What’s Wrong with the World

'decayed isotope of a richer irony'....a tremendous phrase and deeply suggestive!

"That hostility is kindled by earnestness, or the appearance of earnestness, in a culture defined by irony, distance, detachment, self-parody, and cynicism; and the band everyone is hating on was (is?) nothing if not earnest, sincere, in appearance and manner."

That hits it right on the head, Jeff. We should not forget that Creed's lyrics, though not orthodox Christian, showed a certain sympathy for a Christian worldview. Modernity simply cannot tolerate that.

Many folks rightly disparage Christian pretense, which means they might rightly disparage Creed and its pretentious posturing, whether physical or lyrical.

I think, however, that an overwhelming majority of those disparaging the semi-Christian posturing of Creed would similarly disparage the genuine article. Suderman would not. But it is beyond cavil that most of those deriding Creed would subject a more musically accomplished band, sincerely expressing substantial Christian sentiments, to opprobrium, or at least a solid round of how-could-they-take-that-stuff-seriously tut-tutting.

If a serious Christian wishes to look askance at Creed's amorphous spirituality, or Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, I'll not raise an objection; most of the contemners are doing so because they conflate vague spiritual yearnings with Christianity, lumping them both into the category of disreputable things that Serious Artists do not dabble in. Well, unless its Buddhism or Kabbalah or something else 'exotic'. The musical world disrespects even the pretense because it disrespects the substance.

You're right, Jeff. They can, and frequently do, disparage both the weak imitation and the genuine article. We see some notable exceptions, but they are few.

How about a post accepting nominations for "The Best Reactionary Band of All-Time". My nomination; THE KINKS. Muswell Hillbillies and The Village Green Preservation Society are enduring anthems written by a quintessential Tory Bohemian. Throw back some Black & Tans, sit by the fireplace and then march down to your loacl Planning Board and rage against the crooks scarring your town with McMansions,or greasing the skids for Wal-Mart's arrival. Great stuff, but don't expect to be invited to the Junior League's next soiree.

Another topic; "Why is the Best Rock Produced by Lefty Loons" The best example; THE CLASH, the best garage band of all-time, filled their first 3 albums with clever, witty, Lefty lyrics, set to raucously compelling riffs. The band artistically died after the epic London Calling and their deranged embrace of both the Sandinistas and The Top 40.

Why can't the Right, with few exceptions, Rock?

Why can't the Right, with few exceptions, Rock?

I hope you would include Mike Huckabee and his band Capitol Offense as being one of those "few exceptions". I saw them once at a C-Span event. They brought the house down.

Byronic,
The band has to write their own material and have produced a recording to qualify for serious consideration. There are right-wing rockers doing small clubs and NASCAR parties, but they carry little clout.

The question still stands; why is it that in a milieu that ostensibly prizes non-conformity and eccentricity, there are so few artists who have embraced the thrill of Orthodoxy?

Which is part of a bigger question; how come "conservatives" have such a small-footprint in any part of our culture, even the admittedly less elevated aspects of it? If what is served up on talk-radio and cable TV is the extent of conservative cultural contributions then maybe it's best we head for the catacombs for the time being. With our Ipods, of course.

To be certain, the Jesus Christ poses of Scott Stapp were always tiresome, cloying before the first one even concluded; but even here, the lack of ironic detachment is a factor: Stapp evinced no sense that these were just (insincere) schlock. No, the schlock was genuine.

Sadly, no. Since the band enjoyed a rock star lifestyle (sex tape included), most fans of rock music found it to be incredibly insincere. It was part of a blatant marketing ploy to Christians, while the band reveled in their heathen choices and promoted absurdist claims of greatness from a Muzak quality imitation of Pearl Jam.

The question still stands; why is it that in a milieu that ostensibly prizes non-conformity and eccentricity, there are so few artists who have embraced the thrill of Orthodoxy?

If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is there to promote it, will it ever get a contract?

Perhaps in order to get attention a band must rail against the Man.

Step 2,

Sadly, no.

I had forgotten all about the scandal, though, honestly, holding in remembrance celebrity scandals is not a interest of mine. An awareness of that detail should assuredly qualify my judgment; I don't believe, however, that it overthrows it. For while our age abhors hypocrisy above virtually all else, it does so with a curious valence: it is not the failure to live up to a professed scheme of virtues, or even the failure to conform one's deeds to one's words generally, that elicits the harshest condemnation, but the very profession of the possibility of virtue itself that arouses ire. Even when that profession is as indirect and insubstantial as vaguely spiritual rock lyrics and a few Jesus Christ poses. Contemporary popular culture, within and without the musical business, presupposes that yielding to sexual desires is normal, natural, and inevitable; chastity is an impossibility. Ironically, therefore, openly admitting to one's desires is regarded as virtuous, while professing to chasten them is regarded as vicious, or at least a precursor to a foreordained failure; nature, of course, must eventually assert itself.

Which brings me back to Creed. The critics loathed them before the scandal, and not only on account of their muzak-grade imitation of Pearl Jam (excellent phrase, by the way). The scandal, such as it was, would only have confirmed the haters in their rejection, and for precisely the reasons I have suggested: any un-ironic profession of religiosity or virtue is already held in contempt, because these things are regarded as impostures, hypocritical disciplines of power employed to lord it over others. I did not intend to argue that Stapp's messianic poses were genuine, in the sense that they were serious Christian or spiritual professions, untainted by human frailty, or even that he intended to live up to the substance of what he appeared to be enacting; no, all I meant was that, in making them, Stapp was not inviting us to mock the very notion of them, to laugh at the very (im)possibility of religion and virtue. It was not parody or burlesque, just rockstar bombast, sincere precisely because, like many rock stars, Stapp was full of himself. And pride, obviously, goeth before the fall.

Consider a contrast. Whatever the sincerity of the satanic posturings of Marilyn Manson (and there are rumours of things), no one is either invited to mock the dark side, or to scoff at Manson for appearing to take seriously the left-hand path. Or consider the heavy-metal act, Slayer, known for their 'slaytanic' posturings, dark lyrics, and aggressive mockery of Christianity (with albums entitled God Hates Us All - released on Sept. 11, 2001 - and Christ Illusion). The members of the band are not satanists, but neither they nor music critics reviewing heavier acts invite listeners to mock the pose as the pose that it is. No, the pose, ironically, is supposed to be taken seriously, because it is anti-Christian, and this latter quality is a (stale) trope of the genre. We could press further. The utterly sincere satanic stylings of Norwegian black metal bands Mayhem and Dimmu Borgir, or the Polish death metal band Behemoth, are not disdained by the critics as so much superfluous dark religious nonsense, and fans of the genres are not encouraged to regard such enactments as meriting disdain, as absurd impossibilities that ought never be taken seriously. Rather, the attitude is either one of affirmation or encouragement to fans to take the bands for what they are: sincerely satanic.

In other words, the industry, when approached broadly, maintains an asymmetry of virtue and vice: virtue is a pretense, and should be mocked, while vice is quite possibly the deepest truth of being, and should be entertained as such. This is scarcely the whole truth about the business, but it is a prominent element.

Kevin, those are excellent points concerning the Kinks and The Clash. I'll attempt to address the question of conservatives, reactionaries, and the arts in a brief post at the top of the page, as I have leisure.

Loren,
"Perhaps in order to get attention a band must rail against the Man."

Exactly. The Man appears in many target-rich forms; the hard-hearted exploiter of women and self-described Feminist Man behind the abortion industry, the Politician Man who uses the poor as an electoral prop for his own ambitions, the dissolute, clerical Kumbaya Man who thinks just because he lost his faith he shouldn't lose his job, the Educratic Man who dumbs down the classroom because he only sees; "ghosts in machines", instead of human beings.

Why isn't modernity being lampooned by young, musically talented rightists? It's not like there aren't a lot of cultural arch-types deserving of guitar-backed ridicule.

Maximos,
I look forward to your thoughts on the whole matter. Hope your Lenten season is going well.

Loren,
"Perhaps in order to get attention a band must rail against the Man."

Exactly. The Man appears in many target-rich forms; the hard-hearted exploiter of women and self-described Feminist Man behind the abortion industry, the Politician Man who uses the poor as an electoral prop for his own ambitions, the dissolute, clerical Kumbaya Man who thinks just because he lost his faith he shouldn't lose his job, the Educratic Man who dumbs down the classroom because he only sees; "ghosts in machines", instead of human beings sitting behind the desks.

Why isn't modernity being lampooned by young, musically talented rightists? It's not like there aren't a lot of cultural arch-types deserving of guitar-backed ridicule.

Maximos,
I look forward to your thoughts on the whole matter. Hope your Lenten season is going well.

Just kidding about Huckabee. I never went to no C-Span event.

Which is part of a bigger question; how come "conservatives" have such a small-footprint in any part of our culture, even the admittedly less elevated aspects of it?

But when it comes to the "less elevated aspects" of our culture, perhaps genuine conservatives learn early that it cannot be redeemed by joining it. This is a mistake I once made myself. Thankfully and by the grace of God, I saw the light. Popular culture is not redeemable in itself. Any given aspect of our popular culture may not be harmful in itself, but when you add it all up, it's vacuous, plain and simple. Pop culture does not nourish. It entertains (sort of) it distracts, it provokes (sort of), but it doesn't nourish. I think recognizing this reality is part of what true conservatives do best. Part of being a true conservative is recognizing that. So, almost by definition, conservatives are drawn to give their lives to something higher.

Being a former Rock 'N' Roller myself, I know many like this. We thought we could change things from within, by being "one of the good guys". Trouble, by the time you start to figure this out (that pop culture is a wasteland) you are getting a bit older, closer to 30 than 20. The game is wearing thin. You've spent your youth assuming your talent and energy could change the world, never realizing that you were being seduced by the world you sought to change, and in that, your lofty goals were subverted (as a young would-be rock-star, an old former rock big shot/friend/Christian told me, "Embrace the debauchery)". The music business is legal racketeering. Conservatives may have it in them to be counter-culture, but the music business doesn't. Its corporate culture at its height, and it runs on a decadent Epicurean ethic. It's a sex-and-alcohol fueled playground for adolescents of all ages. If you have real musical ability and vision, even if its oriented toward folk art, you wind up having an underground career. And it's just too hard to keep it together and stay fed. The temptation to sell to the man, to prostitute your talent for the sake of keeping the lights on is strong. You take on side projects and you have to do what pays. What pays is what the labels want to sign, etc etc. Next thing you know, you've become the thing you hate. Either that, or you've just got to live like a house divided, supporting a culture that you don't believe in. So many friends of mine who came to the same realization just leave the music business altogether. We move to small towns. We go back to grad school and study literature. We go to seminary. We learn a trade. We get married and start families. We become deacons and sunday school teachers and writers and good citizens, good Christians, pay taxes, read the good books and post on conservative blogs.

Besides, those rock clubs are just too darn loud.

"We go back to grad school and study literature. We go to seminary. We learn a trade. We get married and start families. We become deacons and sunday school teachers and writers and good citizens, good Christians, pay taxes, read the good books and post on conservative blogs."

First, having done most of the things on your list, might make me a comfortable Christian, or just another "let them eat cake" conservative, keeping a safe distance from the corruption around me, while deploring it's expanding encroachments. Your answer also suggests a
a Renaissance is going on in small-town America that is inspiring and sustaining a vibrant alternative to our current popular culture. Is that true?

Secondly, I understand the aesthetical and moral limits of popular culture, the prejudices within it's mediums and the temptations it offers, but why then, aren't conservatives flourishing in the higher arts?

There must be a better answer(s) for why conservatives aren't much of a force within the institutions that shape the way people think and act, than simply a massive case of quiet resignation from cultural engagement. I hope.

I'm afraid I just can't bring myself to consider being in a rock band as being "cultural engagement", nor the pop music scene as an "institution". And I'm not suggesting anything special is going on in small towns. I'm just saying that there is a lot that's not going on. You don't change L.A. L.A. changes you.

And there's not a thing wrong with being comfortable if by comfortable one means a stable income and a home for one's family. It takes hard work to get those things, especially for a 30 year-old musician whose spent his entire youth trying to become a rock star and to save the world by barre chords and bad poetry. Trunking it from club to club in a van while your wife and kids sit in the dark in your tiny $2500 dollar a month L.A. apt is not my idea of authentic Christianity. Rock 'n' Roll is fun. It should be done for fun. It should not be taken seriously as a career by a grown man who aspires to be anything more than bankrupt and frozen in adolescence. I do not look up to Bono, or think he is a great and magnanimous human being, a genius, a model Christian, a force for change, or anything of the sort.

Why aren't conservatives flourishing in the higher arts? Do you mean that there aren't conservatives who are making good money and getting famous in the higher arts? Or that their aren't conservatives making good art? It never occurred to me to think that there weren't conservatives doing both. The art world has long been, like academia, a liberal bastion. Conservatives are everywhere, but perhaps they are too busy making good art to yell about their politics.

"I'm afraid I just can't bring myself to consider being in a rock band as being "cultural engagement", nor the pop music scene as an "institution"."

I think music both forms and reveals vital currents within our culture. Even relatively low-brow art is important since it's reach is so vast. Dismissing it does not diminish it's importance. It only cedes the field to unsavory content providers. As far as LA is concerned, Mel Gibson was able to produce something true and enduring in spite of his environment.

"It should not be taken seriously as a career by a grown man who aspires to be anything more than bankrupt and frozen in adolescence."

To repeat my point, again; adolescence is marked by rebellion. Why are so few rockers not rebelling against the principles, personalities and pathologies produced by a largely nihilistic Establishment? I mean, isn't that part of the fun of being young and alive?

I've been involved in Catholic religious education for 13 years and always look to expose teenagers to music, theatre and exhibits that bring them closer to Christ. It's not easy to find, but there are some green stalks sprouting up from the pavement. Hope though that a verdant forest grows up soon.

"Conservatives are everywhere, but perhaps they are too busy making good art to yell about their politics."

O.k., where's the good art? When I use the term conservative here I am not referring to a clearly defined political program (which is the antithesis of conservatism), but to a philosophical inclination that holds this to be undeniably true; Beauty Will Save the World.

Ugliness on the other hand, is the favored handmaiden of Death. And here's how they raise money for charity in ostensibly conservative North Dakota;
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20080328/D8VMMSU00.html

Isn't there someone with an electric guitar and an affinity for poetry and common decency who can entertainingly savage this age? Not looking for a Swift or Waugh. Another Davies will do.

To repeat my point, again; adolescence is marked by rebellion. Why are so few rockers not rebelling against the principles, personalities and pathologies produced by a largely nihilistic Establishment? I mean, isn't that part of the fun of being young and alive?

Adolescence isn't marked by rebellion. It's marked by concupiscence out of control, confusion, lack of identity which produces a type of compensatory self-assertion which can look like rebellion, but isn't. Kids today wouldn't know a true rebel if it came up and kicked them in the gut, and when I was a kid, I wouldn't have either. I was too busy trying to score chicks.

Otherwise, I think a lot of bands think they are doing just what you say they should be doing.

"Not looking for a Swift or Waugh. Another Davies will do."

Here's a Swift that's also another Davies, if you ask me.

http://www.myspace.com/richardswift

"O.k., where's the good art?"

At the "good art store" in the mall--where else?

As far as LA is concerned, Mel Gibson was able to produce something true and enduring in spite of his environment.

First off, I'd hesitate to rush off calling his little film enduring. I mean, how long has it been? 6 years or something? Questions of artistic merits of his film aside, you aren't talking about people making good music. You are talking about people making good music that you've heard of. Maybe you need to dig a bit deeper into the underground. Mel Gibson spent a lot of years as a Hollywood whore before he finally was able to start down the road to self-financed redemption. Please don't compare starving, struggling Hollywood musicians to Mel Gibson. If Mel can do it, you can do it. Please.

I've gotta say, Byronic Man is making a heck of a lot of sense to me here. I've known one young man who wanted to go to Hollywood and be a Christian actor and change the world. We told him exactly the same "you don't change LA" stuff that Byronic is saying, only of course we didn't have the experience to speak from, just inference from observation. I don't know what happened to him, but even thinking about making big money by being an actor was bad for him, for his drive to get a life, to get married, etc.

Speaking of Christian artists, a visual artist in this case, our own Bill Luse (who is a painter himself) put up a link to another one. I link it via Bill, here:

http://wluse.blogspot.com/2008/03/i-mean-really-fine-art.html

Let me see if I can boil it down. The sort of person that we'd often wish were making music on our radios and in our concert halls and clubs is just the sort of person who has too much character, integrity, and wisdom to put himself through what it would take to get there. If a young, dedicated Christian kid really wants to change the world, he'll set out trying to become a saint. Otherwise, perhaps he'd be better off setting himself a more modest goal, like learning to be a good citizen, getting his education, finding a good mate and settling down. How many young kids have I seen with messiah complexes come in talking about being a force for good, but turn out to be just one more example of the sort that has the sense of entitlement to fame and fortune that young and talented musicians all seem to have these days. And the biz is more than happy to feed that fantasy in exchange for your soul.

So, they'd be better off, if they really love music, to guard their talent and nurture it slowly and surely rather than throw it away on a quick junk culture that thrives on exploitation of teen libido. Very few artists/bands can evolve to the point where they are really calling their own shots. 1 in 10,000, if that? And to get there, you have to sacrifice everything that's worthwhile, because there is always someone standing in line behind you that is willing to pay the ultimate price for a shot at stardom. And the industry damn well knows it.

So my advice to the youngsters is this: Keep your music to yourself, hone your craft and master your instrument. Learn to play, not posture. Write songs because you are a songwriter, not because you want to score a record deal. Play locally, share your music on the web when it's really ready. Don't pimp yourself, just let the world come to you. If it doesn't, you still have the gift of music and that's what's important. Don't waste your youth by trying to find salvation in fame. If it's your destiny to walk the earth like Cain in Kung Fu, then I suppose you're just as well doing it in touring vans, cheap hotel rooms and smelly, Heineken soaked rock clubs. But that's a life for a person on a search, not a person who knows who he is and why he's been put in the world. Once you know that, you don't need the rock culture anymore. And it never needed you to begin with.

"Otherwise, I think a lot of bands think they are doing just what you say they should be doing."

Without referring me to the "good art store", can you point to a band that satirizes contemporary society from a rightist slant? Save me from digging deeper into the underground and just offer a brief synopsis like the one I gave of The Kinks. I trust your insight.

If you can't, my question still holds regarding both popular culture and higher art; where are the conservative artists?

I didn't say artistic success comes easy, nor did I say that those who produce work infused by their faith are flawless or even good representatives of that faith, so your sneering swipe at Gibson was directed at a straw-man. Waugh, Graham Greene, Eric Gill, Alfred Hithcock were not saints, but they did belong to a communion that holds plenty of sinners and they did draw souls to the Truth through their individual talents.

Maybe others can chime in and point out some contemporary artists who offer a genuinely counter-cultural critique or create art with a sense of transcendence.

I don't mean to take a sneer at Mel, and I'm sure not going to get into a debate over the artistic merits of his film. You brought him up and it was a poor analogy. We're talking about commerce, primarily, when we're talking about Hollywood, and it's a lot easier to reinvent yourself as an "artist" after you've become a $20 mil a picture box office powerhouse. The joke goes, "how do you wind up with a million dollars in the music business? Start out with 3 million."

But my point in my previous post was to say that the sort of person you and I would like to see getting ahead in the music business is precisely the sort of person who isn't going to do what it takes to get ahead. They make music on their own terms and they do it privately. If you want to find them, you have to hunt them down because they aren't self-aggrandizing monomaniacs with messiah complexes and shifty consciences, and they aren't going to slave and prostitute their youth away while they await their moment in the sun. Pop culture is not about art, it's about entertainment, commerce, fashion, posturing and play-acting, consumer-ready disposable product--everything your precious Evelyn Waugh stood against. And that sort of business just overwhelmingly rewards people with mediocre talent and essentially bad character. But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Otherwise, I'm not a true rock critic. I don't judge music according to it's political content, or it's lyrical content for that matter. What's more important for the communication of a good melody is the open vowel sound and the timbre of a singer's voice, and that's the sort of thing I care about and have always listened out for. I like nice chord changes, voice movement, sophistication in rhythm and arrangement, harmonic tension and release, a sense of composition, instruments played well and intoned. Stuff like that. When pop artists try to sell me their political/social/philosophical/religious commentary, I usually just get embarrassed for them. Sorry can't be of further help.

However, I think that if you are a Kinks fan you will like Richard Swift. He's one of the best songwriters in the English speaking world, which is why he's utterly unknown outside of underground bohemian muso circles. And he's a libertarian, btw.

If we're allowed to talk about lowbrow pop art, I can think of some Christian musicians whose work I enjoy and who I think have some good pieces--Philips, Craig, and Dean (group) and Michael Card come to mind. But I don't suppose that's what's wanted. And they are pretty apolitical, which is fine with me, for that matter.

"Pop culture is not about art, it's about entertainment, commerce, fashion, posturing and play-acting, consumer-ready disposable product--everything your precious Evelyn Waugh stood against."

So it's an excellent barometer of the state of our culture, and should every now and then produce someone who wanders off the script and happily bites the hand that feeds them. Thanks for the tip on Swift. He has the right name.

"If we're allowed to talk about lowbrow pop art..."

Of course, that is where the harvest is plenty, but the laborers few. And, the same sad state of affairs if found at every level of the creative hierarchy.

My problems with the cultural ghetto of explicit Christian art is that it is just another specialty niche capable of producing only sappy and shallow works. I'll close with Flannery O'Connor;

"The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make them appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural; and he may be forced to take ever more violent means to get his vision across to this hostile audience. When you can assume that your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax a little and use more normal ways of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not, then you have to make your vision apparent by shock — to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the blind you draw large and startling figures."
Flannery O'Connor

"My problems with the cultural ghetto of explicit Christian art is that it is just another specialty niche capable of producing only sappy and shallow works."

I'm going to put a comment about this in Jeff's new thread above.