In a recent conference between your humble co bloggers I commented that a lack of seriousness in one's character and purpose is not admirable. Likewise an overwhelmingly somber character is not particularly healthy or satisfying for one's friends either. No one looks forward to the presence of the dour fellow, no matter his brilliance, who drags down an evening's pleasant badinage with his dilemmas. The remaining question of course is how to balance the two and the apparent dichotomy has fascinated, or plagued, man for ages, from the time of Greek tragic and comic theater and the contrasting personalities of Heraclitus and Democritus (the "happy philosopher" and the sad) to Milton's poems L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, in which he characterized and contrasted the happy man with the thoughtful man. Of course different movements and cultures had their ideals too but two of them to me seem particularly wise, and similar.
The Romans contrasted the virtues of gravitas and levitas. Gravitas is the characteristic of man who understands the the importance of the matter at hand and in turn treats the matter with appropriate seriousness. Maintaining such a disposition requires stability of character (disciplina) and a firmness of purpose (constantia.) For example, one takes placing his vote seriously because he is aware of many aspects of it which are serious, the history of his nation and government, the fact he is delegating his natural right to someone else, the need to do good, and so forth. To treat it lightly is to treat it as if it is trivial and thus demeans it. Eventually, demeaning it will result in it. . . not having any meaning. Thus treating that which is serious with levity is in fact not just foolish but damaging. It is not levitas which ought to balance gravitas, but comitas, a general "good humor" and relief from the burden of seriousness. It does not exist for its own sake but in order that you may do what is necessary. Such a distinction is not too removed from us, wherein one used to speak of being "amused" or "diverted" by something, something which was appreciated for the relief it provided but not praised too much. Aristotle put this is in similar terms:
The happy life is thought to be virtuous; now a virtuous life requires exertion, and does not consist in amusement. And we say that serious things are better than laughable things and those connected with amusement, and that the activity of the better of any two things-whether it be two elements of our being or two men-is the more serious; but the activity of the better is ipso facto superior and more of the nature of happiness. [Ethics, X.vi; Trans. Ross]
Indeed the idea of "good humor" was up until recently fairly common. A little farther back, John Adams was quite fond of the turn of phrase and the ideal of the man of good manners, sound judgment, and balanced disposition that it connoted. "When a young New England merchant named Elkanah Watson, the son of a friend, wrote to inquire what sort of manners he should cultivate in anticipation of touring Europe, Adams's answer went far to explain his own conduct under the circumstances and the kind of guidance he was giving his sons."
You tell me, sir, you wish to cultivate your manners before you begin your travels. . . permit me to take the liberty of advising you to cultivate the manners of your own country, not those of Europe. I don't mean by this that you should put on a long face, never dance with the ladies, go to a play, or take a game of cards. But you may depend upon this, that the more decisively you adhere to a manly simplicity in your dress, equipage, and behavior, the more you devote yourself to business and study, and the less to dissipation and pleasure, the more you will recommend yourself to every man and woman in this country whose friendship or acquaintance is with your having or wishing. There is an urbanity without ostentation or extravagance which will succeed everywhere and at all times. You will excuse this freedom, on account of my friendship for your father and consequently for you, and because I know that some young gentlemen have come to Europe with different sentiments and have consequently injured the character of their country as well as their own bother [and at home]. [McCullough, 237]
Adams speaks of a balance, an "urbanity without ostentation" which seems most reasonable. The advice has a clear Roman sensibility, unsurprising given Adams' education and his knowledge of and respect for those ancient people. One ought to cultivate good sense and a manly simplicity, not let one's character be whittled down by activities which dissipate. Be serious, but do not offend with severity, be neither too easygoing or rude in sternness. Of course one ought to attend to his affairs and duties also. You'll be respected for when you abstain and when you retire from fun to attend to your private affairs you'll be well-thought of.
Of course achieving this requires time and experience, but it also requires one to know himself and where to draw the limits on all things. To perfect such a disposition you ought to pull it all off in your own idiom and with a congenial charm. Simple, no? No, it's a life's work of conscious effort, but when you're done so you might just be an old gentleman.
–
McCullough, David. John Adams. Simon and Schuster Paperbacks. New York. 2001.
A preliminary excursion to the crossroads of individual taste, society, culture, and art.
We'll look at these ideas in greater detail and with other examples in the future. Again, this is just a first look at the complex crossroads of many other ideas and problems. Comments, questions, and animadversions are welcome as usual.
It is not my custom here to reflect on things I dislike. I mostly only deviate from this rule to examine novel arguments but when it comes to art I'm particularly reluctant to discuss what I don't like. Such is because, first, that I do not want to endure the displeasure of experiencing bad art. Second is because such negative discussion serves less the purpose of persuading those who disagree than does praising what one sees to be good. This second reason is also more amicable to a gentlemanly disposition. Every so often, though, there is a piece of art which is very well made but not to my taste and such does have an interest for me. In those works are expressions by talented or intelligent, if not inspired or ingenious, individuals who simply have different taste than myself. That fact inspires inquiry: that reasonable people have different values. Also, such an inquiry might be reveal interesting aspects of culture.
The following work I am about to explore will likely be outside the taste of many readers. Feel free not to read the middle part of this essay: I won't take it personally! I have too much appreciation for what art can mean and be to an individual to blame someone for not wanting to see something they don't like. (Though I can blame them for their taste.)
Yet this piece has two additional interesting aspects which I would present in the light of statements from two different authors.
First from Allan Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind"
Plato's teaching about music is, put simply, that rhythm and melody, accompanied by dance, are the barbarous expression of the soul. Barbarous, not animal. Music is the medium of the human soul in its most ecstatic condition of wonder and terror. Nietzsche, who in large measure agreed with Plato's analysis, says in The Birth of Tragedy (not to be forgotten is the rest of the title, Out of the Spirit of Music) that a mixture of cruelty and coarse sensuality characterized this state, which of course was religious, in the service of gods. Music is the soul's primitive and primary speech and it is alogon, without articular speech or reason. It is not only unreasonable, it is hostile to reason. Even when articular speech is added, it is utterly subordinate to and determined by the music and the passions it expresses. [Bloom, 71]
To Plato and Nietzsche, the history of music is a series of attempts to give form and beauty to the dark, chaotic, premonitory forces in the soul–to make them serve a higher purpose, an ideal, to give man's duties a fullness. . . Hence, for those who are interested in psychological health, music is at the center of education, both for giving the passions their due and for preparing the soul for the unhampered use of reason. [Bloom, 72]
Nietzsche, particularly, sought to tap again the irrational sources of vitality, to replenish our dried-up stream from barbaric sources, and thus encouraged the Dionysian and the music derivative from it. . . This is the significance of rock music. I do not suggest that it has any high intellectual sources. But it has risen to its current heights in the education of the young on the ashes of classical music, and in an atmosphere where there is no intellectual resistance to attempts to tap the rawest passions. . . The irrationalists are all for it. . . But rock music has one appeal only, a barbaric appeal, to sexual desire–not love, not eros, but sexual desire undeveloped and untutored. [Bloom, 73]
Please pardon the length of the quote from the late Professor Bloom, but I think he puts the situation, noticed long ago by Plato, particularly well. We do not quite, or perhaps at all, know why music moves us the way it does, but we know that it is powerful. We may also say rather safely, I think, that art is important to people. It gives life and expression to the innermost emotions. One's taste in art, and thus what it unlocks in you and what it vivifies, suggests what one likes having unlocked. The unique blend of emotions brought out by each artist and each work gives the artist and the work its unique character, and sometimes one may find it corresponds with his own to remarkable degree. Ayn Rand was right to say that when one finds such a work, one ought not say that "I like this work, but I am this work" [1]
Music and society are intimately related too. Adopting the positions from above, one can only imagine the significance of being able to play music. I reflected on a fugue from Bach's Art of Fugue a few weeks ago. [2] Consider that fugue, and then add the dimension of being part of it. Music is unique amongst the arts in that it requires a human to make it again and again. The composer brings it into existence, but it must be kept alive by others. Music is not the note on the page but the note as it is played; it exists only for a time and requires a human to give it pattern and, rather literally, life. Aside from solo works, music is uniquely collaborative too: music with multiple parts requires a particular degree of communication, affection, and unity amongst the players. It is by its nature a unifying, harmonizing, of individual parts. It is no wonder thinkers from Aristotle to Emerson have used musical analogies to describe the ideal natures of human relations.
Again, there is considerable mystery here. Why do certain cadences and intervals seem to have the characters they do? Why does one march to a march and waltz to a waltz? Many forms are of course formal inventions and conventions, but they are rooted in something natural to us. To return to Bloom and Nietzsche, the elemental power of music is undeniable. This is not a new discovery. Countesses swooned for Beethoven's sonatas and the Greeks certainly knew the strength of music. One is unsure whether Bach's audience knew to what heights they were being called or if Mozart's Vienna knew what he had gotten away with in Don Giovanni. We recently discussed two takes on Wagner's overwhelming scene in Act II of Tristan und Isolde [3]
All of the art we have discussed on this blog has used a sophisticated, traditional yet evolving, musical language to apply power toward different ends. Some composers were more conservative than others and some had varying ideas on when passion passed the point of being pleasing or elucidating. In September 1781 Mozart wrote his father to discuss Wolfgang's upcoming Opera, Die Entführung aus dem Serail.
A person who gets into such a violent rage transgresses himself every order, moderation, and limit; he no longer knows himself.–In the same way the Music must no longer know itself-but because passions, violent or not, must never be expressed to the point of disgust, and Music must never offend the ear, even in the most horrendous situations, but must always be pleasing, in other words always remain music. [4]
Art then is not simply realism, but a particular representation of life. Such requires shaping, restraint, and taste, and there are as many variations as artists, as we said above.
Yet some music, it sounds curmudgeonly and passé to say 'rock and roll' as Bloom did and besides I don't really know what thatgenre is, either in essence or practice, so I'll just say "some music," and art does not utilize sophisticated and intellectual means of expression. It does not require appreciation of subtleties of structure or symbolism. It needs no "pattern." You need not bring anything to it. In discussing Dante and his travail in the underworld we saw the case of Paolo and Francesca and said "It is the vulgar moment that knows only itself." [5] To expand that, we might say the vulgar individual is who does not know the culture from whence he has sprung, his place in it, and the fact that he is contributing to create a new one. We may say precisely the same of art.
Such brings us to our second point, which we see in T. S. Eliot's 1948 essay, "Notes Toward the Definition of Culture." This is in fact a corollary of our definition of vulgarity, which is that culture requires participation and an overlapping of shared interests. [Eliot, 27] Both such interests but also conflicts must have meaning before they can be dramatized and perceived as significant as an audience. As such, individual, culture, and art are all inextricably linked. (This line of thinking has interesting implications for the nature of pluralistic societies, but we will discuss them, and the rest of Eliot's essay, at another date.)
One might even propose a "cultural way of thinking." Such may sound contrived or perhaps indistinguishable from being simply intellectual yet I believe the distinction is worth considering. Eliot wisely noted [Eliot, 22] that artists are frequently insensitive to other arts and that who contributes to culture is not necessarily cultured. Additionally, consider that humans are uniquely able to pass on their knowledge and experiences which crystallize into a larger conception of the past. Such "pasts" vary locally, regionally, nationally, and so forth. Thus a great deal of simply and strictly "intellectual" knowledge in fact has a tradition. For example, it is no simple act of endearment to write a sonnet for someone since a sonnet has a long and rich history. Names too have cultural histories, and even the most culturally insensitive person chooses the name of his child with care. (The invention of "new" names here is significant, I think.) This sense of cultural thinking is closely related to the importance of storytelling in a culture. [6] Words too, and many of them, have particularly interesting and significant histories, and though it sounds trivial to say it, to use a particular one means something. Using our definitions of culture and vulgarity, imagine a "vulgar" sentence: you wouldn't know what any of the words meant. It would be a different language.
What kind of "art" would result in the absence of culture? We'll revisit this questions after we look at a particular piece, but for now consider two possibilities: it would either be wholly new and so lacking a past would require one to learn it as a new language or it would be consciously primitive, using only the most fundamental means of communication to get its point across. I propose to examine such a piece now, with your indulgence.
N.B. It was my original intent to make this a video review, but I didn't feel like wrangling with issues of copyright for posting my commentary over the whole video on YouTube. In this written form, though, it is impractical to add so many pictures so I suggest you keep the video open in another window and manually scroll it along as we look at it.
N.B. Certain words have been translated into Latin for courtesy and decorum.
The opening is surprising. It in fact begins with a canon [7] on a sort of harpsichord-sounding instrument. I don't suspect many people have noticed this, and such is significant in consideration of our discussion of culture. Significantly, she's playing the music from a recorder, which she shuts off. The canon and the language and world they represent are not the world of this video. Such is consistent with the title, Bad Romance. Putting aside the history of the word romance and its despoiling, we may take it at the obvious face value and say it simply refers to relations between men and women. Bad, usually a useless and generic word, is in fact significant and enough here. She's seeking out a bad romance, clearly indicating she knows not what the good is, but that something better is possible. (That these are relative terms here is not significant.) This is, then, at least a somewhat consciously primitive expression. Yet is expression the proper word. The title and opening suggests some (however general or peripheral, one cannot say) awareness of the cultural contrast we are discussing, and thus a deliberateness in construction. Such of course does not preclude drawing conclusions about the significance of its popularity.
Notice the visceral nature of the opening frame: the feline postures of the women and the aggressive postures of the men. Notice how offensive the back-lighting is, how the dog is pretty much on par with everyone else. Notice her baroque clothes and shoes in contrast to the poor dress of the others and the starkness of the room.
The first music is the video's only music, the vocal "oh" theme, the "caught in a bad romance" theme, and the thumping bass. Could it get any more "barbaric?" The lens flare in the dark evokes a vague sense of the cosmic. Notice I say, "evoke" since there is no significance of the cosmic here. There is merely effect and an appeal to the emotions evoked by the image of colored spheres against blackness. No relationship is suggested.
The title in the next scene, "Bath Haus of Gaga" is too an evocation: an appeal to, for Americans, the foreign and exotic. Surely something exotic happens in a bath haus, far away, no? Consider the dialogue:
Rah, rah, ah, ah, ah
Roma, roma, ma
Gaga, ooh, la, la
Want your bad romance
Essentially nonverbal grunting, again against the throbbing bass. When the characters come out of their cases, they introduce what becomes a motif throughout the video: the curled, claw-like hand gestures and the staccato swiping gestures. It is as if they are being born: they are blind and swiping about, and all they know is "want." Now the motion of the characters becomes synchronized to the beat, a feature which will remain throughout. Again, this synchronization is an old trick: anyone who has set slides to music knows the ease with which one may synchronize the two. This synchronization, here, fosters the frenetic mood of the video. To, say, syncopate the movements would have made a statement of contrast. Not to have synchronized anything, a la 2001: A Space Odyssey, would invite contemplation. This is a simple, primal, thumping: the libidinous rhythm.
Note the cacophonous and negative vocabulary:
I want your ugly, I want your disease
I want your everything as long as it's free
"Free" as in disconnected, without asking for anything in return, without bounds.
Also,
I want your drama, the touch of your hand
I want your leather studded kiss in the sand
Look at the contrast there: a pleasant image, a very human one, of the hand contrasted against "leather studded kiss in the sand," a nonsense phrase used for contrast and to evoke the primitive as she grasps her ilum. She proceeds to make a gun gesture with her hand, pointing up, a gesture simultaneously phallic and adversarial. Now this pink-tressed version of her takes the stage, in a gesture rolling her eyes back and partially sticking her tongue out, suggesting an ecstasy of abandon. Also, note the disproportionately large eyes. Human eyes being unique in size, proportion, et cetera, they are enlarged here to more strongly suggest humanity and innocence, since otherwise we would grow disconnected and disenchanted. We will see scenes of a far more pure version of her, clad in white and with white hair, inter-cut toward the same purpose. Yet she chants, "bad, bad, bad."
The following scene and dialogue again is all effect, with no particular connection or conceptualizations. It includes the taped papillae, (of course drawing more, not less, attention to them), the forced bathing, forced drinking, the spitting, the crying; none of this has any meaning other than the crudeness of it, to be associated with the baseness of the urge.
Consider more of the words and note their adversarial nature:
I want your love, and all your love is revenge
I want your horror, I want your design
'Cause you're a criminal as long as you're mine
Now we shift to two new scenes which will alternate. Starting with the second: she's in a sort of cylindrical semi-cage in a room with white tiled-walls and lit with white light from above. It's an antiseptic environment, essentially a sterile torture chamber. She's tortured by the urge. Again, realize all the images are deliberately evoked and consistent. See her protruding spine and the bald bat on her head. She looks like an animal in a cage.
To the return of the "gah gah" theme and thumping, she's stripped by the women down to what looks like an ancient ecdysiast's outfit, something worn long ago to please a far away potentate.
I shrink from the task of interpreting the following:
I want your psycho, your vertical stick
Want you in my rear window, baby, you're sick
Now we see the male figure. He is presented as the superior: seated, with a brass jawpiece, (emphasizing his jawline and thus masculinity and also his superior status by its artifice), drinking out of a glass. She, in her outfit, crawls towards him on all fours and the camera shot is from between his legs. The words illustrate a contradiction: "You know that I want you. . . Cause I'm a free canicula, baby!" More words, not reproduced here, escalate the innuendo.
Now she takes the stage. Even more scantily clad, she stands amidst clear jewels suspended in the air, as if a constellation revolves around her. A scene where she is adorned by a series of hoops follows, again another image of her centrality. These are both more cosmic invocations. Also, now she is the center of attention, encircled by men instead of having to approach them.
Rosary beads are draped around her and a clear crucifix is draped over her ilum. She proceeds to make the sign of the crucifix. Why? She is not using the rosary (i.e. praying the rosary) or venerating the crucifix. Such would in fact draw on cultural notions. It is invoked as a totem, perhaps even in a sense an example of sympathetic magic, wherein by having this object and making this gesture, what they stand for is hoped to be brought about. But what do they stand for? Merely, "something significant."
Now she chants mostly meaningless phrases as she walks about, adorned with colorfully studded costumes. This scene is redundant as it merely emphasizes her new success.
Walk, walk, fashion, baby
Work it, move that thing, crazy
Walk, walk, fashion, baby
Work it, move that thing, crazy
The coda is redundant. The final scene however, begins with another animal: a bearskin costume (with head) which she disrobes from, revealing her derriere. The bed, on which the man sits, is flanked by animal heads on the walls. She repeats the main phrase, only now in French, again only a gesture of exoticism (and euphony, here.) The bed bursts into flames and the final shot is of a charred mattress, her lover's charred skeleton, and her sparking mamillae. The "harpsichord-theme" plays but this is only to create a sense of symmetry with the beginning.
The release of her desire is of consumption and destruction, instead of consummation. There is release and destruction. Again, this is consistent: what else could there be? Using our earlier defined sense, this is vulgar, it is disconnected from a culture of ideas. The primitive music and symbols could appeal to the most undeveloped individual. I would suggest only in the actual absence of culture could this video be so popular as it is. What could the video mean to someone with a culture, with a way of relating to the world, a way both inherited and created? This video speaks no language. It is either acultural or a subculture of barbarism. In the absence of a shared culture, shared language and conceptions, we get the primitive.
To speak of the matter in the reverse: in the absence of inherited forms, i.e. mainly symbols and structures, a work is left either so that it can be understandable only on its own terms or appeals only to the basest experience of life. In the former case the work speaks only its own language, putting it at great distance. In the latter case, the work feels primal, without any layer of removal. Such art may have great power and indeed it is possible to have the forms without the sense of the fire and depths below. The use of a particular body of forms, though, creates a particular cultural identity, one inherited, added to, and passed on. When forms die they become relics, which are used without any sense of the intense connection to the concepts with which they were associated. One might argue they when that connection is lost they ought not to be used. Perhaps, but their passing should be noted.
In this respect it is possible to speak of a culture as alive, one which accepts its inherited forms and with enthusiasm reworks and modifies them. For such to happen the connection to the original concept, the passion for it, must endure, in the context of whatever emotion in particular.
This new acultural art would be desperate to re-kindle feeling and significance. Bad art, perhaps it might be, but it would represent a cultural bottoming-out and an attempt to start anew. (If not in the intent of its creation, then so if it is popularly well-received.) It would be primitive, consciously or not, because of the absence of the old, archaic, forms which have lost the power to communicate.
Instead of shared concepts we see invocations of items: images to bring about feelings but not ideas. None of the animals depicted (or mimicked) are symbolic, they are simply present as animals to evoke a sense of savageness. There are no symbols of sexuality, like the snake or a brace of hares (a Late Gothic symbol.) The functions of the imagery is not dissimilar from that of the roots of animistic cultures and those associated with fertility rites. Yet in the West those roots grew into structures and culture. Here we have the raw forces with no interpretive layer between us and those forces. There is simply yielding to the force and no conceptualization of it. There is only the rawness of the desire, no suggestion of what the human reaction ought to be. There is no attempt to understand the force as part of something larger. There is no sense of binding with or understanding the nature of things, of religio and reason. We have the the "dark, chaotic, premonitory forces in the soul" but no attempt to make them "serve a higher purpose, an ideal, to give man's duties a fullness," by use of form and beauty. There is also, then, no elevation of such to the realm of the transcendent.
The following comparison is made not to contrast the quality of the music, but because the following is the perfect opposite of the aforementioned. Consider the final opera of Wolfgang Mozart, Die Zauberflöte.[8] In it he uses a wealth of language to elevate the opera's themes (love, the relation of men and women, knowledge, the good) to the level of the sacred. He uses all manner of symbols, instrumentation, cadences, harmonies, words, et cetera, to elevate the ideas to sacredness. Discussing Nietzsche, Bloom wrote, "a shared sense of the sacred is the surest way to recognize a culture. . . What a people bows before tells us what it is." [Bloom, 204]
Love proclaims the nobility of man and woman and together they reach toward the divine.
Act I: Dutet, Bei Männern, welche Liebe fühlen
Not only the moral world but the mood of The Magic Flute is the opposite of the music video we discussed. Here one does not yield to desires but channels them in particular expressions, sometimes the opposite of the emotion: to achieve knowledge you must go by the way of unknowing, to achieve unity you must go by the way of separation.
What ended in destruction, base release, and vulgarity above, ends in sacred, harmonious, unity in Mozart. He uses and builds on an inherited tradition and culture his audience knew to say to them, "See, see how glorious these things, our things, are!"
Bloom, Allan. The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students. Simon and Schuster, New York. 1987.
Eliot, T. S. Notes Toward the Definition of Culture. Harcourt, Brace, and Company. New York. 1949.
This argument, it seems to me, is not so dissimilar from the usual Classical Liberal position of government. Both acknowledge, axiomatically, "something" ill-tending in the human condition. Likewise, both acknowledge that it ought to be counter-balanced. The Classical Liberal thinks the ill-tending aspects which damage "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are counterbalanced by permanent mandates in law applicable to all. The anarchist position is that even such initially sensible a mandate will give way to more and more coercion. Also, enshrining anything in permanent law invariably binds one person to the will of another. Thus private law, between consenting individuals, is thought ideal since, by nature, it only involves consenting parties. This seems sensible but also seems to me to create three problems: 1) How do you prevent the rise of a state, and 2) on what grounds without implicating others and placing them under your private law. Also, 3) how does one address the problem of third parties, for example how would you punish a breach of contract? Of course ideally you would spell it out ahead of time but people being fallible, there will be vagaries, differences of opinion, and omissions. Arbitration seems a plausible solution, but how would you compel him to arbitration?
Of course over time there could be conventions and procedures which, while nonbinding, might be able to smooth private dealings. This brings us to Mr. French's points, via Hayek, about democracy, which seems to me to be novel. Heretofore I have understood the nature of government to be the central issue to the anarcho-capitalists, i.e. that its coercive monopoly of the law is the their primary complaint. Yet French cites three additional problems of a democratic nature which Hayek, who was not an anarchist, outlined in The Road to Serfdom.
People of higher intelligence have different tastes and views. So, as Hayek writes, "we have to descend to the regions of lower moral and intellectual standards where the more primitive instincts prevail," to have uniformity of opinion.
Second, those on top must "gain the support of the docile and gullible," who are ready to accept whatever values and ideology is drummed into them. Totalitarians depend upon those who are guided by their passions and emotions rather than by critical thinking.
Finally, leaders don't promote a positive agenda, but a negative one of hating an enemy and envy of the wealthy.
These are cited axiomatically and I shall take them as such, not endeavoring to prove them. Let us keep this discussion theoretical. Now these features are those of a democratic state, let us say. Yet in an anarchist society, one free of coercion, these forces would be just as free to play out as they would in a democracy. The intelligent would have to seek a way to appeal to the foolish, perhaps condescending to "primitive instincts," and they would be free to promote a negative agenda. Thus it is possible for such undesirable things to occur in both anarchist and democratic societies. What difference would there be? First, not everyone would be implicated. If you didn't want to follow you wouldn't have to. Second, unlike in a democracy which implicitly relies on a sanction of majoritarianism, in an anarchist society what they did would not have any particular sanction except 1) that the parties involved gave their permission, and 2) that only parties who gave their permission were involved. This sounds like a significant improvement. But what if the majority wanted your land? To what authority or counterbalance of force would you appeal? I don't think anyone would suggest such an example of theft would not occur simply because it was illegal. It could of course happen quite suddenly: the Athenians famously voted to execute all the adult men of the island of Melos during the Peloponnesian War.
Now let us also assume Hoppe's statement is true also, that the best naturally rise to the top, that is if the law is not rigged against them and/or in favor of others. French continues:
On the other hand, democracy affords the opportunity for anyone to pursue politics as a career. There is no need for the masses to recognize a person as "wise" or "successful," as Hoppe's natural order would require. Nor does one have to be born into the ruling family, as in the case of monarchy.
This does not seem to follow, to me. French attributes as unique to democracy a feature which is not a feature of government but of public life in a free society and thus one which is common also to an anarchist society. A fool can get up in a democratic or anarchist assembly and speak. Is he more likely to be accepted in one of these forms than the other? Why? It does not seem one is more likely than the other. Also, it is not a question of incompetence. Rather it is a question of the ill-tending we spoke of earlier. Indeed unless government jobs are apportioned at random in the democracy there is equal incentive for competence, the question is what else is there incentive for? One may be highly proficient at his job and still be a criminal and use his position for great evil. One might also say competence is not the greatest prerequisite for a position. There are in fact other characteristics which people, even rational people, prize, such as charisma. Famously and lamentably, brilliant men have been taken in by charismatic leaders.
French also quotes approvingly of Hoppe's notion that "natural elites" have some better quality than "democratic elites," i.e. elites voted to be elites by a majority. French goes on to write:
On the other hand, in democracy politicians demand attention, seeking acclaim for anything they do, continually taking credit for policies they say have made our lives better when in fact these interventions make our lives worse. There is no need to list the names of politicians who have committed crimes or ethics violations — it would take all day. The point is made.
Even if we take the dichotomy as axiomatic, this contrast is not persuasive. There is just too much assumed here: does the demand for attention translate into something more tangibly and demonstrably bad? Is the intervention in question actually worse? Plenty of people, government officials and private citizens alike, commit crimes and ethics violations. Also, sometimes members of both groups get off without just punishment. The question is about the nature of power and whether someone with authority will misuse it. Earlier this year we examined this question and saw that Hobbes, Alexander Hamilton, and Benjamin Franklin had, quite appropriately, ask the question too.[1] Simply put, who is more likely to be corrupted by power (and toward what kind of corruption would he tend), a rich man or a poor man?
French, paying due credit to Judge Andrew Napolitano for the insight, appropriately quotes Augustine's conception of libido domini — the lust for domination — which "entices men towards waging wars and committing all manner of violence." If I may speculate, French and also many anarchists would suggest that the state is what enables people with such desires to dominate. Eliminate the state, and you will eliminate the domination. Eliminate the means and you prevent the end. Yet, and we return to what we asked before, how do you eliminate the state and moreover how do you prevent it from coming into being? Moreover, how do you prevent it from coming it being without coercion and without creating public mandates, i.e. common law? Additionally, what would become of the desire? It would undoubtedly persist, and is it not possible for a demagogue to gain a willing majority in any population of people in a free society?
Regarding Maslow's "morality pyramid" it certainly seems as if any successful person would fit the characteristics of a "self-actualizer." Since I don't know how Maslow defines morality I cannot comment on it, but even tyrannical leaders would fit his bill insofar as they undoubtedly think they are moral. Yet French's point is that these people desire fame, which brings us back to our observation from the previous paragraph: what's stopping them from acting on this desire in an anarchist society? French seems to assume that such power-hungry people are incompetent and thus a free market would mean they would fail in competition with the non-power-hungry leaders who are competent. In contrast, power-hungry people are often quite competent and indeed they are often the most effective, for good or ill, in the long term.
Mr. French via Maslow, has already said only 2 percent of people are self-actualizing: we might wonder then, what percent of people know that when they see it?
The question any student of politics asks, and which everyone from Plato and Aristotle has asked is, how does a society get the people who are good at doing something doing that thing they are good at? It is another, though closely related, question as to how to deal with the human desire to control. It seems to me Mr. French's argument interpolates these questions and such is why the result is ultimately not persuasive. Undoubtedly the similarities to the Classical Liberal position demonstrate why the two groups are often in the same camp on issues. Untangling the two positions is surprisingly difficult work and probably seems like hairsplitting to firm statists.
It would seem though, that if one assumes what we have discussed about human nature to be true, some state is inevitable even if it is not wholly desirable. Liberalism presents all liberals with a problem, since what destroys it is not the state or a particular ideology (though the means of repression is the state and it is concentrated in certain ideologies) but in human nature. The liberal paradox is that freedom exists naturally and is destroyed naturally, or if not naturally cyclically. (Might one say what is cyclical is natural?)
I agree with Mr. French that many ardently pro-democracy people lose sight of freedom and some do offer the mantra that "we just need to elect the right people." Yet this essentially the same question as "how does a society get the people who are good at doing something doing that thing they are good at?" Yet doing the good always requires people who can do the good. There does not seem to be any guarantee to me of having such people. It is unjust to force people and people can be quite irrational and unreasonable, and unpredictably so. Now I'm not saying a government cannot be inherently unjust. They most certainly can be, often are, and often governments turn unjust.
French continues:
. . .it can safely be predicted that the democratic welfare state will collapse, according to Hoppe, and what is necessary besides a crisis is ideas — correct ideas — and men capable of understanding and implementing these ideas once the opportunity arises.
Well why haven't they yet implemented such ideas or attempted to? Perhaps because the government has a monopoly on the law. Yet Mr. French's points have all been about democracy, in particular points which cannot be undone without force. Likewise he writes, "So the natural elites have an obligation to make sure the truth is spread." Perhaps it would be more useful to suggest they become the democratic elites. Unless, of course and in the paradigm of Hayek, whatever is popular is "of lower immoral standards." But that observation is much wider implications as one might notice. One must be wary of casually uttering maxims. Nonetheless Mr. French ought to be lauded for suggesting people personally support people they think are doing good.
At the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin said that even good government "is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall be come so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other."
Maybe that's so, maybe it's not, but it seems more plausible than endlessly fingering the state either as the cause or solution to all problems.
Since I mentioned Robert Simpson in my previous post, I thought it was not inappropriate to highlight one of his compositions, in this case, his 7th symphony.
Hans Keller (1919-1985) was an Austrian-born English music critic and musician, fanatically devoted to the chamber repertoire. In 1959 he joined the Music Division of the BBC, remaining there until his retirement some twenty years later. Like his colleague the composer Robert Simpson (who famously resigned from the BBC only months before he was due to retire with a full pension), Keller bitterly lamented the declining musical standards of the BBC. Keller is author of a chatty, amateur musician-oriented book on the Haydn quartets. In these recordings, he discusses the string quartets and quintets of Mozart.
More on progressivism in the news today, this time from Phillip Longman at Big Questions Online. His article, Demography and Economic Destiny, discusses the indebted welfare states and falling birthrates of the West. My thoughts on this article will be brief. Like last week's article on progressivism my point is not to moralize but to tease out the premises and logical consequences of the attempts to define progressivism and the arguments used in favor of it.
First consider the title, Demography and Economic Destiny: it's a rather cold title considering what the article is about: taking care of both children and the elderly. Second, the article is fourteen paragraphs long and one word is absent until the final. That word is family. Considering the subject matter, its absence is a little odd, don't you think?
Also revealing is the context it comes up it, "Government programs designed to smooth the tensions between work and family." So working and family are inherently in tension and the government tries to fix this "natural" tension. That sounds odd, since for most of human history the family was considered a very efficient economic unit. People once got married in part to pool their resources, yet yesterday in the WSJ I read that allegedly young people were putting of marriage until they were better off financially. I have yet to make sense of this development though there are undoubtedly other factors involved.
The author goes on to write:
And in countries both rich and poor, we see a rise in religious fundamentalism and patriarchy, which are the old-fashioned (and proven) means of keeping birthrates above replacement rates.
It certainly seems that the author equates family with "fundamentalism and patriarchy." (I wonder how many husbands in the West today would consider themselves "patriarchs.") We ought to note that if he doesn't equate these things then he considers a "traditional" family completely off the radar as a solution to taking care of people, since he has posed that problem and won't have mentioned "traditional family" at all. ("Traditional" is another word noticeably absent.) In that case the alternatives are the state or "fundamentalism and patriarchy," the former of which he concedes has failed and the latter of which certainly seems unfavored by him. So it is impossible for a non religiously-fundamentalist or patriarchal family to exist? What about without the "help" of the state?
The author truly seems to lament the days in which the welfare state was thought to have been discovered as a perfect means of taking care of people:
As the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Samuelson once proclaimed, in defense of America’s Social Security system, “a growing nation is the greatest Ponzi scheme ever contrived. And that is a fact, not a paradox.” But Samuelson was writing in 1967, when it looked as if the Baby Boom would go on forever.
Obviously in this context then, the welfare state was seen as the substitute for the family for taking care of the elderly. No more did a couple potentially* have to save and take care of their parents (up to four for the couple.) They didn't have to sacrifice a room that could have been a den or even stayed in the neighborhood where their parents lived to take care of them, potentially passing up job offers in other states. As long as we had enough "young workers" a new "generation of retirees" could partake in Social Security et al and the "young workers" could be "liberated" from the demands of. . . family.
I haven't read E. F. Schumacher's "Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered" but after reading this article I very much sympathize with the title.
–
* I say potentially because, obviously, many could and did plan for their retirement. Once all you had to do was put some money aside from your paycheck each week. Remember when you didn't have to speculate to avoid losing your money? I don't. (See here: If you don't watch the video, read the summary and anecdote below it.)
Bach and Vivaldi: Baroque Voices on Death and Bounty
[Updated: See below.]
I. Bach
Yesterday Mr. Northcutt thoughtfully reflected on the aesthetic and theological profundity of the cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach. The corpus of Bach's cantatas (and chorales) astounds in its size as a whole as well as in the size and complexity of each work. Still it has been estimated that only about 200 of a potential 500 cantatas were preserved. Each has its own character and each of the sacred cantatas reflects the context of its place in the Christian liturgical year. We have mentioned here already Sir John Eliot Gardiner's Bach Cantata Pilgrimage, his journey through Bach's Europe to play the cantatas on their appropriate day.
The cantata for this past Sunday, the 17th Sunday after Trinity, Ach, lieben Christen, seid getrost, BWV 114, has to me an appropriate autumnal quality and such is what brought it into this series of reflections.
1. The opening choral fantasia expresses an admission of sin and a welcoming of punishment, senses expressed with great potency in three themes: 1) the rather despondent opening theme on the oboes and 1st violin, 2) the contrasting figure in the lower strings urging us to "keep heart," and 3) the trilled, trembling dotted quaver figure. The contrasting and appearances of these themes, in different voices, modulated, in imitation, make a richness of both musical texture and theological expression: it is not the sorrowful but the joyful theme which accompanies the final phrase, "Niemand darf sich ausschließen/Let no one be excepted" [from punishment] and with which the chorale ends.
2. The following recitative for tenor is intensely personal. Following the journey of the wandering flute theme would make for a wonderful meditation and I recoil from dissecting it. We might simply say this recitative in D minor is in two parts: a peregrinate and somber opening on "Wo wird in diesem Jammertale Vor meinen Geist die Zuflucht sein?/Where will within this vale of sorrow my spirit find its refuge now" and an almost-sprightly passage, vivace in 12/8, on "Allein zu Jesu Vaterhänden/Alone in Jesus' hands paternal."
4. The striking and transporting effect of this soprano choral is ingenious in its simplicity: the gently lilting, almost declamation of the text over the "scattering" continuo figures.
Kein Frucht das Weizenkörnlein bringt, Es fall denn in die Erden; So muss auch unser irdscher Leib Zu Staub und Aschen werden, Eh er kömmt zu der Herrlichkeit, Die du, Herr Christ, uns hast bereit' Durch deinen Gang zum Vater.
No fruit the grain of wheat will bear Unless to earth it falleth; So must as well our earthly flesh Be changed to dust and ashes, Before it gain that majesty Which thou, Lord Christ, for us hast made Through thy path to the Father.
5. Here is one of Bach's most beautiful and tender melodies and in perfect character in the voices of the oboe and alto. Sublimely intertwined as none other would be for some time, they travel together. We are protected and in death not destroyed but transformed (Verklärt) and pure (rein.)
7.
Wir wachen oder schlafen ein, So sind wir doch des Herren; Auf Christum wir getaufet sein, Der kann dem Satan wehren. Durch Adam auf uns kömmt der Tod, Christus hilft uns aus aller Not. Drum loben wir den Herren.
In waking or in slumbering We are, indeed, God's children; In Christ baptism we receive, And he can ward off Satan. Through Adam to us cometh death, But Christ frees us from all our need. For this we praise the Master.
What strength, invention, vision, and beauty Bach poured into all of his creations. Here is an autumn-tide reflection on death and new life, on man's state and redemption. It is a meditation from a man who knew much death throughout his life, losing both his parents within a year when he was ten, his wife Maria Barbara, and seven young children. Here is a world tinged with sadness at its fallen state, but vivified and made significant through a most profound and glorifying faith.
II. Vivaldi
Where Bach's cantata relentlessly looked beyond this world Vivaldi's concerto is of a decidedly earthly nature. It is a jocular celebration of not just the autumn harvest bounty but of all the uniqueness of the season. One risks making Vivaldi and this work seem frivolous by placing it in direct comparison with the Bach cantata above, but the works are of a different nature and character. Bach was writing a musical expression of not autumnal ideas specifically but theological ideas with similar notions of seasonal motion and generation and corruption. Vivaldi was writing a programmatic concerto about the character and joys of Autumn and as such is a wonderful and contrasting companion to the Bach cantata. (Coincidentally, both pieces date from around 1724.) A poem accompanies the concerto, perhaps also by the composer.
Op. 8, Concerto No. 3, 'Le quattro stagioni: L'autunno'
The first movement is notated, ballo, e canto de vilanelli, that is, with dancing and singing and in a rustic style, and del felice raccolto il bel piacere, i.e. the joy of a good harvest. We hear the rippling dance rhythms, piano and forte, the descending scalar figures of falling down tired, twirling triplets mixed with the dance rhythm, and racing scales. The festivities conclude with a contented sleep: piano and larghetto, cautious little figures in the first violin over repeated quavers in the others. It's like tiptoeing through a room of passed out revelers: don't wake anyone.
The slow movement is ubirachi dormienti, in a drunk sleep. Nature calls us to cease and invites rest. The atmosphere remains as the end of the fast movement, though we transition to the relative, D minor. Here the mood is dominated by the figure of a dotted half note and an either ascending or descending crotchet triplet. The bass chords are arpeggiated throughout the movement and with the timbre of the harpsichord the effect is that of a chill setting in, an icy stillness settling over a landscape.
The final movement is in the old style of the caccia, the hunt. Even in Vivaldi's time the caccia was an old Italian form (though French in origin) which commonly included rustic themes of fishing and fires, and particularly, of course, hunt. The form may be in canon, but here we have two characters introduced by the tutti one after the other. The first figure is a smooth and striding choriambic figure, i.e. its metrical quantity is long-short-short-long, following by a descending semiquaver figure in the lower voices. The second figure is a scampering little thing of semiquavers. The soloist then takes up the second theme for a few bars followed by the tutti with the first theme for a few more. Now the chase ensues, the beast flees to a flurry of triplets, dogs chase to a rush of thirty-second-notes, and with rising and falling figures they chase here and there. With a dazzling array of virtuosity we experience the frenzy of the hunt before it suddenly ends, the pursued overcome, as the first theme trots to a halt.
Whereas Bach's cantata was sobered by, even preoccupied with, the notion of death, Vivaldi's L'autunno' brims with the joys of a happy and healthy life. In Part I we read Horace stress balance and these two views of the Autumn and all of its associations neatly contrapose and make for a healthy disposition.
Update: This interview (in two parts: Part I | Part II) with Trevor Stephenson is a great introduction to the stylistic differences between German and Italian Baroque composers like Bach and Vivaldi. It nicely elucidates some of the reasons for the contrast we discussed here.
"Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful."
--- The Republic of Plato, tr. by Benjamin Jowett
Of all the extraordinary human achievements in the arts, few can compete, in grandeur of conception and perfection of form, with the collected cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach. In the past, it was customary to overlook the cantatas in favor of the Passions and Oratorios, to relegate Bach's work-a-day cantatas to second place. Needless to say, I think that's a forced dichotomy: the cantatas ought to be studied for their own sake, not as also-rans but as integral part of Bach's musical cosmos.
When I lived in New York, I was fortunate enough to hear several cantatas in their proper liturgical context and as prescribed by the Lutheran church year. This fine opportunity was the work of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church (ELCA). (Holy Trinity's Bach Vespers were, incidentally, my conversion, or the beginning of my conversion, to authentic performance.)
As a believing and practicing catholic Christian, I never cease to wonder at the profundity of Bach's Incarnational art: any Christian could profitably meditate on both the libretto and the musical setting. And to do so would be as fine a Christian education as any man could procure today. (I leave to one side the question of how a non-believer could relate to the music, a vexing inquiry that cannot easily be answered either with pious platitudes or secular-aesthetic ratiocination.) In concert with the day's lectionary appointments, Bach's cantatas are a potent reflection on and elaboration of the Christian life. And as such, they might be commended to ordinary believers and clergy alike.
To that end and to show the way, I have vowed to listen, every Sunday and festal day, to one of the appointed cantatas.
It's a project that will take several years to complete. I may not have the opportunity or time to reflect on the experience here, every Sunday, but I will do so as often as I can. And with an eye to elucidating the theological significance of the work in question. Unhappily, I can't boast the theoretical knowledge of my co-blogger.
And for the all-important recordings, I will be listening to Ton Koopman's Amsterdam Baroque Choir and Baroque Orchestra. Koopman is a fine and faithful interpreter of Bach's music: I am particularly impressed by the clarity and strength of tone he gets from his instrumentalists. An early (and not entirely unjustified) complaint about authentic practice performers was the weak sound: Koopman's ensemble is entirely innocent of such shortcomings, however. And his own personal enthusiasm for Bach's music is infectious.
Cellist Pau Casals i Defilló, known as Pablo Casals, on Bach, simplicity, and beauty. In both videos Casals, 1876-1973, comes off good-natured, good-humored, and most humble about his craft and the world.
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