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dubdobdeeFrank asked: is he a rockist or is he not?
Here's a sequence of critic-type questions:
1: What are we being told [xx] is doing here?
2: Are they?
3: What does [xx] think they're doing here?
4: Are they?
5: What *is* [xx] doing?
6: What is the good and bad of what they're doing?
I think back in the days where I comfortably felt "rockism" vs "antirockism" made a useful distinction, I was arguing that a cut-off was being made between questions 4 and 5: that a "rockist" felt that only questions 1-4 needed to be asked, because they that the conclusions to 2 and 4 spoke for themselves (ie to be clear a NO on both points was bad news for [xx]). The implication is that rockism is a species of conservatism: that these noes are revealing that [xx[]\s practice fails to match yuop to the established norms of that form which [xx] is touting self or being touted as entering.
BUT: it's a variant of conservatism with a twist: because "that form which [xx] is touting self or being touted as entering" is taken as being ANTI-conservative (in some way or other, possibly not well defined but certainly strongly felt). So that [xx] is being challenged for FAILING to be ground-breaking in the approved way; for -- in some actual or symbolic way -- lining up with the status quo PRIOR to the arrival of the form (allegedly) being entered. So (for example) does punk break with ALL OF ROCK as a project, and return us to a PRE-rock state of radical grace; or does it break with rock-as-it-declined, and return us to a ROCK state of radical grace?
And what's also evident, when we're talking purely in terms of the formal logic of the argument, is that it rests on definitions of conservatism (and its opposites) which plunge straight into placemarker arguments about relative position. If you're arguing that rock'n'roll is intrinsically anti-conservative -- that by its essence it stands for change or novelty or challenge-to-the-status-quo -- well, yes, to break with it is to line up with the status quo: BUT clearly there's an in-built contradiction here, I think a result of treating a comparative descriptor as an absolute (?) ----> what you were actually getting were embattled stances defending developments of the differently recent past, in respect of an abstract valorisation of "anti-conservatism", where EACH (obviously) is anti-conservative in respect of the things it specifically kicked against... and where the heat and rigidity of the arguing almost certainly reflected an unwillingness on the part of EITHER side to step back and examine how seemingly anti-conservative elements might be i. conservative in a different perspective or ii. (and more usefully) good or bad in the present situation... (in other words they tended basically to devolve to nyah-nyah "i'm cool yr a square" fingerpointing; fixating on -- or fetishising -- concrete content-elements treated as badges of honour in the forwards-backwards wars, so as to distract attention from the degree to which "forwards" and "backwards" were actually more haircuts than they were analyses...
One other point: how relevant is it that ROCK is the milieu this (non)argument got so foregrounded in? (ie why it called "rockism" and not "jazzism" or "------ism"); I am not entirely comfy with Frank's ease of rotation through the artforms; as if the interchangeability of film and poetry is what can shunt such a debate into its proper space, which is one about what constitutes laziness and dogma --- that's to say, I don't want entirely to defuse the particularity or the intensity of the issue in the context it first arose, because I think there is a good historical reason why this particular argument sprang up where it did (in the UK rock press in the early 80s) and needs to be exported to painting or cookery or sport or politics, and returning again on net-chat in the early naughties... but I am not going make a stab at this good historical reason here and now! (Because i need to think about it much more...) (I am away off-net from this afternoon till Tue afternoon sadly) (hence ususal get-put exculpation -- this is written fast so as to get written at all and doubtless full of the usual unclarity and contradictions)
(In emails with Frank last week I argued that, as a reader when the term first arose*, and a very junior writer a little while after, I tended to treat the term as referring to fetishisation of technique -- with technique defined in a fairly broad way: in fact to me, it occurs to me as I write this, the main usefulness use of the debate back then WAS that it helped me focus on all the ways technique can be defined, all the manifold levels of technique in given project; how some established technique is adhered, some challenged; how the interweave is is a map of any given project, its potential, its failures, its gasp of its self, what it fails to grasp about itself...) (So the argument that it was a stage of thinking I had to go through is one I am sympathetic to -- as is the argument that ROCK is somewhere where the issue is particularly sharp, because the issue of learned or self-taught technique is sharp, a schoolroom-hallway divide built into rock's own methods of self-generation, where you learn the music NOT from pappy's knee or the piano-playing schoolmarm BUT from wibbling about w.a hairbrush and a tennisracket in front of yr mirror nearby yr phongraphickal device --- EXCEPT that at every stage in its history the ppl who learnt it the non-mirror way are also always quietly present contributing, helping, shaping, rescuing or ruining... i'm not going to argue this dynamic is unique to the story of rock-and-pop; but i am arguing, I think, that it's unique in its centrality within the story of rock-and-pop)
*Marcello: *Wylie's invention of rockism appeared in the NME week ending 17 Jan 81 and the writer/interviewer was Paul du Noyer." <--- I can't access rockspackpages at the moment (my password is out of date) but when I've sorted that, I will dig this up (if it's there!) (or someone else can if they have a subscription...)
______________________
On Benjamin:
Frank asked several follow-up questions, some of which were generated by my usual high-speed pre-coffee unclarity I think.
my basic judgment is that benjamin is
i: making a contrast between extremes (the medieval work of art versus the coming or post-revolutionary work of art) in order to clarify distinct and (as he argued) conflicting elements within the work of art that falls between (ie post-medieval up to the 1930s)
ii: arguing that what we lose -- which we love -- about the power of the former, is at once a genuine loss (in terms of expressive possibility) AND a genuine gain (politically); in other words, that what we're calling "social distance" is necessary for his (more than somewhat inscrutable) conception of radical democracy. The art that's gone got its authority -- and the energy we loved in it, and responded to -- from stable changeless social structures; from hierarchies of approved role; from institutions -- such as crafts gullds or the Catholic church -- that you could enter and cleave to.
And now I'm going to take MechRepro up with me to Shropshire and reread in light of same.
Here's a sequence of critic-type questions:
1: What are we being told [xx] is doing here?
2: Are they?
3: What does [xx] think they're doing here?
4: Are they?
5: What *is* [xx] doing?
6: What is the good and bad of what they're doing?
I think back in the days where I comfortably felt "rockism" vs "antirockism" made a useful distinction, I was arguing that a cut-off was being made between questions 4 and 5: that a "rockist" felt that only questions 1-4 needed to be asked, because they that the conclusions to 2 and 4 spoke for themselves (ie to be clear a NO on both points was bad news for [xx]). The implication is that rockism is a species of conservatism: that these noes are revealing that [xx[]\s practice fails to match yuop to the established norms of that form which [xx] is touting self or being touted as entering.
BUT: it's a variant of conservatism with a twist: because "that form which [xx] is touting self or being touted as entering" is taken as being ANTI-conservative (in some way or other, possibly not well defined but certainly strongly felt). So that [xx] is being challenged for FAILING to be ground-breaking in the approved way; for -- in some actual or symbolic way -- lining up with the status quo PRIOR to the arrival of the form (allegedly) being entered. So (for example) does punk break with ALL OF ROCK as a project, and return us to a PRE-rock state of radical grace; or does it break with rock-as-it-declined, and return us to a ROCK state of radical grace?
And what's also evident, when we're talking purely in terms of the formal logic of the argument, is that it rests on definitions of conservatism (and its opposites) which plunge straight into placemarker arguments about relative position. If you're arguing that rock'n'roll is intrinsically anti-conservative -- that by its essence it stands for change or novelty or challenge-to-the-status-quo -- well, yes, to break with it is to line up with the status quo: BUT clearly there's an in-built contradiction here, I think a result of treating a comparative descriptor as an absolute (?) ----> what you were actually getting were embattled stances defending developments of the differently recent past, in respect of an abstract valorisation of "anti-conservatism", where EACH (obviously) is anti-conservative in respect of the things it specifically kicked against... and where the heat and rigidity of the arguing almost certainly reflected an unwillingness on the part of EITHER side to step back and examine how seemingly anti-conservative elements might be i. conservative in a different perspective or ii. (and more usefully) good or bad in the present situation... (in other words they tended basically to devolve to nyah-nyah "i'm cool yr a square" fingerpointing; fixating on -- or fetishising -- concrete content-elements treated as badges of honour in the forwards-backwards wars, so as to distract attention from the degree to which "forwards" and "backwards" were actually more haircuts than they were analyses...
One other point: how relevant is it that ROCK is the milieu this (non)argument got so foregrounded in? (ie why it called "rockism" and not "jazzism" or "------ism"); I am not entirely comfy with Frank's ease of rotation through the artforms; as if the interchangeability of film and poetry is what can shunt such a debate into its proper space, which is one about what constitutes laziness and dogma --- that's to say, I don't want entirely to defuse the particularity or the intensity of the issue in the context it first arose, because I think there is a good historical reason why this particular argument sprang up where it did (in the UK rock press in the early 80s) and needs to be exported to painting or cookery or sport or politics, and returning again on net-chat in the early naughties... but I am not going make a stab at this good historical reason here and now! (Because i need to think about it much more...) (I am away off-net from this afternoon till Tue afternoon sadly) (hence ususal get-put exculpation -- this is written fast so as to get written at all and doubtless full of the usual unclarity and contradictions)
(In emails with Frank last week I argued that, as a reader when the term first arose*, and a very junior writer a little while after, I tended to treat the term as referring to fetishisation of technique -- with technique defined in a fairly broad way: in fact to me, it occurs to me as I write this, the main usefulness use of the debate back then WAS that it helped me focus on all the ways technique can be defined, all the manifold levels of technique in given project; how some established technique is adhered, some challenged; how the interweave is is a map of any given project, its potential, its failures, its gasp of its self, what it fails to grasp about itself...) (So the argument that it was a stage of thinking I had to go through is one I am sympathetic to -- as is the argument that ROCK is somewhere where the issue is particularly sharp, because the issue of learned or self-taught technique is sharp, a schoolroom-hallway divide built into rock's own methods of self-generation, where you learn the music NOT from pappy's knee or the piano-playing schoolmarm BUT from wibbling about w.a hairbrush and a tennisracket in front of yr mirror nearby yr phongraphickal device --- EXCEPT that at every stage in its history the ppl who learnt it the non-mirror way are also always quietly present contributing, helping, shaping, rescuing or ruining... i'm not going to argue this dynamic is unique to the story of rock-and-pop; but i am arguing, I think, that it's unique in its centrality within the story of rock-and-pop)
*Marcello: *Wylie's invention of rockism appeared in the NME week ending 17 Jan 81 and the writer/interviewer was Paul du Noyer." <--- I can't access rockspackpages at the moment (my password is out of date) but when I've sorted that, I will dig this up (if it's there!) (or someone else can if they have a subscription...)
______________________
On Benjamin:
Frank asked several follow-up questions, some of which were generated by my usual high-speed pre-coffee unclarity I think.
my basic judgment is that benjamin is
i: making a contrast between extremes (the medieval work of art versus the coming or post-revolutionary work of art) in order to clarify distinct and (as he argued) conflicting elements within the work of art that falls between (ie post-medieval up to the 1930s)
ii: arguing that what we lose -- which we love -- about the power of the former, is at once a genuine loss (in terms of expressive possibility) AND a genuine gain (politically); in other words, that what we're calling "social distance" is necessary for his (more than somewhat inscrutable) conception of radical democracy. The art that's gone got its authority -- and the energy we loved in it, and responded to -- from stable changeless social structures; from hierarchies of approved role; from institutions -- such as crafts gullds or the Catholic church -- that you could enter and cleave to.
And now I'm going to take MechRepro up with me to Shropshire and reread in light of same.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-22 02:09 pm (UTC)"Schlitzmeyer."
What is X doing here.
Is Schlitzmeyer?
etc.
But anyway, they were all boys, weren't they? So we could have asked "Is he?" rather than "Is Schlitzmeyer?" or "Are they?"