These strange staunch men are targeting me with their bad ideas.
We don’t need Walter Benjamin or Theodore Adorno to explain this to us.
If you ain’t Bob Dylan or Stevie Wonder shut the fuck up and explain to us Rawls or Nozick or Rorty or Paz or anybody who’s been politically influential in the last FORTY years.
Or say something beautiful.
Say what?
?.
I disagree, strenuously - if for no other reason than to ge the debate started. There is meant to be a debate here, isn’t there?
I wholeheartedly agree. Now we have two opposing viewpoints.
Let the debate commence.
I went to bed with an angel…
Bono (either one)? Geldof? Avril Lavigne?
[sub]I know Avril Lavigne hasn’t been politically important. I just like the name. It sounds kinda sweet. Say it: Avril Lavigne. Now, doesn’t that sound nice? She’s a little cutie, too. I really haven’t heard too much of her music because I don’t watch MTV or VH1 much, but I’d say her songs seem to fit their format. She doesn’t seem to be like whats-her-name, you know, the little sister of the other whats-her-name? Oh yeah, Jessica. Her little sister is who I mean. She doesn’t seem too talented. But Avril Lavigne seems like she is. She does seem kinda angry, though. I wonder what makes her so pissed off? Maybe it’s just an act. Anyway, I like her name: Avril Lavigne. I’ve never heard of any other ‘Avrils’. There was an Averil Harriman a while back, and he was definitely political. But I don’t think Avril is. But what do I know? Maybe she’s out there canvassing and drumming up the vote for someone in her spare time. She could be, y’know. Anyway, that’s all I had to say.[/sub]
Aw man… rock and roll is so much more than just about politics dude. Far out… music is like water being spilled on top of a large round boulder - it goes in every direction.
Getting caught up in personalities and all that crap is like two fleags arguing about who owns the dog they’re living on. Sure, you’ll find people who wanna chime in - and doubtless a few Dopers will here too - but it’s still a case of splitting hairs and missing the point.
Rock and Roll. See Led Zeppelin IV, Side One, Song Two. All your answers in one fell swoop.
Been a long time, Been a long time, Been a long lonely lonely lonely long time.
I am moving this to Cafe Society, the appropriate Forum for discussions of arts and entertainment. However, if the OP does not return soon to actually put forth a coherent expression on some topic, the thread will most likely be closed.
[ /Moderator Mode ]
Sorry Tom, not my intention to seem incoherent. I don’t think this is necessarily an arts and entertainment topic though.
I’m a new member here so I do apologise if I’m not up to speed.
To paraphrase my original intention in an open way: How does the post war cultural revolution jive with pre war literary theory and present day political thought, and do you think any of our 2005 protagonists (apeing their latter day heroes) have anything historically significant to say.
Went a little heavy on the Turkey Day wine, did we?
It’s only rock and roll.
Um, and I like it.
Do you?
The key figure here is Lionel Trilling (1905-1975) http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/hopkins_guide_to_literary_theory/lionel_trilling.html who took his degree a mere six years after T.S. Eliot’s “The Function of Criticism” and just as the new criticism movement http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/virtualit/poetry/critical_define/crit_newcrit.html was gaining traction in America. He would go on to write the definitive studies of Matthew Arnold and E.M. Forster as well as the brilliant essays collected in The Liberal Imagination (1950), in which he scolded, from a purely literary perspective, the American left for what he felt was an empty, bankrupt faith in their power to remake society for the better.
Of course the rarefied air of literary and cultural criticism might never have mixed with the more heady, marijuana-laced atmosphere of the sixties had Trilling not approached fellow critic and onetime Vanity Fair editor Edmund Wilson (1895-1972) http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAwilsonE.htm with an astonishing plan. Together, they would disguise themselves, and posing as brothers under the names Ron and Scott Asheton, form the Detroit proto-punk band The Stooges with lead singer Iggy Pop http://www.geocities.com/mnennoburke/stooges.html . They toured with the band until its demise in 1973, an end due partly to the folding of the Raw Power record label and partly to Wilson’s death the previous year. It had been Wilson’s job to poke their volatile frontman with a sharp stick for an hour before each performance: without that stimulus, rock star/cultural icon David Bowie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Bowie would say later, Iggy “just wasn’t the same performer. His career might have been over right then. Fortunately, he discovered drugs just in time.”
Although Lionel Trilling died in 1975, the punk rock style he invented lived on, affecting the political landscape in a profound way. Politicians of all stripes had something to publicly condemn and privately envy. When The Clash http://punkandoi.free.fr/clash_biography.htm told the world in the early 80s to “Know Your Rights” many were inspired to look into it. The Soviet Union collapsed a mere seven years later.
Today, there is a new generation to cope with modern problems of political activism/literary criticism/power chord sustaining, and a new language with which that generation expresses it. Thus Marx could say “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need,” Meese could say “You couldn’t prove the White House staff sane beyond a reasonable doubt,” and Aguilera can say “Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, oh yeah,” and the discerning eye can see not just the superficial chaos but the developing pattern underlying the always-moving, kaleidoscopic cultural Big Picture.
Damn good essay question.
Let my sum up my view on the subject: I’ve never asked a musician for medial advice.
That would be “medical”
What’s with the jive talk? It doesn’t jibe with your OP.
Yes, I do.
OK, then. Cite please. 