Shrinkwrap
Oct. 31st, 2004 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomus
People get very passionate about cultural issues for reasons that are all tied up with their worldview, and therefore with their politics. In the current 'political season' in the US, we've seen the Republicans trying to isolate the Democrats (who have, at least during election season, to be seen reaching out to more conservative voters) by raising deliberately divisive 'culture wars' issues like gay marriage.
Now, although 'culture wars' may be a right wing weapon, it's not a right wing idea. In fact, the idea that everything is dialectical, that everything is ideological, that everything is political, even the personal, comes usually from the left. In fact, one of the 'culture wars' issues is that the right says it's bad to be 'partisan', while naturally continuing to be extremely partisan themselves. Conservatives are like the guy who thinks that everyone has an accent... except him.
My whole outlook is based on the idea that there is no neutral ground, on questions of politics as on questions of culture. 'Commonsense' is not enough; we have to think things through issue by issue. I'm quite happy for everyone to agree to disagree. I'm ready to fight. A lot of what I write here in my 'journal' is political stuff in a culture wars sense. It's an editorial on a matter of public interest, whether it's the 'politics of authenticity' in what I call 'rockist' attitudes to music-making, or the 'politics' of what it means to dress in a deliberately silly way, or to be naked in public.
What I'm less sure about is this business of clusters. Do cultural attitudes cluster and bunch up the same way political attitudes are supposed to? It's one of the convenient fictions of representative democracy that people have linked, clustered views. For a start, the views linked up in a supposedly consistent political position are often contradictory. For all their apparent hatred of 'mixed messages', Republicans are supposed to believe 'Thou shalt not kill', and to apply that to unborn babies, but not to foreigners killed in wars or prisoners on death row. My suspicion is that these attitude clusters are not logical but magnetic. In other words, someone self-identifies as a Republican because they share a couple of the necessary presuppositions, then sort of gravitates towards the whole stretchwrapped cluster of Republican attitudes as if drawn by a magnetic force. Consistency of identity is more important than consistency of reason. You buy the whole package because you like a couple of things in it, and it's a shrink-wrapped six pack.
Just as it's getting harder and harder to buy just one item in a supermarket (clingfilm or strechwrap around a cluster of products forces me to buy six of them instead), so it's getting harder and harder in politics to have a say on separate issues. You have to buy a cluster of them, often a self-contradictory cluster. You have to buy four years' worth of supplies when you only need something to see you through the week. When you buy a job lot, you don't get to switch brand until you've used it all up.
If choice-reducing clustering is getting bigger in shopping thanks to monopoly and hypertrophism, and in politics because of the failure of democracy to adopt things like proportional representation and continuous referenda, it's also growing popular amongst the market researchers who study the digital trails we leave when we shop. Thanks to computer tracking of our online buying behaviour, we're now often greeted in online stores with an authoritative-sounding recommendation about our own most subjective preferences: 'If you like x, you'll also like y!' because 'Customers who bought x also bought y'. At least at Amazon x and y don't come clingfilmed. We still have the choice not to buy y. Which is just as well, because some of this 'clusterfuck' software is fucked. Go to Musicplasma, for instance, and you'll see that Momus is clustered with Madonna and Beyonce Knowles!
It is possible to make some predictions about choice b based on information about choice a. Yes, if you like the death penalty you'll probably buy pre-emptive war. Customers who bought abortion also bought gay marriage. Some things are bundled together for empirical reasons, some for strategic reasons; John Kerry is currently shrinkwrapping his more liberal instincts with some conservative rhetoric because he needs conservatively-minded voters -- and there are a lot of them in America -- to vote for him. Since we're still in the age of shrinkwrap -- since we don't yet have the kind of mature, flexible democracy where you can vote on every issue, and have the complexity of your personal views on every issue represented proportionally -- I'd ask you to vote for Kerry too.
(For those bored with cultural politics, here's some cultural fun instead: snaps of my friends Mario and Jason, play rehearsals, and the Pictoplasma party last night at the Cafe Moskau. Happy Halloween!)
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rockism?
Date: 2004-10-31 05:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-31 05:51 am (UTC)One issue from column A, two from Column B.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-31 06:36 am (UTC)Re: rockism?
Date: 2004-10-31 06:40 am (UTC)rock music should be bass, drums, guitars
it's about artists and songs, not about production
a good artist is 'keepin' it real'
some artists are more 'real' than others
good songs are timeless
at some point in the past they 'got music right'
music has value to the extent that it's one person emoting sincerely
although the real is very important, the real is today absent (metaphysics)
Other artforms have their own forms of rockism. In art, Stuckists believe that art should be representational, that painting is more 'real' than video, etc etc. Check their manifesto (http://www.stuckism.com/stuckistmanifesto.html#manifest), which begins 'Stuckism is the quest for authenticity' and continues through 'artists who don't paint aren't artists' to 'painting creates worlds within worlds, giving access to the unseen psychological realities that we inhabit' (the metaphysical bit).
More on rockism:
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/02/21/015527.php
http://rockcritics.com/features/galleryofrockism.html
http://www.livejournal.com/users/imomus/32270.html
Re: rockism?
Date: 2004-10-31 10:00 am (UTC)i think i was a bit young in the eighties to catch that one
-shane
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-31 10:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-31 10:11 am (UTC)the graphics were almost more exciting before they were
included in the actual piece.
and for the record, i would like to see momus "clustered" with beyonce and madonna.
yes.
Re: rockism?
Date: 2004-10-31 10:41 am (UTC)http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/arts/music/31sann.html?pagewanted=1&oref=login
http://ilx.p3r.net/thread.php?msgid=5194564
2004: the year 'rockism' broke!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-31 11:00 am (UTC)-krring (http://krrap.blogspot.com)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-31 11:14 am (UTC)I personally feel that conservatives tend to be more idealogical than realistic on issues - and I even got one very conservative to admit as much in a debate I had with him. The neo-conservatives tend to mix religion in with their message, but as you know, it's not just any religion. Liberals want to leave religion out for the most part, because they know it's too messy and exclusive. Liberals tend to tout separtation of church and state more.
I have a real problem with the inclusion of 'values' in politics because to me it's coded language used to make something bad sound good and worthy. It's also a good marketing tool to grab people where it hurts to get them to choose one party over another.
I recently took a political "test" to see where I stood - I supported Democratic, Green, and Liberterian issues. When people ask me where I stand politically, I usually say that I'm progressive - though I am a registered Democrat.
Re: rockism?
Date: 2004-10-31 11:18 am (UTC)As a ceramist I take particular issue with this statement. All though art school I had to hear how superior painting is to other forms of art - and how all other forms of art are superior to ceramics. I say give it a break and just make your art already.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-31 11:41 am (UTC)hi!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-31 12:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-31 12:47 pm (UTC)Re: rockism?
Date: 2004-10-31 01:52 pm (UTC)Electronica has been able to escape rockism for a couple of years, but is now definitely subject to the term and god bless Hypo for destroying that genre a little bit.
I'd also like to take the opportunity to recommend a very good rock band called Ratatat (http://www.audiodregs.com/ratatat/), they rock in a very interesting way.
Re: rockism?
Date: 2004-10-31 02:27 pm (UTC)http://www.jahsonic.com/DiscoSucks.html
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-31 05:10 pm (UTC)Mehmet U
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-31 05:15 pm (UTC)Re: rockism?
Date: 2004-10-31 05:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-31 06:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-31 06:42 pm (UTC)shrunkrap
Date: 2004-10-31 08:23 pm (UTC)Re: rockism?
Date: 2004-11-01 02:08 am (UTC)Re: rockism?
Date: 2004-11-01 03:20 am (UTC)-shane
(no subject)
Date: 2004-11-01 11:04 am (UTC)Any chance of a Momus account appearing on there so we can see what you listen to the most?
permissiveness and control
Date: 2004-11-03 08:52 pm (UTC)The liberal/conservative line, i.e. one dimension, is misleading. It helps slightly to add a 2nd dimension, and to relabel the whole thing. Of course this remains a potentially dangerous oversimplification, but at least it helps get to the point I'd like to make.
One axis has to do with economic permissiveness -- in other words, willingness to mind your own business (literally) and let others do the same. That sounds nice in theory, but it doesn't work out that way. More about that in a moment.
One axis has to do with social permissiveness -- in other words, willingness to live and let live.
The X axis corresponds somewhat well with left/right, or liberal/conservative. For U.S. politics, it may be useful to think about this in terms of labor and business.
The Y axis has to do with liberty and authority. For U.S. politics, it may be useful to think about this in terms of social permissiveness, especially as it relates to religion and specifically puritanical Christianity.
Broadly speaking, the Democratic Party favors liberty in social and religious matters and civil rights. The party favors authority or control in economic matters, with an attitude something along the lines of French notions of "egalité". (I think equality of outcome interferes with equality of opportunity in an overall negative way. French notions of "egalité" don't deal with that problem adequately in my opinion -- hence the bargain European societies have made against elusive ideas like "standard of living" and "innovation".)
The Republican Party favors liberty in economic matters, often with a tacit assumption that the starving just aren't trying hard enough. The Republicans favor authority and control in social matters and civil rights, often to a point of excess law-and-order, and intolerance based on religion.
With either party, it is still a perverse choice between one type of liberty or another.
A Republican would invent a robot to do your job, and then have you rely on charity from mean-spirited, judgemental people to feed yourself. A Democrat would mourn that the robot took your job, and would find another job for you so you can "earn your living". And you might prefer to write poetry while you collect your old wages, minus the cost of the robot.
Rockism
Date: 2004-11-10 11:07 am (UTC)I've read with great interest your piece on Rockism.
Momus, thank you for your intelligence.
http://www.jahsonic.com/Rockism.html
Yours
Jan
PS, I like the livejournal thing, how do I get an account? Can somebody invite me?