For the Autonomous, Productive Self
Via Andrew Sullivan I see that Rod Dreher is worrying again. He sets up a dichotomy between a traditional culture, in which “choice” is not an important value, and the modern world we live in, in which even traditions can only be followed by choice, and hence are not really traditions at all in the most meaningful sense.
The . . . choice, then, is set up between a traditional, producerist world, in which what you want to have is not important, only what you must do, and the individual is subordinate to the great project of producing a new generation and passing down traditional understandings to them – and the modern, consumerist world, in which there is precious little you must do and what’s important is what you want to have, and that the economic wheels are greased to facilitate your getting it (consistent with not taking away from somebody else by force what he or she wants to have, my freedom ending where my fist impacts your face and all that).
But there’s an implicitly excluded third alternative that, humbly, is the object of my own preferred utopian yearning, and that is the idea of a modern, producerist world.
There’s nothing in the Enlightenment project that says in the hierarchy of values that what you want to have is more important than what you want to do or to be. If we have come to a point where most people define themselves by what they consume rather than what they produce, I don’t see why blame must be laid at the foot of the autonomous self. Emerson certainly wouldn’t have any use for such an accusation.
But have we even come to that pass? The amazing thing about this moment in history is not merely that everybody can listen to whatever music they want, but that it’s easier than ever before to produce and distribute music. And writing. And so forth.
The tradition of classical music is anything but dead – the country is littered with philharmonics, and still there’s a glut of musicians who can’t get a gig. Ditto for jazz, or just about any other musical tradition you’d like to name.
So what, exactly, is the complaint? That too many people have no taste and no aspirations . . . whereas in the 15th century they did? Or isn’t it that in the 15th century nobody cared whether they did.
Rod Dreher has chosen to make a certain kind of life. He’s chosen a certain relationship to his spouse and his children, a certain relationship to food and his environment, a certain relationship to his God and to his self. I have to say, I find that project of fully realizing a self to be pretty darn interesting, and something that requires a whole lot more work than either simply doing what one must or buying what one wants.
Noah, I think Rod would say that of course the “Enlightenment Project” does not aim for a world in which individuals define themselves by what they consume. Rather, such a world is the inevitable result of Enlightenment values. I don’t think your critique really addresses this (perhaps implicit) point.
Moreover, the fact that there are lots of people playing jazz and classical music (but few, if any, creating new, enduring works) seems to me to support Rod’s worry. There is a huge substructure of arguments and values all wrapped into this, but at a very high-level, Rod and people like him believe that most “modern” art is a failure, whether it be architecture, visual arts, or music. In their own way, the modern “artists” who create these things are also consumers: rather than produce beautiful things for the enjoyment of society, they create works for their own individual gratification. This may not fit neatly into the dichotomy of consumption and production that you have set up, but Rod’s worry isn’t “consumption” so much as fragmentation, of which consumption is a symptom.
And certainly, the link between fragmentation and the autonomous self seems plausible.
— Jay Daniel · Jun 3, 07:26 PM · #
“In their own way, the modern “artists” who create these things are also consumers: rather than produce beautiful things for the enjoyment of society, they create works for their own individual gratification.”
If this is what Dreher and people like Dreher believe about “modern art”, no wonder they’re so confused and upset. It’s an utter fantasy on what art is or ever was.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 3, 07:40 PM · #
When is the “benedict option” just going to become another dirty word?
I mean….the Bad Shepherd and his intransigent support of pederaty and pedophilia….i think ‘Benedict’ is wholly going to have negative connotations in history.
Its the first thing i think of when i hear ‘benedict’…benedictines will probably wind up in the UD as a slang definition for child rapists.
— matoko_chan · Jun 3, 09:21 PM · #
How can you create a new “classic”? That’s like saying, nobody’s making any more 80-year-old antiques. Well, obviously – they’re new when you make them, not antiques! Back then, the music we think of as “classic” was thought of as “the hot new thing”, by those young, iconoclast upstarts Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven.
I don’t know how else to respond to the criticism that all the new stuff isn’t very old. Um, yes. Kind of inevitable, don’t you think?
— Chet · Jun 3, 11:45 PM · #
The modern, producerist world, I like that. One thing the act of production does for you, it seems to me, is push you up against the universe of things and people and words and make you question some of the easier assertions about autonomy, choice, and freedom. And that’s a good thing.
— C Lucas · Jun 3, 11:50 PM · #
I think that Dreher is correct that has been a change in how most people proceed through the world. In the past people had way fewer life choices. Until very recently most people were born under one philospohical, cultural, and economic regime and had little knowledge of other regimes. These regimes changed very slowly and there was very little mobility. You were basically stuck with whatever regime you were born under. This has certain benefits. You know your place. Authority in all things is respected which means you live with certainty. You don’t have to waste energy choosing or debating. You can spend your energy on living.
The problem with this is that these regimes were crushing to a lot of people. You were economically fixed at birth. You very little political power. You had to conform to very narrow categories of being.
So sure we traded away something for the freedoms we have now, and the freedoms we have now bring thier own problems,b ut as far as I can see, on the whole the trade was well worth it. I have the world’s knowledge at my fingertips, I own my own house in a city full of jobs and food and parks, I don’t have to work in a tannery becasue that’s what my caste does. No priest or bailif has authority over me. I can move where ever I want in this country and plus lots of other places around the world. I can decide to persue my dream of being a professional football quarterback or if that doesn’t work out I can persue my backup career as an IT dude. Why would I go back to some less free time that for the vast majority meant misery? To avoid anxiety? To feel part of some large oppressive structure?
Rod Dreher makes sense sometimes, but this critique of modern society is the most pathetic kind of conservative nostolgia. I only wish I could transport him back in time to some shetel somewhere in 15th century Russia as punishment for being so childishly stupid in public.
— cw · Jun 4, 01:50 AM · #
O my dark sithlord master…..the “benedict option” is simple nostalgie de la buie.
i too would like to send Dreher back in time to where he could be a smelly serf and checkout at age 27 from appendicitis or a bad tooth…….but alas, time travel to the past is impossible because of closedform timecurves.
so i guess we have to have to put up with his tedious endless whining.
/sigh
— matoko_chan · Jun 4, 02:27 AM · #
Mr. Comstock is right. Dreher is putting with stupid generalities.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Jun 4, 04:17 AM · #
Here’s one thing about choice Dreher likes: every time I leave a comment on his blog, he chooses to remove it.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 4, 11:11 AM · #
“the Bad Shepherd and his intransigent support of pederaty and pedophilia”
It’s spelled pederasty, and I strongly doubt you know the meaning of the word intransigent. No informed person could look at the record of the current Pope and conclude that he has been an “intransigent support[er] of pederasty and pedophilia”.
— Tim O'Rourke · Jun 4, 02:47 PM · #
No informed person could look at the record of the current Pope and conclude that he has been an “intransigent support[er] of pederasty and pedophilia”.
lol
i think andrew sullivan has.
anyways its pretty gobsmackingly obvious. Pope Benedict has consistently cared for the other “shepherds” and Holy Mother Church far more than the poor abused lambs that were raped and molested.
;)
— matoko_chan · Jun 4, 03:07 PM · #
Why does anybody even read that guy. He’s an insufferable hand wringer forever pondering how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I’ve actually advised him that he could easily relieve his burden a tiny bit by no longer worrying about me and my family. I suspect, however, that he enjoys the task too much to leave us out.
— shecky · Jun 4, 03:27 PM · #
He’s an insufferable hand wringer
nah, hes just a concern troll secretly gloating about the rest of us being destined to gehenna.
— matoko_chan · Jun 4, 04:16 PM · #
Plus, is consumption really that big of a problem? There are a lot of people out at any given time in malls and stores, but it’s not like the same people are out every day. My wife and I go shopping every once in a while, and all the people I know do the same — there are simply a lot of people who buy stuff they need or want and a lot to choose from. Aside from shopaholics, people consume sensibly, it seems. This sort of conservatism is boring. I do agree that more people should learn history, so that the present makes more sense, but I’m all for a vibrant market place with plenty of choices. Innovation, change, choice, variety — what’s the problem? I think people are fairly well informed about tradition, they just like to do things differently, experiment, invent — it’s just the way we peeps roll.
— mike farmer · Jun 4, 06:55 PM · #
MC,
Wait, you’re not going to trot out Christopher Hitchens to support your smear? But I see the goal-post shifting has already begun in your last sentence. You have already revealed yourself to be dishonest hack in a previous thread, so I’m not getting my hopes up for a sudden surge in intellectual honesty.
— Tim O'Rourke · Jun 4, 07:04 PM · #
“No informed person could look at the record of the current Pope and conclude that he has been an “intransigent support[er] of pederasty and pedophilia.”
Ah, yes, the old chestnut that everyone must think as I do. If you are informed, then of course you agree with me. If you don’t agree with me, then you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Convincing!
— Socrates · Jun 5, 01:14 PM · #
“How can you create a new “classic”? That’s like saying, nobody’s making any more 80-year-old antiques. Well, obviously – they’re new when you make them, not antiques!”
Ooh, my name is Chet, and I feel superior because I engage in smarmy misreadings of people that make me appear smart — look at me!
— McGanahan Skejellyfetti · Jun 5, 10:03 PM · #
I can hate on Chet with the best of ‘em, but in this case he’s right.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 5, 11:19 PM · #
This post deserved a much better comment thread.
— Dustin · Jun 6, 03:39 AM · #
Let’s hear your better comment then, Justin.
— cw · Jun 6, 04:48 AM · #
Chet and Tony — I do think you are reading my comment unfairly. I never said what you ascribe to me, and while it would be possible to infer that I meant to say “new classics” in some silly nonsensical way, it’s not even the most natural reading.
Most symphonies in the United States play music that is anywhere from seventy to hundreds of years old. When they play newer music, it is generally played in the cycle of a fad. There is very little from the 70s and 80s, for example, that has entered into the standard repertoire of American symphonies. When something is played widely for a year or two and then falls out of the cultural, I think it is fair to say that music is not “enduring.”
Same goes for other forms of art, like architecture. Take a look at the architectural styles being employed on college campuses these days with new construction. After building a bunch of buildings in the 60s to the 80s employing various modernist styles, colleges have almost entirely gone back to styles of architecture invented hundreds of years ago. Moreover, most every casual observer believes that the buildings from the 60s to the 80s are uniformly ugly. It appears that, at least from the standpoint of aesthetic beauty, common consensus is that our culture has not produced any lasting forms of architecture in the last 70 years or so.
There may be substantive arguments against this high-level observation, but you two have not offered them.
— Jay Daniel · Jun 6, 05:14 PM · #
In this case, Chet is right and wrong.
He’s wrong to take the term “classical music” so literally.
While it was originally intended to specifically cover the European canon between the times of Bach and Beethoven, it’s another term altogether now, one that encompasses a much broader category. “Art music” or “academic music” might be more suitable terms, but they simply haven’t stuck in the communal imagination.
I suppose it’s counterintuitive to call a new composition “classical,” but most of us overlook this discrepancy, realizing that the term has bent beyond its roots in the service of categorization. This happens elsewhere: Alvar Aalto designed buildings in the first half of the twentieth century that remain “Modernist” works to this day. We don’t gripe, “How can something that’s seventy years old be modern?!”
Chet’s right, however, that artists who we now regard as essential, brilliant and influential were often regarded as iconoclasts in their own time. “The Rite of Spring” caused rioting at its premier. Thirty years later, it was re-scored for a Walt Disney film.
When Stravinsky was new on the scene, many critics deplored his ballets as self-indulgent, terrible and contemptuous of the musical tradition. But these were backward and frightened responses, not that different from Dreher’s.
In general, I’m quite suspicious how much Dreher or commenter, Jay Daniel, bother to explore new music, literature, sculpture, etc… Above, Jay Daniel claims almost no “enduring” works of jazz or classical music are composed anymore. What a blithe, careless conclusion. On what does he base it? Is he a professional musician who performs jazz or classical? Does he work in a university music department? Does he frequent musical venues in big cities that premiere new music? Does he at least buy a lot of CD’s/mp3’s of avant garde music to test his assertion? I’m guessing the answer is no to all those questions. He’s just going on a sense he has, one that’s likely prejudiced to believe new compositions are merely difficult, detached or, as you sometimes hear it prudishly put, “unmusical.”
In whose service should an artwork ultimately be? Dreher suggests the community’s, and to some extent this is inevitably true. A work needs an audience. Yet, the community’s traditions are often a poor barometer of new visions/discoveries. An artist who insists on dwelling within tradition may enhance the existing territory, but does little to expand and revitalize it. For an artist to reveal where the traditional frames are lacking, he has to venture without not within.
— turnbuckle · Jun 6, 06:15 PM · #
Classical actually has two meanings here. The first refers to a style of composition using symetical, logical structures. It is used in the same way as classical architecure. Bach was Baroque, Mozart classical, beehtohoven first classical and then from symphony no. 5 romantic on.
The other meaning is as above: european style art music. Mostly orchestral which means with strings. It’s like whatever music youwould hear on the “clasical” music radio station.
— cw · Jun 6, 09:57 PM · #
Pedantic arguing about the meaning of “classical” because you humps don’t make, you consume. My great great grandchildren will wow them on Antigues Road Show with signed copies of “Marie and Jack” complete with production notes in the directors own hand and the original negative. :-P
— Tony Comstock · Jun 6, 10:42 PM · #
Well, I fully admit to having only a layman’s knowledge of music. But, you know, if you’re looking for music in that classical style, it seems like just about any modern film score fits the bill. Surely Rod Dreher gets out to the movies?
I understood Dreher’s complaint to be a very stupid one – nobody’s making any new Bach or Beethoven. Which is true, but so what? Is there not enough Beethoven and Bach already, that we need more?
— Chet · Jun 7, 03:04 AM · #
Easy there, chief! Just cuz I don’t have a steady parade of naked people fucking around the house doesn’t mean I’m not making stuff. Just the other day I made a pair of headphones, because I couldn’t find a pair that were circumaural, Bluetooth-enabled, and active noise canceling.
— Chet · Jun 7, 03:07 AM · #
I make marks on the internet by pushing these buttons in front of me.
— cw · Jun 7, 03:45 AM · #
Like Matt Frost I though this thread had a lot of potential to generate good discussion
Where I think Noah went wrong is in framing his thoughts with Rod Dreher. Rod’s not half the thinker, nor half the writer that Noah is, so there end up being a sort of “don’t argue with an idiot. they’ll drag you down to their level and beat you on experience” haze that’s cast over the whole thing.
What Rod so painfully doesn’t understand (and I suspect is intellectually under-equipped to understand) is that “art” is a subset of commerce. Against the panty-bunching vapors that usually accompany discussions about art, one is tempted to say “merely” a subset of commerce, but that’s backwards. Grouping art under commerce doesn’t debase art, it elevates it; from a self-indulgent asocial or even anti-social activity to a hyper-prosocial activity.
I’m accustomed to this sort of suspicion of commerce from the lefty-campus crowd, but it comes in from the right — whether it’s Rod’s crunchy connism, or Conner’s 501c journalism — it still manages to catch me off-guard, and can provoke reactions instead of responses.
My hope is that we’re evolving away from a world of consumptive cattle and towards a world of productive participants, and I guess the fact that I see/hope for things in that way is part of what makes me a liberal at heart. But Rod’s suspicion of commerce is utterly unworthy of the label conservative, no matter how much granola he sprinkles on it.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 7, 02:26 PM · #
Turnbuckle — you accuse me of making a “blithe, careless conclusion.” You then proceed to imagine what my relationship with music must be like. While it’s easier to attack a strawman, your response would have been more powerful if you had listed or, better yet, discussed some works of music — and architecture, which you do not address — that you believe there is strong evidence will be an enduring part of a broadly shared culture going forward.
I am not a professional musician. I have occasionally attend (and was once a subscriber of) the San Francisco Symphony. I play a few musical instruments as an amateur with interest but little talent. I took some music classes in college, but only for fun. I am a fairly avid music listener, but over the past several years, I’ve been into rootsy music like bluegrass and the blues. I like Medeski Martin & Wood. I like Radiohead. I like going to a pretty wide variety of musical performances. I’ve never completely stopped listening to the rock music of my adolescence.
I don’t think those facts tell you anything particular useful about me, other than perhaps to alter your baseless conception of me as an appreciator of music. I have no idea if you are either an avid consumer of classical music or a creator, but I don’t think it matters. Arguments from authority on internet comment boards are stupid, especially when you are using an anonymous handle (so am I; I don’t expect you to believe me because of my authority either).
One shouldn’t have to be an expert or into the avant-garde scene to be able to recognize significant works of art. Enduring works — even those like Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring that took awhile for people to accept — were not created as marginal or intended for an audience of specialists. I am not a musical expert, but I’ve heard Michael Tilson Thomas give a talk on the history of Rite of Spring, and I know it opened with great popular anticipation, which made its initial failure all the more notable. Of course, it still wasn’t long before The Rite of Spring became a widely known and admired work, not to mention the score of a Disney movie. Maybe a higher percentage of people are musical rubes now, incapable of appreciating new, challenging works of music that you believe are still great works of art. But, aren’t you then conceding the whole point of this argument?
Arguing that lack of special expertise disqualifies anyone from discussing this topic is self-refuting. Rod’s argument is that important and lasting works of art inhabit the broader culture, and he’s worried that cultural fragmentation makes this increasingly unlikely going forward. It sounds like you agree with him.
— Jay Daniel · Jun 7, 04:23 PM · #
But the point is – why would another Bach soundalike be “significant”? If you want music that sounds like Bach, it’s out there. But there’s nothing significant about it. Why would there be? There’s already plenty of Bach.
— Chet · Jun 8, 02:59 AM · #
Jay Daniel,
I never meant to argue that you would be “disqualified” from the topic if you lacked expertise. Academic training doesn’t insure against biases like yours. Wynton Marsalis, exceedingly well-trained in his field, is famously dismissive of jazz compositions of the late 1960’s through the early 80’s (when, by his lights, he came along to rescue the tradition).
So you’re right, questions about your background were unnecessary. What I should have asked was simply, what leads you to believe that recent trends in architecture and music are so evidently fleeting?
Your examples of the symphonic repertoire and trends in campus architecture make a pretty thin case. On the one hand, yes, university boards of visitors are often squeamish when they don’t see enough bricks and white pilasters in renderings of new dormitories, and the classical playlist of your average NPR station includes little after Debussy, but keep in mind, these are bodies that tend to play it safe. They are apt to reflect cautiously and conservatively on their patrons’ tastes. This is perfectly fine, if unexciting.
Luckily, new music and new design have other niches in which to thrive. Those universities where you claim Modernist architecture has been condemned are in fact the very places that vindicate Modernism through the instruction of their Architecture Schools. Within architectural history departments, Modernism is a recognized specialty, which by itself refutes your notion that it’s a passing fad. More than that, though, the lessons of Modernism are an everyday part of the working, academic studio environment. Modernist architects like Corbusier, van der Rohe, Aalto, Gropius and Kahn continue to be regarded as seminal designers. To this day, they are tremendously influential, and not just in the obscure, elitist hideaways that Jay might presume. Practicing architects like Renzo Piano, Peter Zumthor, Zaha Hadid, Raimund Abraham, Richard Rogers, Rem Koolhaus, Shigeru Ban, Hashim Sarkis— to name a very, very few— work from the modern tradition, and their work is visible all over the world.
It’s true that certain institutional buildings and housing tracts adopting a Modernist style came to unhappy endings, but this wasn’t simply the fault of Modernism or its alleged break from tradition. When buildings are designed without enough attention to space relationships, surroundings, scale and light, stylistic trappings in whatever school of design will not rescue them. You can find uninspired, derivative architecture in virtually any tradition. Jay would invoke a grim, relentless housing project in a Modernist style to disparage the whole business. But what about depressing new suburban developments of redundant houses making superficial nods to colonial architecture? Do these somehow stigmatize Palladio? Of course not.
Jay claims no “lasting forms of architecture” have made it out of the last 70 years. This boggles the mind. Most of Wright’s Usonian houses— often credited with influencing the American Ranch style— fall in this period, not to mention his iconic Guggenheim museum. It’s fine if Jay and his friends think these buildings are ugly, but to claim they have been broadly discredited over time is nonsense.
Regarding music, we can also depend on universities to promote the abundance of great art to emerge in recent decades. Faculty and students of music departments often present new material through small scale recitals and chamber music festivals. It’s easier to do so. Symphonies are big, expensive creatures to mount, so they tend to be less adventurous about the less-tried material.
This doesn’t mean the works of Schnittke, Messiaen, Wolpe, Gorecki, Nono and Reich are endangered. Recordings of their works— some of these several decades old now— are easy to come by. Last year, Terry Riley’s incredible “In C” celebrated its 45th anniversary at Carnegie Hall, a pretty good indication of endurance.
Jay’s consensus of “casual observers” is an insufficient gauge of new art. Over time, small precincts of scholars/devotees mean a lot more to the cultivation of a string quartet or a shoe factory than the whims of popular reception.
Anyway, Jay, if my earlier replies were weak for lack of examples, what about yours? After all, it’s you— not me— who’s making sweeping claims about the decline of lasting art since the early twentieth century. Now it’s your turn. Time for you to get specific. How are the artists I’ve mentioned merely purveyors of fads?
— turnbuckle · Jun 8, 04:03 AM · #
No, turnbuckle, you don’t get it. It’s not about “significant, enduring art” anymore. Now it’s about whether or not we’ll have a sufficiently homogeneous culture (white, christian and pious, right?) to even give the idea of “significant, enduring art” a meaning anymore.
And as much as I hate to say it, Chet’s getting righter with every post.
— Tony Comstock · Jun 8, 11:40 AM · #
Turnbuckle — you interpret me much more stridently than my actual wordings. I don’t believe, or argue, that there are ZERO works of modern art that will endure as broadly appreciated and admired works. I’m pretty careful to use qualifying language, since what I believe we observe is a trend, not a cut-off.
Apart from that, I think we are talking past each other. While I suspect that Tony Comstock shares your artistic conceptions, he does seem to get the point. Namely, that all of those artists you listed are familiar only to specialists and niche markets. As our culture fragments, “significant” works of art are marginalized into niches, and the only art that remains broadly known and appreciated is “pop” art. If you need me to provide examples of pop art, I can do so.
Whether or not the composers you listed are making truly great music is certainly debateable, and we won’t resolve that question here. What isn’t debateable is that none of them is widely appreciated by society at large as a truly great composer.
Chet — I doubt very many people, Rod Dreher included, are that interested in people reproducing the sound of Bach or Beethhoven. What some people regret is that it seems unlikely that there will ever be another composer who is both as artistically signficant as Bach, and also as broadly admired and appreciated.
Since I don’t have much more to add to this thread, I do want to add one more thingn: I am sympathetic to Rod Dreher’s argument. I’m sure that comes through in my own posts. But at the end of the day, I don’t think I agree with him either. On balance, I like our fragmented, pluralistic world in which people have freedom to define themselves by what they consume better than the world for which he is nostalgic. But I do think that there are trade-offs.
— Jay Daniel · Jun 8, 10:45 PM · #
Well, that’s gratifying, although I’m still pretty sure you’re a crazy person.
Nonetheless let me potentially reverse this trend and recommend Turnbuckle’s latest as maybe Comment of the Year – a devastating demolition.
But there already have been composers as significant and widely appreciated as Bach. Gershwin, to name someone who worked with orchestras.
Of course, the real popular, celebrated musical talent has long stopped writing for concert orchestras. But that doesn’t mean that there has been no talent to eclipse Bach – you’re just not going to hear an orchestra play it. (Orchestras have no turntables, for one.)
— Chet · Jun 8, 11:09 PM · #
Jay Daniel,
Regarding architecture, you wrote in your second post:
“…from the standpoint of aesthetic beauty, common consensus is that our culture has not produced any lasting forms of architecture in the last 70 years or so.”
That word, “any,” strongly suggests exactly what you claim it doesn’t: zero lasting works. It was your observation on this front, Jay, that was strident, not my reaction to it. That’s why I hit back rather hard on the subject of architecture.
Regarding music, I did not distort your assertions. I realize you allowed, however grudgingly, that there could be a few great ones in the modern mix. I didn’t paint your position in the extreme. I simply disagreed with it, finding your conclusion pessimistic, stingy and off-base. In my mind, recent decades have yielded plenty of potentially great composers.
When you suggest that an artist’s value can be gauged by their “appeal to society at large,” I am surprised by your example of JS Bach, who was, in fact, not widely celebrated in his lifetime. He was reasonably well-known, well-respected at home, but was not heralded at all in the way he is now. In many parts of Europe, including England, he was entirely unknown— even among musicians— while he lived. Mozart and Beethoven were admirers, but even by their eras, he remained a composer’s composer. At that time, he was still regarded in much the same way that many of the composers I named are now regarded: a vital voice within the profession, if largely ignored by those outside it. Almost 200 years passed after Bach’s death before he was embraced in a wide manner.
This is not that uncommon. The painter Caspar David Friedrich was largely lost for generations after his death, only enjoying a revival early in the 20th century. It took both the public and the critics something like sixty years to catch up to “Moby Dick.” In Melville’s lifetime, most readers agreed “Typee” was the good shit.
Bach, Friedrich and Melville all depended on “specialists,” and “niche markets” to ferry them from Poindexter fanbases to greater acclaim.*
In our present— okay, yes, fragmented— culture of diverse technologies/traditions/mediums/entertainments, there’s reason to believe that contemporary composers actually stand a better chance to enter the wider cultural spectrum than was possible in Bach’s time. Movies, for instance, have done their share to promote the eerie atmospheres of contemporary classical. It’s hard to imagine some of Bernard Herrmann’s film scores— notably, “Psycho”— without the influence of modern artists, Igor Stravinsky and Bela Bartok. Stanley Kubrick planted a lot of recent classical music in our collective consciousness. That scene in “The Shining” where Nicholson is having the chilling conversation on the bed with his kid: Bartok. The beyond the infinite, eyeball-trip in the final chapter of “2001:” Gyorgi Ligeti. In turn, Jonny Greenwood, member of a famous band you mentioned liking, Jay, was clearly inspired by Ligeti in his score for “There Will Be Blood.”
Across musical genres, Steve Reich and Terry Riley have been significantly influential. They made a big impact on Brian Eno, a wonderful composer himself, who is better known as the producer of many of the best albums by the Talking Heads, David Bowie and U2. He recently stepped up to the bat for Coldplay. One of the Who’s best-known, best-loved songs, “Baba O’Riley,” is named for Terry Riley. The distinctive keyboard opening is an unapologetic nod to some of Riley’s mesmerizing, looping synthesizer works.
So, while most of these composers are not household names, they penetrate our present cultural tradition all the same.
Cross-breeding among the arts seems as vigorous as ever, and here is where I suspect that Rod Dreher’s concern about fragmentation is insufficient. Controlling current cultural tides is less the fracturing of traditional icecaps than the merger— the homogenization— of cultures, traditions and genres. Yes, things are made less pure in the bargain, and the vernacular often shifts into relic mode. But a synthesis often occurs— think Messiaen’s mining of birdsong and gamelan or Louis Kahn’s subtle adoption of the early industrial buildings of Philadelphia— that challenges our ears/eyes/minds and invites us into a richer, if darker and stranger, realm.
* (I know, a footnote, this is completely unacceptable.) For a moment, Jay, let’s take your remark at face value, that none of the composers I named “are widely appreciated by society at large.” I mean, what can I say, it’s true, only a relatively few people have heard of them. Consider, however, that this very standard seems to undercut your position. How many composers of the entire pre-Modern period are widely appreciated by society at large? I’d lay money down that the majority of Americans— the majority of college educated Americans, for that matter— can name no more than five composers of classical music. I have a feeling that you, Jay, can name many more. Perhaps you’re a great fan of Lassus, Sibelius, Janacek or Hugo Wolf. I am too. Their music is terrific, but by your own dubious standard of broad acceptance, they are no sturdier than the recent composers you suspect of being merely fashionable. In architecture, the situation is the same. How many of your college educated friends can name architects other than Frank Lloyd Wright, Thomas Jefferson, IM Pei and Frank Gehrey? Other than those who have attended architecture school, I’d wager a very, very few, and this is not a recent phenomenon, some symptom of a modern cultural amnesia, as Dreher might presume. The vast majority of artists are simply not acknowledged, much less absorbed, by those outside a relatively small precinct of experts/admirers/devotees. This was as much the case, probably more so, in past centuries— when an advanced education, wealth and spare time were the privilege of an incredibly small few— as it is now.— turnbuckle · Jun 9, 03:21 AM · #
Well, I guess I’ll add my irrelevant comment to the scrum. My husband and I were watching one of the morning shows while waking up with our first cups of coffee. They were promoting an upcoming appearance on the show by Cristina Aguilera and mentioned that she was back, better than ever, and ready to sing all her classic hits. My husband looked puzzled and asked, “What would be one of her classic hits?” I answered, “I’m a genie in a bottle, baby!” which seemed terribly funny at 6:30 a.m.
— Joules · Jun 12, 04:53 AM · #