decomposition of culture

[Zanthorus]

the assult on humanity found from Dada through to post-modernism and punk represent a class enemy.

:blink:

Are you serious? This takes the Leninist authoritarian stereotype to a whole new level...

[Palingenisis]

:blink:

Are you serious? This takes the Leninist authoritarian stereotype to a whole new level...

Im deadly serious.

"Punk","hip-hop" and western "pop" music in general as cultural phenomena are class enemies. I personally believe that communists try to restrict their listening to the apex of bourgious music such as Beethovan and Schubert which show forth a geniunely human richness and striving for freedom and folk music.

[Palingenisis]

I do listen to some "neo-folk" and "dark ambient" music because it does sum up the desolation that surrounds us however I feel sort of guilty about doing so.

[Zanthorus]

Im deadly serious.

"Punk","hip-hop" and western "pop" music in general as cultural phenomena are class enemies.

I don't know exactly where you live but where I'm from most working-class people listen to that kind of music.


I personally believe that communists try to restrict their listening to the apex of bourgious music such as Beethovan and Schubert which show forth a geniunely human richness and striving for freedom and folk music.

Wait, so pop music is a class enemy yet the music that pompous elitists listen to isn't?

[Palingenisis]

I don't know exactly where you live but where I'm from most working-class people listen to that kind of music.


I live in Ireland where most working class people vote for Fianna Fail which is a "try to please everyone all the time but make sure you please the most powerful first" popualist party that co-operates fully with American and British Imperialism...Just because most working class vote for them doesnt make them less class enemies. Most working class people in the USA probably voted Obamha...Does that make him not a class enemy?

[Palingenisis]

Wait, so pop music is a class enemy yet the music that pompous elitists listen to isn't?

Okay so the cultural achievements of the past are only for "pompous" elitists because us plebs are just to stupid to appreciate anything higher than someone shouting over five chords or something along that line?

[Zanthorus]

I live in Ireland where most working class people vote for Fianna Fail which is a "try to please everyone all the time but make sure you please the most powerful first" popualist party that co-operates fully with American and British Imperialism...Just because most working class vote for them doesnt make them less class enemies. Most working class people in the USA probably voted Obamha...Does that make him not a class enemy?

Of course it doesn't. But Obama and Fianna Fail are political forces which have the ability to shape the world. Voting for them furthers capitalism. On the other hand me listening to Rage Against the Machine isn't exactly helping to prop up imperialism.

EDIT:


Okay so the cultural achievements of the past are only for "pompous" elitists because us plebs are just to stupid to appreciate anything higher than someone shouting over five chords or something along that line?

No, because Beethoven is boring as anything and I don't know anyone who actually listens to classical music.

[Palingenisis]

Of course it doesn't. But Obama and Fianna Fail are political forces which have the ability to shape the world. Voting for them furthers capitalism. On the other hand me listening to Rage Against the Machine isn't exactly helping to prop up imperialism.
.

Its debatable whether Fianna Fail have any power to actually shape the world and if they do they dont use it, they are shaped by whatever stronger force pops its head up.

And yes I would say that listening to Rage Against the Machine does in a way help to prop up capitalism because their musical style which swamps the listening with semi if not more so discordant niose along with it harsh repititive rythmns is a reflection of the real domination of capitalism that doesnt allow (or tries to prevent) a geniune reflection upon and a seeking to order and understand the facts of our existence.

[Palingenisis]

No, because Beethoven is boring as anything and I don't know anyone who actually listens to classical music.

Beethovan is certainly not boring...If you say that I can only presume that you have never really listened to him. Infact he could be called the Shakespeare of music in that expresses the widest possible range of human emotions, moods and experiances through is music with an unparrelled depth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2cFEHM9yMw

Listen to that an honestly tell me its "boring".

I really hope that you are under twenty if you dont know anyone who listens to classical (strictly speaking Beethovan is romantic and not classical music). It is frightening to see what depths than that England has fallen into it through Thatcher.

[Palingenisis]

My views are perfectly in line with those of the Albanian working class when they maintained power.

Yeah okay you lot dont consider the working class was in power in Albania....

[S.Artesian]

Beethovan is certainly not boring...If you say that I can only presume that you have never really listened to him. Infact he could be called the Shakespeare of music in that expresses the widest possible range of human emotions, moods and experiances through is music with an unparrelled depth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2cFEHM9yMw

Listen to that an honestly tell me its "boring".

I really hope that you are under twenty if you dont know anyone who listens to classical (strictly speaking Beethovan is romantic and not classical music). It is frightening to see what depths than that England has fallen into it through Thatcher.


"After Beethoven, nothing is the same. After Beethoven, nothing can be the same."

[Zanthorus]

Listen to that an honestly tell me its "boring".

That was quite nice actually...

Anyway I can't be bothered to carry on this debate. It's getting absurd.

[black magick hustla]

and the assult on humanity found from Dada through to post-modernism and punk represent a class enemy.
you sound like adorno.

dada was not an assault against "humanity", it was an assault against the cultural values and the national logic that led to the imperialist world war . it tried to show that all those fancy intellectuals and moral authorities were nothing but windbags.

i like punk a lot. what is your problem with it? i cant mosh to beethoven

[Palingenisis]

you sound like adorno.


Well there are things I dont like about Adorno but I think a lot of his cultural writings and critques contributed a lot to the workers' movement. I also greatly value the literary criticism of Luckas (spelt right?).

[Palingenisis]

you sound like adorno.


Did Adorno write anything ever speficially about DaDa?

[Zanthorus]

i cant mosh to beethoven

amen to that :cool:

[black magick hustla]

Did Adorno write anything ever speficially about DaDa?

no but he bashed jazz for similar reasons.

[S.Artesian]

Well there are things I dont like about Adorno but I think a lot of his cultural writings and critques contributed a lot to the workers' movement. I also greatly value the literary criticism of Luckas (spelt right?).


Lukacs. And Adorno's criticism of music-- specifically jazz -- doesn't count as a contribution to anything other than the blindness of some unconscious allegiance to German "high culture," the ignorance of the historical and cultural roots of music, the futility of forcing ideology upon art, and as backhanded support for racism as it was specifically black music, music that had its origins in the fusion and disparity of African rhythms and structure with the ante-bellum and post-bellum experience of African-Americans.

So.... so we need to take a lesson, and if you don't like hip hop, fine you don't like it; and if you find Beethoven boring-- that's OK, but that doesn't make hip hop the class enemy, and it doesn't make Beethoven the social revolutionary, the "approved" music.

And if it's got a good beat, and makes you move your feet, that's what counts, so get up and dance to it.

As George Clinton sang in One Nation Under A Groove

"This is a chance to dance our way
Out of our constrictions"

Don't know where you're from comrade, but I spent lots of time in Detroit, and if you couldn't dance you were getting nowhere and fast with the sisters. And those sisters were powerful.

[black magick hustla]

i also will like to mention that both high and low culture have their value. have you ever been to a punk show palingenesis? the amount of cathartic emotions and full blown adrenaline is something you will never get out of a classical music show.

[Devrim]

i also will like to mention that both high and low culture have their value. have you ever been to a punk show palingenesis? the amount of cathartic emotions and full blown adrenaline is something you will never get out of a classical music show.
Yes, I am not a punk man at all, but I remember seeing the Clash at Manchester Apollo, and it being pretty impressive.

Devrim

[Palingenisis]

i also will like to mention that both high and low culture have their value. have you ever been to a punk show palingenesis? the amount of cathartic emotions and full blown adrenaline is something you will never get out of a classical music show.

Yes I have been to punk shows....Growing up in the belly of the beast these sort of things are hard to avoid. The point I was trying to make is that emotions both in the music and in the crowd at a punk gig generally are overwhelming to the point, a vague undefined anger along with a celebration of "energy" for its own sake...They make me feel trapped, despairing, that the world has closed in and no longer allows a real coming together of thought and action to achieve something...Just like the rest of capitalism does. I enjoyed them though when I was a kid and hadnt started thinking. I dont know anything about Jazz at all so I cant really comment...Someone who does told me that Adrono was unfair to it...Maybe he was....But the principles in his critque of it I believe are correct.

Thanks mod for splitting this!

[which doctor]

no but he bashed jazz for similar reasons.
I thought you said you've never read adorno...and it shows...

When Adorno talks about jazz he's referring to big-band and swing music, people like Benny Goodman, which was the beginning of what is now known as pop music. Adorno was taught music by Alban Berg in the high-modernist tradition and was a trained musicologist. He didn't bash jazz because it was a class enemy, but because of the way it was beginning to become standardized and interchangable, and the effect it had on the listener was they they became unable to appreciate actual modernist music. He didn't think high-modernist music was something that needed to be confined to high-bougeois culture, but something that everyone could become capable of listening and reacting to, and he did research at the Princeton Radio Project on this exact topic. Adorno was first and foremost interested in music (and art in general) that pointed towards the revolution, which for him in the early 20th century was best exemplified by Schoenberg. Schoenberg's music used to inspire people to get into fights in the middle of his concerts. If that's not revolutionary art, I don't know what is. Adorno's point is precisely that people don't care about art anymore, and they're reactions to it are entirely passive.

[Palingenisis]

I just wanted to re-post this here because it started it all...

I dont think anyone here is arguing that culture should be static however there is the fact that any writing, painting, music, etc draws on and develops what went before it...From where will the "post-revolutionary" culture draw? I think it should be remembered that the village commune under fuedalism was in many ways more "free" than your average dweller in a modern metropolis who's thinking and everyday life is much more dominated by his or her oppressor (capital). What is essentially human in the old folk cultures and in the culture of the ascendent bourgiouse is what any post revolutionary culture will bring out and draw on....However the products of a decadent capitalist "cultural industry" and the assult on humanity found from Dada through to post-modernism and punk represent a class enemy.

[Robocommie]

How utterly absurd to make musical tastes and cultural preferences a question of class struggle.

[bcbm]

They make me feel trapped, despairing, that the world has closed in and no longer allows a real coming together of thought and action to achieve something.

i'd say punk represents a pretty successful coming together of thought and action to achieve something, actually, given that it exists across almost the entire globe and has formed an intricate, self-supporting network of bands, venues, labels, etc.

[black magick hustla]

I dont feel like this at all. I feel actually liberated. Best high I can get without resorting to substances.

[quote]actual modernist music

boooooooooooooooooooooooooooring

[Robocommie]

I dont feel like this at all. I feel actually liberated. Best high I can get without resorting to substances.


And this is the essence of what music is, isn't it? The argument that music can be a class enemy is incredibly foolish, I feel, because what speaks to the soul or heart of one person will leave another totally uninspired, and vice versa. Who knows why people are like this? And yet they are.

I mean, if we are to suggest that only Socialist Realist forms of art are suitable, for example, then what about people like Fela Kuti or Gil Scott Heron? What about alternative forms of expression? It's ludicrous, it has the potential to become a complete catastrophe.

[Devrim]

How utterly absurd to make musical tastes and cultural preferences a question of class struggle.

I think only one person is doing it.

Devrim

[Devrim]

i'd say punk represents a pretty successful coming together of thought and action to achieve something, actually, given that it exists across almost the entire globe and has formed an intricate, self-supporting network of bands, venues, labels, etc.

I'd say it respresnts a pretty unsuccesful business, but then I'm a left communist cynic.;)

Devrim

[Robocommie]

I think only one person is doing it.

Devrim

I just hope he's the only one with this perspective.

[black magick hustla]

I'd say it respresnts a pretty unsuccesful business, but then I'm a left communist cynic.;)

Devrim
'

you know what is funny? there is a music venue where they have a lot of punk bands here in lansing owned by Spartacist supporters. They sell spartacist newspapers and stuff. I would never imagine spartacists involved in punk....

[black magick hustla]

I'd say it respresnts a pretty unsuccesful business, but then I'm a left communist cynic.;)

Devrim

Also. There is something interesting to be said here. One of the mexican ICC comrades told me that their biggest point of diffusion is this music flea market thing. Apparently, she told me, a lot of punks start getting into anarchy out of fashion but then they read about it and some get interested in marxist politics. So apparently the mexican icc reading circle has a bunch of punk rockers

[Raúl Duke]

There's a lot of people with a similar perspective but with different ideologies...

I usually seen libertarians and certain people with reactionary tendencies glorify this "high culture" and look down upon the "plebes' culture" although there are those 'socialists' who hate popular music and like to listen to Soviet marching band this or that.

Usually, one argument is that the stuff the popular stuff "comes from above" so its "bourgeois and/or class enemy" but the issue is many popular forms of music has had its lowly origins. For example, rap in the past was not as it is today (it had a focus on life in poor african american communities instead of being rich in the club) but it was always to some differing degrees a popular form of music. Beethoven and most classical music has always come from above. Why should we renounce our music (or other cultural forms) and adopt the music and culture of our class enemy? Why be ashamed?

[Alf]

I think it's very mechanistic to consider that all cultural expressions become completely decadent or negative once capitalism becomes decadent as a mode of production. For a start during the revolutionary wave after 1917 there were art movements like Dada and surrealism which directly identified with the proletarian revolution; but it's a bigger question than the political line taken by art movements. The same period of general popular creativity also saw the rise of jazz and its various offspring, for example; and even when such an artistic form expresses a purely individual sense of dissatisfaction, it is still part of a more general human reaction to living in an inhuman society which represses our most basic energies.
I think the idea that communists should all have the same artistic/musical tastes is entirely Stalinst, and it's not surprising that Palingenisis, who often seems to write quite interesting stuff, suffers from the delusion that the working class held power in Hoxhha's nightmare Stalinist state in Albania. On the contrary, communists should be open to investigating what's positive in all cultural phenomena, while of course criticising the way it is distorted and recuperated by capitalism. More fruitful, for example, to see what is really creative and even subversive in some forms of hip hop and to show how the genre has been shamefully recuperated by capital than to dismiss the whole genre as a pure product of decomposition. More fruitful to analyse why the sublime music of Beethoven expresses the heroism and universal vision of the revoltionary bourgeoisie than to fall into either the elitist view that everything since then is just junk or into the equally narrow minded view that classical music (or indeed any form of music more than about five years old) is just boring old man's stuff....

[which doctor]

I think it should be remembered that the village commune under fuedalism was in many ways more "free" than your average dweller in a modern metropolis who's thinking and everyday life is much more dominated by his or her oppressor (capital).
No fucking way my friend. In a peasant village your thinking and everyday life was restricted to the confines of your tiny village and the chores you had to do, like milking the cows and churning the butter, etc. You simply didn't know anything outside of your tiny existence. The great thing about capitalism is that it did free us from the confines of feudalism, from being stuck in authoritarian, patriarchal familes, from never knowing anything outside of your own village, free to travel, free to sell your labour to whomever you choose, free to have sex with whomever you want, free to choose whom you marry, etc. In feudalism, the peasants were tied to the land, and didn't know anything outside of that. Capitalism broke that tie and advanced the project of human freedom in ways that were really profound for the blossoming of human culture.

[Robocommie]

No fucking way my friend. In a peasant village your thinking and everyday life was restricted to the confines of your tiny village and the chores you had to do, like milking the cows and churning the butter, etc. You simply didn't know anything outside of your tiny existence. The great thing about capitalism is that it did free us from the confines of feudalism, from being stuck in authoritarian, patriarchal familes, from never knowing anything outside of your own village, free to travel, free to sell your labour to whomever you choose, free to have sex with whomever you want, free to choose whom you marry, etc. In feudalism, the peasants were tied to the land, and didn't know anything outside of that. Capitalism broke that tie and advanced the project of human freedom in ways that were really profound for the blossoming of human culture.

I just want to point out though, that in actual fact most people don't realize just how often medieval people got it on. They were a bunch of horny bastards. Part of this was because the lack of meat in the diet meant that fertility took a longer time to develop, and so most people had a few years to play around without any consequences.

That, and marriage was not very common among the peasantry, it was more of something for the well to do.

[Palingenisis]

How utterly absurd to make musical tastes and cultural preferences a question of class struggle.

Sorry comrade but its not and indeed to suggest that its not a question of class struggle is entirely out of line with the revolutionary communist movement for most of its history. I think that you should check out this article from the Peking Review from 1974 which addresses the question. The idea that class struggle is purely tied to economic issues I dont believe can be considered Marxist.

http://www.marxists.org/subject/china/peking-review/1974/PR1974-09d.htm

"WITH the deepening of the movement to criticize Lin Piao and rectify the style of work and new victories being continually won in the struggle-criticism-transformation in the realm of the superstructure, an excellent situation prevails in the country. But the class struggle and the two-line struggle on the art and literary front remain very sharp and complex. The recent weird contention that so-called absolute music has no social content but simply expresses contrasting and changing moods is a sign of a return to the revisionist line in art and literature.
Should the reactionary nature of this erroneous view be exposed or not? This is a cardinal issue of right and wrong and we cannot treat it casually. It involves the question of whether or not the Marxist-Leninist theory of class struggle should be recognized as a universally applicable truth, whether or not the proletarian dictatorship should be exercised in the ideological realm, and whether the Marxist critical attitude should be adopted towards the bourgeois arts or whether they should be “taken over wholesale” as the revisionist fallacies of Chou Yang and his like advocated; it involves the question of whether the proletarian revolution in art and literature can be carried through to the end...."

[Robocommie]

Usually, one argument is that the stuff the popular stuff "comes from above" so its "bourgeois and/or class enemy" but the issue is many popular forms of music has had its lowly origins. For example, rap in the past was not as it is today (it had a focus on life in poor african american communities instead of being rich in the club) but it was always to some differing degrees a popular form of music. Beethoven and most classical music has always come from above. Why should we renounce our music (or other cultural forms) and adopt the music and culture of our class enemy? Why be ashamed?

Rap started out proletarian as shit and it still is if you listen to the right people. Folks still freestyle on street corners, it's not like pop music killed that.

That, and while I realize some people hate the glorification of gang culture, gangster rap had some extremely militant, anti-authoritarian messages back in the day.

[Raúl Duke]

Rap started out proletarian as shit and it still is if you listen to the right people. Folks still freestyle on street corners, it's not like pop music killed that.

That, and while I realize some people hate the glorification of gang culture, gangster rap had some extremely militant, anti-authoritarian messages back in the day.

Yes, I know

This is something that should be pointed out.
While the likes of Beethoven and most of classical music has always been from the upper class.


Sorry comrade but its not and indeed to suggest that its not a question of class struggle is entirely out of line with the revolutionary communist movement for most of its history. I think that you should check out this article from the Peking Review from 1974 which addresses the question. The idea that class struggle is purely tied to economic issues I dont believe can be considered Marxist.


Posting a link does not prove a point...and all because Mao or some great comrade said so doesn't automatically mean its right or true.

Prove us that it is a question of class struggle in your own words.

[Robocommie]

Yes, I know

Sorry man, meant to merely agree with you, not trying to imply you were ignorant of it.


This is something that should be pointed out.
While the likes of Beethoven and most of classical music has always been from the upper class.

Yeah, most classical compositions were bought and paid for by the European aristocracy. It's the music of the late feudal era. Mind you, I personally love classical music, but let's not be mistaken about where it comes from, you know?

[mosfeld]

"hip-hop" [...] music in general as cultural phenomena are class enemies. I personally believe that communists try to restrict their listening to the apex of bourgious music such as Beethovan and Schubert which show forth a geniunely human richness and striving for freedom and folk music. How is hip hop a class enemy? Almost all hip hop is legitimate venting and anger at the horrid oppression, mainly, though not limited to, African-Americans face in the USA. A major portion of hip hop is black nationalist, promotes militancy and is progressive anyways. Yo, when did Mozart rhyme about the realities of the streets of da Holy Roman €mpire? Word up!

[black magick hustla]

To be honest, palingenesis is right. The class struggle in a sense, is also a kulturkampf. Is a war through music, through letters, through panplhets, in the streets, in the minds of men. The Bolsheviks knew this, Mayakovsky and the futurist communists wrote explosive poetry celebrating the revolution. Eisenstein filmed action filled movies celebrating the courage of the sailors. To quote Lafargue:


The revolutionary socialists must take up again the battle fought by the philosophers and pamphleteers of the bourgeoisie; they must march up to the assault of the ethics and the social theories of capitalism; they must demolish in the heads of the class which they call to action the prejudices sown in them by the ruling class; they must proclaim in the faces of the hypocrites of all ethical systems that the earth shall cease to be the vale of tears for the laborer; that in the communist society of the future, which we shall establish “peaceably if we may, forcibly if we must,” the impulses of men will be given a free rein, for “all these impulses are by nature good, we have nothing to avoid but their misuse and their excesses,”

[which doctor]

I just want to point out though, that in actual fact most people don't realize just how often medieval people got it on. They were a bunch of horny bastards. Part of this was because the lack of meat in the diet meant that fertility took a longer time to develop, and so most people had a few years to play around without any consequences.

That, and marriage was not very common among the peasantry, it was more of something for the well to do.

Okay. But I think my overarching point still stands: that we should maintain no illusions of feudal society being any more free than capitalist society is. Capitalism freed people from their ties to the land. That's not to say that there's no short-end of the stick in capitalism, as the over a billion lumpen-proletariat living in slums and shanty towns around the world have it pretty bad, but the industrial proletariat is the revolutionary class precisely because it was given this certain level of freedom under capitalism, and they are the only ones in the position to push their freedom beyond capitalism and into socialism by socializing the means of production.

[Robocommie]

I agree with you on that, maldoror, but I would hope that we would not find certain types of music banned or labeled as ideologically problematic after the revolution.

[Palingenisis]

While the likes of Beethoven and most of classical music has always been from the upper class.
.

Thats simply an idiotic statement to make.

Infact in my experiance working class or people from working class are much more geniunely in culture for what it can actually give them as opposed to the upper classes who generally just occasionally indulge in such things for their "snob value". Plenty of working class people read poetry, serious novels and go to the concert hall.

[Robocommie]

Thats simply an idiotic statement to make.

Infact in my experiance working class or people from working class are much more geniunely in culture for what it can actually give them as opposed to the upper classes who generally just occasionally indulge in such things for their "snob value". Plenty of working class people read poetry, serious novels and go to the concert hall.

Theatre tickets can cost a shitload of dimes, man.

[Palingenisis]

Theatre tickets can cost a shitload of dimes, man.

So can tickets for pop concerts....And the fashions promoted by a lot of so-called "proletarian" music...

[black magick hustla]

So can tickets for pop concerts....And the fashions promoted by a lot of so-called "proletarian" music...

Tbh, depends. All classical music shows Ive been too costed above 20 dollars. Ive been to plenty of punk music shows that costed little more than 10 dollars. One of the best music shows, which had a lot of powerviolence/punk/ dance punk bands was in detroit for like 15 dollars.

[Palingenisis]

Tbh, depends. All classical music shows Ive been too costed above 20 dollars. Ive been to plenty of punk music shows that costed little more than 10 dollars. One of the best music shows, which had a lot of powerviolence/punk/ dance punk bands was in detroit for like 15 dollars.

Yes true in the case of Punk shows in experiance they tend to be cheaper than "classical" music ones in general...But when it comes to more "mainstream" rock/pop/rap concerts then those tend to be more expensive than the concert hall.

[Robocommie]

So can tickets for pop concerts....And the fashions promoted by a lot of so-called "proletarian" music...

Music exists outside of concerts, it's on the street or in the bars or wherever people have time and the inclination.

[Devrim]

A major portion of hip hop is black nationalist, promotes militancy and is progressive anyways.

I'd imagine that nearly half of the people who have posted on this thread don't think black nationalism is in anyway progressive.

Devrim

[Raúl Duke]

Thats simply an idiotic statement to make.

Infact in my experiance working class or people from working class are much more geniunely in culture for what it can actually give them as opposed to the upper classes who generally just occasionally indulge in such things for their "snob value". Plenty of working class people read poetry, serious novels and go to the concert hall.

It's not an idiotic statement...you are either misunderstanding or spinning it to suit your purpose....

It's not a secret that the music you mentioned (Beethoven and classical music classics) were created for the upper class, paid by the upper class, etc.

No where did I say that a member of the working class cannot appreciate "high culture" literature, etc.

[black magick hustla]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t16ZxdALFeM&feature=related

i am a black metal knight

[black magick hustla]

Yes true in the case of Punk shows in experiance they tend to be cheaper than "classical" music ones in general...But when it comes to more "mainstream" rock/pop/rap concerts then those tend to be more expensive than the concert hall.

it has also to do with the fact that setting up a rock music show is much more cheaper than the dozens of people you need for a classical tune

[Robocommie]

i am a black metal knight

you people worship the devil

[Palingenisis]

How is hip hop a class enemy? Almost all hip hop is legitimate venting and anger at the horrid oppression, mainly, though not limited to, African-Americans face in the USA. A major portion of hip hop is black nationalist, promotes militancy and is progressive anyways. Yo, when did Mozart rhyme about the realities of the streets of da Holy Roman €mpire? Word up!

When I got out of my house I often see groups of mostly guys gathered around listening to rap music in awful sportswear that costs a fortune...A lot of the time they get off on intimidating people (even elderly people) and our involved in various types of petty crime. Yeah they are "angry" but I dont think "anger" in and of itself is progressive. I think rap with its emphasis on "bling, bling" and being cooler or whatever than the other person a lot of the time promotes the values of the "lumpen bourgiouse". Soul, Gospel and Blues were/are much richer and deeper.

And unlike Devrim I do support national liberation for the New Afrikan nation caught inside US borders. I really admire Harry Haywood for example.

[black magick hustla]

When I got out of my house I often see groups of mostly guys gathered around listening to rap music in awful sportswear that costs a fortune...A lot of the time they get off on intimidating people (even elderly people) and our involved in various types of petty crime. Yeah they are "angry" but I dont think "anger" in and of itself is progressive. I think rap with its emphasis on "bling, bling" and being cooler or whatever than the other person a lot of the time promotes the values of the "lumpen bourgiouse". Soul, Gospel and Blues were/are much richer and deeper.

And unlike Devrim I do support national liberation for the New Afrikan nation caught inside US borders. I really admire Harry Haywood for example.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiQoVv0FSKQ


I'm on a Mission, that niggaz say is Impossible
But when I swing my swords they all choppable
I be the body dropper, the heartbeat stopper
Child educator, plus head amputator
Cause niggaz styles are old like Mark 5 sneakers
Lyrics are weak, like clock radio speakers
Don't even stop in my station and attack
while your plan failed, hit the rail, like Amtrak
What the fuck for? Down by law, I make law
I be justice, I sentence that ass two to four
round the clock, that state pen time check it
With the pens I be stickin but you can't stick to crime
Came through with the Wu, slid off on the DL
I'm low-key like seashells, I rock these bells
Now come aboard, it's Medina bound
Into the chamber, and it's a whole different sound
It's a wide entrance, small exit like a funnel
So deep it's picked up on radios in tunnels
Niggaz are fascinated how the shit begin
Get vaccinated, my logo is branded in your skin


if that isnt art i dont know what it is

[Robocommie]

When I got out of my house I often see groups of mostly guys gathered around listening to rap music in awful sportswear that costs a fortune...A lot of the time they get off on intimidating people (even elderly people) and our involved in various types of petty crime.

Is this what it comes down to comrade? "Kids today and their rap music"?

[Palingenisis]

It's not an idiotic statement...you are either misunderstanding or spinning it to suit your purpose....

It's not a secret that the music you mentioned (Beethoven and classical music classics) were created for the upper class, paid by the upper class, etc.

No where did I say that a member of the working class cannot appreciate "high culture" literature, etc.

Beethovan in no way could be described as upper class. Nor could a lot if not most of composers. I cant think of one off hand who came from aristocratic or big capitalist background.

[bailey_187]

What about Grime music? Its roots are very working class. Kids in London spitting on pirate radio. Other than a select few, no one is a big selling artist; and the few who are dont even make Grime anymore.

[Raúl Duke]

Again, you keep misunderstanding...

For who was that music made for? Who paid for it to be made?

the aristrocracy

[bailey_187]

When I got out of my house I often see groups of mostly guys gathered around listening to rap music in awful sportswear that costs a fortune...A lot of the time they get off on intimidating people (even elderly people) and our involved in various types of petty crime. Yeah they are "angry" but I dont think "anger" in and of itself is progressive. I think rap with its emphasis on "bling, bling" and being cooler or whatever than the other person a lot of the time promotes the values of the "lumpen bourgiouse". Soul, Gospel and Blues were/are much richer and deeper.

If i was to go to Bethoven appreciation society or go hear a classical band replay his music etc, i would see nobody but members of the ruling class in the audience.



And unlike Devrim I do support national liberation for the New Afrikan nation caught inside US borders. I really admire Harry Haywood for example.

then you should listen dead prez

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7FJ4AvdTXw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fort6QXhSZU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peU7fCMDo6Q
"i studied Chairman Mao, Malcolm and Mau Mau"

When i went see Dead Prez too there was two Communist groups there, people in Che shirts, and a big discussion outside afterwards about racism etc; how is that reactionary?

[Palingenisis]

Again, you keep misunderstanding...

For who was that music made for? Who paid for it to be made?

the aristrocracy

This was true in the 17th and for a large part of the early 18 th century...Beethovan did not write his music for the aristocracy and was infact not exactly their biggest fan.

[black magick hustla]

If i was to go to Bethoven appreciation society or go hear a classical band replay his music etc, i would see nobody but members of the ruling class in the audience.




then you should listen dead prez

-7FJ4AvdTXw

Fort6QXhSZU

peU7fCMDo6Q
"i studied Chairman Mao, Malcolm and Mau Mau"

gza is way better

[Robocommie]

Beethovan in no way could be described as upper class. Nor could a lot if not most of composers. I cant think of one off hand who came from aristocratic or big capitalist background.

Man the point is that most of them were patronized by the aristocracy. They wrote music for the courts of the elite, in particular, the Emperor of Austria.

Haven't you ever seen the movie Amadeus?

[Palingenisis]

If i was to go to Bethoven appreciation society or go hear a classical band replay his music etc, i would see nobody but members of the ruling class in the audience.


Have you ever been to Beethovan concert? Maybe if you did it would change your mind about the class composition of his audience.

And as your flying the flag of the Stalin Society maybe you can tell me why western rock and pop music was banned in Socialist Albania but Beethovan wasnt?

[bailey_187]

gza is way better

dont hang me but i find him boring on his own.

[S.Artesian]

I thought you said you've never read adorno...and it shows...

When Adorno talks about jazz he's referring to big-band and swing music, people like Benny Goodman, which was the beginning of what is now known as pop music. Adorno was taught music by Alban Berg in the high-modernist tradition and was a trained musicologist. He didn't bash jazz because it was a class enemy, but because of the way it was beginning to become standardized and interchangable, and the effect it had on the listener was they they became unable to appreciate actual modernist music. He didn't think high-modernist music was something that needed to be confined to high-bougeois culture, but something that everyone could become capable of listening and reacting to, and he did research at the Princeton Radio Project on this exact topic. Adorno was first and foremost interested in music (and art in general) that pointed towards the revolution, which for him in the early 20th century was best exemplified by Schoenberg. Schoenberg's music used to inspire people to get into fights in the middle of his concerts. If that's not revolutionary art, I don't know what is. Adorno's point is precisely that people don't care about art anymore, and they're reactions to it are entirely passive.


Admittedly, it's been a long time since I read that essay-- any essay-- by Adorno, but I don't recall him distinguishing between the swing, big band of BennyGoodman, and say Duke Ellington, or Charlie Mingus.

I don't recall him praising Count Basie, or Bird, of Diz and trashing the ersatz "lite" jazz-- I do recall him saying something about cacaphony and the generally unstructured content as being symbolic of "impotence" in the face of the modern world.

[bailey_187]

Have you ever been to Beethovan concert? Maybe if you did it would change your mind about the class composition of his audience.

Unfortunatly not. If there actually is a large working class presence at Beethoven concerts (obv i mean some sort of tribute concert) than 1)i a surprised and sorry 2) why the fuck dont i know anyone who listens to him, let alone go and hear his music?


And as your flying the flag of the Stalin Society maybe you can tell me why western rock and pop music was banned in Socialist Albania but Beethovan wasnt?

It was seen as capitalist decadence i am guessing. It doesnt mean it was correct.

[black magick hustla]

atz "lite" jazz-- I do recall him saying something about cacaphony and the generally unstructured content as being symbolic of "impotence" in the face of the modern world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuYjXx_I_RE

this is cacophony and its gr8t

[Palingenisis]

Man the point is that most of them were patronized by the aristocracy. They wrote music for the courts of the elite, in particular, the Emperor of Austria.

Haven't you ever seen the movie Amadeus?

Yes and I wanted to punch the guy playing Mozart all the way through. Beethovan isnt Mozart though and as even someone from the ICC admitted Beethovan incarnates the heroism of the revolutionary bourgiouse in his music. The thing is though that Mozart's music in its depth captures and expresses the richness of for a want of a better word the human spirt than the musical expressions of the decomposition of capitalism, and surely it is that "human spirt" which as socialists we seek to realise for its distortions due to the tryanny of the reign of value?

[Palingenisis]

Unfortunatly not. If there actually is a large working class presence at Beethoven concerts (obv i mean some sort of tribute concert) than 1)i a surprised and sorry 2) why the fuck dont i know anyone who listens to him, let alone go and hear his music?
.

Well a upper middle class girl recently said words basically the same to me, that if "classical music" is so good why did she know no one who listens to it? The answer is that we are slipping further and further into barbarism and so the cultural inheritance of the past is being lost which makes revolution more and more a necesscity.

Someone should revive the slogan "Socialism or Barbarism".

[bailey_187]

the richness of for a want of a better word the human spirt than the musical expressions of the decomposition of capitalism, and surely it is that "human spirt" which as socialists we seek to realise for its distortions due to the tryanny of the reign of value?

So does Saigon in "Saigon Sings the Blues"

(obviosuly i am not saying Saigon is anywhere near such a great musician as Bethoven - although i would rather listen Saigon)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gQvQZEkaMI

[S.Artesian]

Have you ever been to Beethovan concert? Maybe if you did it would change your mind about the class composition of his audience.

And as your flying the flag of the Stalin Society maybe you can tell me why western rock and pop music was banned in Socialist Albania but Beethovan wasnt?


The connection between music and the material conditions of its creations is not a linear correspondence. If you want to point out that it is Napoleon's consolidation, and termination, of the French Revolution that provides the backdrop to Beethoven's breakthrough in composition, chords etc... fine, but that what makes Beethoven's musical composition revolutionary is not its politics-- he did after all write a perfectly terrible piece of music honoring Wellington-- but the way he composed it as music.

Leave the ideology out of it. You want to call the Clash, the Sex Pistols, Sham 69 "class enemies" because they're so what? noisy? and Coltrane, what's his music? "primitive"? "mystical"? because he wrote A Love Supreme?

And Pharaoh Sanders? Fundamentalist, because he wrote The Creator Has a Master Plan ? Thankfully, neither history nor culture work that way, conform to that pigeon-holing.

[black magick hustla]

Well a upper middle class girl recently said words basically the same to me, that if "classical music" is so good why did she know no one who listens to it? The answer is that we are slipping further and further into barbarism and so the cultural inheritance of the past is being lost which makes revolution more and more a necesscity.

Someone should revive the slogan "Socialism or Barbarism".

i think you got it wrong. revolution will be the end of the cultural inheritance and will be the beginning of a new, better one. people like the dadaists and the punks are just paving the streets and dispelling the myth of the deadweight of traditions.

[bailey_187]

Well a upper middle class girl recently said words basically the same to me, that if "classical music" is so good why did she know no one who listens to it? The answer is that we are slipping further and further into barbarism and so the cultural inheritance of the past is being lost which makes revolution more and more a necesscity.

So is the class composition of Bethoven listeners primarily working class?
I'm not saying "if its so good", i am saying if so many working people enjoy it, why do i know no one who does?
Does anyone here know many working people who enjoy Beethoven? (by enjoy i dont mind would say "yeah that sounds nice" when its played, but are a "fan")



Someone should revive the slogan "Socialism or Barbarism".

LOL, i swear everyother book by a Communists ends in that.

[Robocommie]

Well a upper middle class girl recently said words basically the same to me, that if "classical music" is so good why did she know no one who listens to it? The answer is that we are slipping further and further into barbarism and so the cultural inheritance of the past is being lost which makes revolution more and more a necesscity.

Someone should revive the slogan "Socialism or Barbarism".

It's all well and good to be well versed in art history and music appreciation, but lauding the cultural inheritance of the past as a thing in and of itself is problematic, I think. Culture is very organic, it evolves, and "barbarism" is one of the most loaded terms that has ever been used, usually laid down on repressed cultures by imperialist ones.

[Robocommie]

this is cacophony and its gr8t

Comrade do you like Negativland?

[S.Artesian]

Yes and I wanted to punch the guy playing Mozart all the way through. Beethovan isnt Mozart though and as even someone from the ICC admitted Beethovan incarnates the heroism of the revolutionary bourgiouse in his music. The thing is though that Mozart's music in its depth captures and expresses the richness of for a want of a better word the human spirt than the musical expressions of the decomposition of capitalism, and surely it is that "human spirt" which as socialists we seek to realise for its distortions due to the tryanny of the reign of value?

That's bullshit. Beethoven's music doesn't capture the heroism of the revolutionary bourgeoisie, first and foremost because a careful examination of history shows that there is no heroism and very little revolution in the bourgeoisie. Maybe the petit-bourgeoisie, driven forward by the urban poor and the peasant war manifest a bit of heroism, but the bourgeoisie? They're too busy selling out, accommodating themselves to the money making potential of preserving the monarchy, the landed estates.

Beethoven's music is great, and IMO the greatest musical achievement in human history, but that isn't because of its politics, and certainly doesn't represent his, Beethoven's, politics.

And I think The Who's Can't Explain is a great musical achievement; also Chuck Berry's Sweet Little Sixteen. Springsteen, Prince, Mingus, Sex Pistols, Wu Tang Clan, Smokey and the Miracles... the process of processing music is supposed to defy political categorization. That's what makes it universal.

[Palingenisis]

So is the class composition of Bethoven listeners primarily working class?
I'm not saying "if its so good", i am saying if so many working people enjoy it, why do i know no one who does?
Does anyone here know many working people who enjoy Beethoven? (by enjoy i dont mind would say "yeah that sounds nice" when its played, but are a "fan")

LOL, i swear everyother book by a Communists ends in that.

Yeah okay fair enough...

I dont ask people everytime I go the concert what their job is...But I know I a busdriver, a secuirity guard and a girl who works in a supermarket who are actual "fans"....I know one other guy who is a student and whos dad owns a small shop...They are the only "fans" of classical music that I know. Hardly haute bourgiouse.

[Palingenisis]

i think you got it wrong. revolution will be the end of the cultural inheritance and will be the beginning of a new, better one. people like the dadaists and the punks are just paving the streets and dispelling the myth of the deadweight of traditions.

Though I disagree with it thats a very good point and I guess cuts to the essence of a lot of these questions.

I dont see the revolution as a completely new start rather I see it as the liberation of what went before from the distortions of class society and the rule of value.

This is a very fundamental difference.