Rules Of The Game #32: Where The Real Wild Things Are

[koganbot]

Here's the latest column, once again about antirockism.

The Rules Of The Game #32: Where The Real Wild Things Are

I agonized for about ten seconds as to whether I was being fair in the sentence "the antirockists put defeating an enemy ahead of trying to understand him, so in effect were seeking stupidity in others rather than trying to strengthen their own comprehension." Then I figured if I was being unfair, you'd tell me. It doesn't seem to me that those of you who used the word on ilX weren't trying to understand Patrick Hould or Dave Q or Sundar Subramanian or Glenn McDonald or Alex In NYC, but then I don't think the first three had anything to do with "rockism" as you guys seemed to be using it (though I think that Patrick was confused enough by your usage to think he might be a "rockist") or that your use of the term had anything to do with your actual attempts to interact with and understand these guys.

Also, dickmalone made an interesting point at the end of last column's thread where he said "applying 'rockist' principles to acts from the rockist era (60s/70s) is totally fair, and that's why those terms of discourse came to be so prominent." I didn't have the time to respond that day, but one of the problems I'd have had in responding is that I really really really did not know what he meant by "rockist"; if he meant what most of you seemed to be meaning, he's wrong, in that it was just as stupid in 1966 as it is now to say an act is no good if it doesn't write its own songs, and conversely if it was valid in 1968 to praise a performer for trying to oppose or stand outside an injust socioeconomic system, and to criticize performers that seemed to reinforce the injust system, it's just as valid now. Or if "rockism" means assuming that electric guitars mean electric excitement and that other instrumentation doesn't, yes that was more true in 1967 than it is now, but it was still dumb as a principle, and anyway that isn't what most antirockists mean by "rockist," I don't think. And also, I'd say the average rock critic in the '60s was probably more antirockist then than the average rock critic is now, if "antirockism" means something (obv they didn't use the word "rockism" then), though that's just because there are way more rock critics now and the average is someone who's a lot stupider.

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

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

no i'm not trying to rescue "rockist vs anti-rockist" as a way to see the world -- i'm trying come up with terms that push the old conversation into better, more fruitful kinds of comparison and contrast (though partly by going back and trying to recapture what i felt i was chasing when i DID divide the world into rockists and anti-rockists)

"noise vs signal" seems to map some of the same impulses, but it maps them much more compellingly (and fairly), and -- as you say and i don't disagree -- we're all after both elements, just in different kinds of combination: i'm certainly not an advocate of noise-noise-all-the-time

and "surprise vs analysis" would also be a way to map them

my jab back at someone who was doing the defining-a-rockist-dance you pick up on there would be to say, well, WHAT KIND OF SURPRISE ARE WE TALKING ABOUT HERE? bcz a routine that always delivers surprises is kind of a contradiction, isn't it? so is it a creative contradiction (= possibly yes to start with) and when does it stop being one? when you walk into the avant-garde club and get exactly what you expected, and enjoy that for what it always is? IS THIS A BAD THING? (ans = sometimes yes and sometimes no: i'm interested in craft technique after all)

"creative types have less tolerance for noise than the average person does" <--- this for example seems to me an interesting point to pursue, bcz if true (and i think it arguably is) then it's a problem as well as a power, and i like that kind of tension

[koganbot]

OK, well let's see how your idea of new fruitful convo as opposed to old might fit with mine. In "What's Wrong With Pretty Girls?" I ended with: "[stand-in issues] allow us to feel class issues without actually discussing them and allow us to indulge our uneasiness with happy songs and the pretty girls who dance to them without our really exploring where the uneasiness comes from." For me the logical next step is to say, "So let's talk about class issues and about why some people feel an uneasiness towards happy songs and pretty girls." And in the most recent piece I'm talking about "The impulses, tropes, and habits that get labeled 'rockism' existed throughout the culture from high to low, long before rock, and the general cultural debate and uncertainty as to the value of popular culture was also already in place, these impulses etc. managing to run simultaneously in contrary directions - towards respectability and seriousness and towards subversion and wildness, the subversion and wildness themselves being completely torn as to whether they're a form of respectability (albeit a supposed outsider's respectability) or of irresponsibility. There's simply no way to understand why 'real versus fake' is a big anxiety if you're not willing to think about people's conflicted attitudes towards social power, how authenticity and respectability are required to present themselves as opposition to authority." So for me the logical next step is to discuss "the subversion and wildness being completely torn as to whether they're a form of respectability... or of irresponsibility." And one way to have such a discussion is to ask, as I did in my book, in regard to similar conundrums, "What do we - as individuals and as a society - gain by trying to meld subversion to respectability and vice versa?" (I'm not so much a functionalist as to assume that because this conundrum exists that we must gain something from it, but I think the hypothesis that we gain something from it is a good starting point.)

So my question is how does "preferring signal vs. being lost in noise" help me in my discussion? It doesn't have to, and we could be having totally different discussions. Is there a way to combine our discussions? Don't say "authority" is signal and "opposition" is noise, and that "noise" is trying to become "signal" and "signal" is trying to pass itself off as "noise." That's too abstract.

Again, it seems to me that preferring "signal" or preferring "being lost in noise" are characteristics of temperament, and someone could have either one of those preferences while having no interest one way or another in social class and in whether or not the pretty, preppy girls reinforce social inequities.

[koganbot]

So I think what I want from you here is:

(1) What is the signal vs. noise issue? I think you're relying on our already having an idea what those terms mean in relation to music, but I actually don't know what you mean by them.

(2) What the relationship is between the signal-vs.-noise issue and some other musical issue. What does it have to do with what "rockists" and "antirockists" are generally to say?

[koganbot]

What does it have to do with what "rockists" and "antirockists" are generally to say?

"...are generally believed to say" (is what I think I meant).