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Why are the left such chumps when it comes to the charts?
I'm urging ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dubdobdee to pitch and write a piece that he's long been contemplating: "why are the left such chumps when it comes to the charts?" So to urge him further I'm pasting in a slightly re-worded version of what I wrote on his thread, and I encourage you to contribute your own thoughts here. (I'm not saying anything that I haven't said better and at greater length before, but I think this summary might be useful.)
My thumbnail explanation of why the left are such chumps about the charts is that being "left" has evolved into a cultural identity rather than just a way of analyzing and attempting to change society -- not that being a cultural identity precludes doing analysis and changing society, or that there's anything wrong with having a cultural identity (inevitably when people come together for a common purpose they'll already have a lot in common outside that purpose and will get more in common), but the unstated movement in the left has been towards embracing music, ideas, and actions because they are ours* rather than because the music, ideas, and actions are good -- though of course the music is called good, it's experienced as good, and sometimes reasons are even given, and the reasons are usually terrible: the reasons tend to validate or criticize the music on the basis of whether we* approve of who makes it, how it was (supposedly) made, and whom it was made for rather than on the basis of what the music actually is and does.
Of course, the whole culture, not just the left, tends to do just the same, and the nonleftist analyses often lean left anyway (interestingly enough), though with the "politics" subdued. And my critique of the "left" is pretty much in line with the critique of academia and journalism that I made in my book (this critique could be directed at several hundred other professions as well):
"(i) presentation of self -- creating, maintaining, or modifying one's hairstyle, as it were -- is a way of thinking, but (ii) given a choice between maintaining one's hairstyle and thinking about it, my profession as a whole will choose hairstyle over thought"
*"our" and "us" not necessarily meaning you and me and our buddies anymore, since in this corner of the livejournal we don't particuarly extol liberal-left approved music, but really, there but for the grace of god go you, me, and my buddies, ya know? And the postgrad liberal-left is our political leaning and our cultural neighborhood, even if it's not quite our particular musical street. Also, "our" and "us" don't totally explain why "we on the left" embrace hip-hop and blues and world music -- which is not made by "us" but is the sort of music "we" like, made by the sort of non-"us" that we project our romanticism onto. And there is a tendency for some lefties to validate pop by finding within it "modes of resistance" or by plumping for a "democratic catholocism of taste" or something -- again, not by the actual people in this corner of the livejournal, but by chumps on the left. And of course this sort of lefty can't comprehend that we like Britney because we think she's good rather than because we think our liking makes us anti-elitist.
dubdobdee to pitch and write a piece that he's long been contemplating: "why are the left such chumps when it comes to the charts?" So to urge him further I'm pasting in a slightly re-worded version of what I wrote on his thread, and I encourage you to contribute your own thoughts here. (I'm not saying anything that I haven't said better and at greater length before, but I think this summary might be useful.)My thumbnail explanation of why the left are such chumps about the charts is that being "left" has evolved into a cultural identity rather than just a way of analyzing and attempting to change society -- not that being a cultural identity precludes doing analysis and changing society, or that there's anything wrong with having a cultural identity (inevitably when people come together for a common purpose they'll already have a lot in common outside that purpose and will get more in common), but the unstated movement in the left has been towards embracing music, ideas, and actions because they are ours* rather than because the music, ideas, and actions are good -- though of course the music is called good, it's experienced as good, and sometimes reasons are even given, and the reasons are usually terrible: the reasons tend to validate or criticize the music on the basis of whether we* approve of who makes it, how it was (supposedly) made, and whom it was made for rather than on the basis of what the music actually is and does.
Of course, the whole culture, not just the left, tends to do just the same, and the nonleftist analyses often lean left anyway (interestingly enough), though with the "politics" subdued. And my critique of the "left" is pretty much in line with the critique of academia and journalism that I made in my book (this critique could be directed at several hundred other professions as well):
"(i) presentation of self -- creating, maintaining, or modifying one's hairstyle, as it were -- is a way of thinking, but (ii) given a choice between maintaining one's hairstyle and thinking about it, my profession as a whole will choose hairstyle over thought"
*"our" and "us" not necessarily meaning you and me and our buddies anymore, since in this corner of the livejournal we don't particuarly extol liberal-left approved music, but really, there but for the grace of god go you, me, and my buddies, ya know? And the postgrad liberal-left is our political leaning and our cultural neighborhood, even if it's not quite our particular musical street. Also, "our" and "us" don't totally explain why "we on the left" embrace hip-hop and blues and world music -- which is not made by "us" but is the sort of music "we" like, made by the sort of non-"us" that we project our romanticism onto. And there is a tendency for some lefties to validate pop by finding within it "modes of resistance" or by plumping for a "democratic catholocism of taste" or something -- again, not by the actual people in this corner of the livejournal, but by chumps on the left. And of course this sort of lefty can't comprehend that we like Britney because we think she's good rather than because we think our liking makes us anti-elitist.
Re: What *aren't* the left chumps about?
Totally, and when I'm feeling pompous enough to say things like "my general project," I'd also say that part of that general project is to live in that schism, because people go absolutely batshit in there (and, of more immediate importance to me, completely misrepresent the excellent music that's happening in what they consider to be a wasteland).
This isn't as true in other media worlds I dabble/live in -- the only people I find making salient critiques of Hollywood production, for instance, are pretty hard left, and their primary concerns are with, like, unionizing a global workforce. Talking about Along Came Polly's capitulation to the capitalist blahdyblah just isn't their primary concern (and the examples of possibility used in a book like Global Hollywood, which is pretty clearly a leftist analysis of the global Hollywood film industry) are pan-regional efforts, but no special emphasis is placed on what these pan-regional efforts produce, be it independent films or telenovelas.
Re: What *aren't* the left chumps about?
Obviously, "Better Off" doesn't sound like a pressing plant or a board meeting or a distribution agreement or a commercial tie-in, but what would you say is the schism?
Re: What *aren't* the left chumps about?
By "living in it," I guess I mean I'm trying to live in and jab out my elbows from within other people's perception of that schism, with better analysis and better facts. Operating, as a critic, on the aesthetic side of production while still caring about and understanding the biz side, and (by caring enough to investigate) not seeing any great contradiction in these terms. At least, not in any useful sense ("how good it sounds" versus "the problematic nature of its being made at all" tends not to actually arise, Paris Hilton's album maybe being the most galvanizing but also most obvious recent example). I think I've argued before that music production doesn't work like film production, in that the workforce itself is too specialized to use the same sorts of problematic labor methods that filmmaking does.
So to use a film as an example, if I like The Mexican starring Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts, it's hard for me ("as a leftist"?) to square my possible enjoyment and positive aesthetic analysis with the fact that its production wreaked havoc on a small Mexican village for no discernible reason. Or if I like Titanic, I'm not sure what to do with the Pacific fishing industries just south of the border its production demolished (even ten years later!). Titanic doesn't look like the destruction of a small local fishing industry, yet it is that, too. (Note: I've never actually seen The Mexican, only read about the bizarre water pump that was constructed for the American stars and then left to rot after production was finished, right in the middle of a small village that was using this for clean water until production ended).
But again, music production just doesn't work that way, and these aren't the kinds of arguments that anyone is leveling at Ashlee. And as for my last paragraph above, they also aren't the arguments they're leveling at the films that are actually doing it, even though (if they're actually leftists) they probably should. The music-related social arguments don't sync up with any "leftist" politics I'm aware of in the same way that a critique of Titanic genuinely might. And yet I would be tempted to locate plenty of Ashlee haters somewhere in the area of "left-leaning," i.e. accusing her of "red state" whateverism on that Ashlee thread, for instance (which is totally absurd), or denying her any credibility on principle because she's, like, a "pop tart" or something (the k-runkian line).
Re: What *aren't* the left chumps about?
Is it worth it? Lemme work it...
Re: Is it worth it? Lemme work it...
Re: Is it worth it? Lemme work it...
Re: Is it worth it? Lemme work it...
Re: Is it worth it? Lemme work it...
Re: Is it worth it? Lemme work it...
Re: Is it worth it? Lemme work it...
This is an interesting test, but I think it's mostly beside the point. Not that I've immersed myself in the "left" in the last three years, but my impression is still that leftist analyses concentrate - as they mostly should - on what vision of life and what vision of social relations a film or song is likely to contain, rather than on who was harmed or exploited in the making of the product. It's more the hapless consumer that the leftists are imagining themselves looking out for. Of course, a lot of this content analysis is rudimentary or just plain projection - in the extreme case of the Paris Hilton album, few of the Paris criticizers seemed to have gotten around to actually listening to it. (But the left was hardly unique in this failing.) As for the anti-Taylor idiots, they look at the sort of person they think Taylor Swift is and project their ignorant social prejudices about Taylor and about people who dress like Taylor onto her music. Nonetheless, what the music/film/product/artwork is and does is their (the leftist critics') fundamental concern, whereas how the music was made/who made it is merely invoked (by the method of guesswork and prejudice) to explain the bad content, though production and content of course can be melded in analysis ("sounds like typical commercial pop-country"). I don't think what I wrote in this paragraph contradicts what I wrote above ("the reasons are usually terrible: the reasons tend to validate or criticize the music on the basis of whether we* approve of who makes it, how it was (supposedly) made, and whom it was made for rather than on the basis of what the music actually is and does"), since the leftists' target is still what the music actually is and does, but the leftist stumbles on the way there.
There's nothing in any of this that guarantees that the leftist won't make good analyses (and for the purpose of Mark's project you and I and he are not defined as "leftist," though in fact we are left, or at least liberal); if all goes well we'll find under a rock somewhere an actual good analysis from some capital-L Leftist. My explanation for why there aren't more good leftist analyses goes back to what I said in my post: that being "left" as a social identity is superseding being "left" as a means of probing, challenging, and changing, so hanging onto one's social identity (smugly, thoughtlessly, or with trepidation) puts the left on the path to ignorance and stupidity. Though again, it doesn't have to.
Re: What *aren't* the left chumps about?
I don't know what the attitude of my future editors there will be (assuming that there will be any: things are still on hiatus).
Re: What *aren't* the left chumps about?
Re: What *aren't* the left chumps about?