Rules Of The Game #24: The PBSification Of Rock

[koganbot]

Latest column. I look at some of my own ideas and start asking questions, hoping that I'll inspire you to ask questions about them, too.

The Rules Of The Game #24: The PBSification Of Rock

I don't really go deeply into what I think PBSification is, or how we turned rock 'n' roll into something that's "good for you" in a bad, stultifying way. A question: Is PBSification inevitable? Is there a way to praise and preserve the great music of the past (girl groups, soul, etc.) and to recognize and speak for the great music of the present (Ashlee) without ultimately laying a sense of deadening Quality and Significance on it (or a sense of Glorious Frivolity, or some other deadening anti-Significance stance that is really the same thing run through a convolution or two)?

EDIT: Here are links to all but three of my other Rules Of The Game columns (LVW's search results for "Rules of the Game"). Links for the other three (which for some reason didn't get "Rules Of The Game" in their titles), are here: #4, #5, and #8.

UPDATE: I've got all the links here now:

http://koganbot.livejournal.com/179531.html

Comments

Novelty (part two)

[koganbot]

And Richard continues:

3) Insecurity and fake significance? I don't think this follows logically from your predicate. Why is the significance fake just because the novelty/vitality has worn off? Consider the non-artistic world as an example. I imagine that there was a heady sense of vitality during the New Deal, a sense that in some basic ways America was being partly remade for the better. (I know I felt this during the early days of the civil rights movement.) One of the accomplishments of the New Deal was the Social Security Act (which covered more than just the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program). Well, Social Security is no longer new and does not evoke the same psychological "vitality" that it must have during its creation. But in the 140 years of US history before Social Security, being old, or a widow, or an orphan was often synonymous with poverty and often complete destitution. The poverty rate among the elderly, as well as anyone can measure it, was well over 50%. It has now dropped to about 10%, while current data continue to show that without Social Security benefits, close to 50% of the elderly would be living (or dying) in poverty. Very simply, the vast majority of people did not or could not save enough for their old age before the Social Security system was created and they still can't, but now at least they have a mandatory and collective system that is an adequate substitute.

What's my point? It is that Social Security was and still is extremely significant, but it has nowhere near the vitality, "psychological protection," and novelty it initially did. As I said in a different context, so what? And if PBS or a good course in American History wants to explain the past and present significance of Social Security to people who care, or even to people who are more interested in ER or Survivor or efforts to unionize Wal-Mart or Barry Bonds, that probably is a good thing even if an uphill fight. And the virtue of a deeper understanding of the society in which we live, while surely not as psychologically vital as falling in love (or falling in love with the Stones), is nonetheless a real virtue of a different kind. Don't knock it - and don't blame PBSification for this result; it is surely better than forgetting the past.

4) Still, falling in love is grand, and only you can do it; PBS cannot do it for you.

Re: Novelty (part two)

[koganbot]

But I don't see why Richard thinks we can simply replace "significance" with "novelty." If someone sings "I am the world's forgotten boy" when he's a forgotten boy and then years later someone else sings it as if it's the punk national anthem, the difference isn't just that the novelty has worn off but that the song signifies something different.

Re: Novelty (part two)

[koganbot]

And the PBSification of comic books and horror movies etc. means that now we have a lot of justifications and rationalizations that tell us why it is OK for People Like Us to take this stuff seriously. (Not to say that we're unjustified in taking it seriously, mind you.) Again, this is not merely a loss of novelty.