|
there are real limits to how much explicitly political information you can give in a performance context--i have seen lots of artists try it---performances, particularly pop/rock performances, are zones of shortened attention spans--you cannot make an argument, you have to traffic in sound bites.
but in a pop format you can make explicit political statements through lyrics for example (the strict constraints of the form at the musical level make parallel sonic statements very difficult)---among the few things i admire about springsteen is the how he has developed various strategies for making large-scale political arguments through songs about particulars.
in this, he has cultivated a level of expertise that far outstrips what you would find in anyone who has gone through undergraduate training in political science.
politics then can be understood as a following from modes of processing experience. this processing can take the form of stories that show the consequences of living in this order. or it can take the form of arguments against that order.
the attempts to invoke some kind of formal training that defines "expertise"---claims that are empty in themselves---function solely as attempts to silence all of this.
for most musicians, there is something political about simply continuing to produce music in the face of indifference, in the face of situations organized around making it difficult to maintain such an engagement.
and it turns out that most who have had to struggle day to day simply to maintain their engagement find themselves politically in opposition to the dominant order.
this opposition often is far more profound than you would imagine.
and it is a cultural opposition.
what freaks out the right is that these people are often very articulate about the exact nature of their opposition.
it does not surprise me, then, that conservatives would be hostile to the fact of artists participating in politics, and that they would whine about how unfair it is blah blah blah. maybe that is because when it comes to finding conservative musicians, they are reduced to country players, and to acting as though conservatism in that context is not every bit as much a marketing tool aimed at a particular demographic as "revolt" is for rock players.
but there is nothing they can do about it.
they have tried gutting funding for the arts.
they have tried imposing censorship on such funding as exists.
they have relied on privatized patronage to impose de facto censorship
they have tried arguing that the market is rational and so mediocrities like dave matthews are legitimate as speakers, only to turn around and criticize these same people when they do speak.
they have tried slander
they have tried everything.
what conservatives want is a wholesale disempowerment of artists.
it follows from the central tenent of their politics, which opposes organization of people, opposes public life, opposes dissent.
that would mean that the disempowerment of artists is like the canary in the mineshaft.
__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
|