of the United States and its people was during the Cold War when the U.S. sent famous jazz musicians all across the globe. The case of U.S. jazz diplomacy is important to understand because it can help one to develop their expectations regarding musical exchange. Cultural understanding isn't usually about ending conflicts, its about working to see that they are less likely to develop in the future or that they are slightly less intense than they would be without human interaction.
I suspect that in the future the spread of music around the world would more than likely play a small role in lessening political tensions. Conflicts are far too complicated to be erased simply through cultural understanding; having said that I still believe that cultural exchange in all forms is a worthwhile activity.