After his lecture on Montesquieu, a professor at Hillsdale College posed the belief of Montesuieu’s that the aristocracy is a bastion of culture- and that with commercialism, the aristocracy disappears along with its “high culture.” He pointed to modern entertainment, with television as an example, to show that a wealthy society always tends toward a culture of volgarity, profanity and general immorality. One brave soul pointed to the welfare state for aiding in the destruction of family, but the professor placed more blame on a lack of “aristocratic literature,” and thus the progress of society.
So what is to blame for the vulgar culture we live in today- assuming it is vulgar? Is it wealth? Is it progress? Is it the welfare state? Or a combination of factors?
I think the question you should ask is: “What’s the problem with having a vulgar culture?” Is the professor’s problem that not everybody shares his views on how a culture should look like? Because, that’s what it seems like to me. He should go to Spain, and see how some professors speak there.
No. Its quite the opposite, where there is commerce, culture flourishes. This is just some kind of western-capitalist guilt mumbo jumbo. I bet this guy would have no problem saying how awesome were the culture and commerce of X century Islam.
Great bands from the 60s and 70s:
UK: Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Beatles, Clash, The Who.
Capitalism means the desires of the masses are catered to. This will mean a proliferation of works of an artistic nature that appeal to them. It does not imply the extirpation of ‘aristocratic’ works. Merely an increase in the ratio of noise to sound. Why this is an issue is beyond me.
I was just thinking about this at the gym today, when they were blasting crappy music. I was thinking, “Why is most popular music so crappy?” The big record companies and their government-enforced intellectual property claims.
A monopoly on force encourages other monopolies, as big companies are incentivized to latch onto the State monopoly rather than compete by value enhancement. Think of all the ripple effects of the central monopoly. The effect tends to rigidify all the markets it touches, and I think this could be one of the results.
I also agree that music designed to appeal to the masses will tend to be watered down and generally kind of soul-destroying, because unfortunately that’s where a large number of people are in life - perhaps largely because of Statism.
Rothbard answers this criticism quite nicely when he points out that as material wealth increases under capitalism the presumption should be that it’s marginal utility falls and people become more interested in non material wealth.
First, I think our culture is not less or more vulgar than any other in the past. The complaints about vulgarity in contemporary culture are as old as culture as we know it. Plato did lament about the “bad influence” that theatre plays had on the soul of the people, making them dumb and increase violence -I heard that one even on LRC the other day where Karen De Coster moked about video games
All classical art one day was popular culture, and I would not really be surprised if one day Bart Simpson became a calssical hero.
Second, capitalism raises the arts rather than lowers their impact in society. Maslov is the one to point to if you want to explain why aristocrats did support the arts, and why people living in capitalist societes have more time to do so as well, given art includes playing video games which I believe is the case.
Whether or not you see current music as “crappy” is quite besides the point, I’m no fan of the sort of music one hears on the radio (my tastes are somewhat varied) but I don’t agree with the attempts made to square this with failure of the state. Perhaps you could make a case that without IP laws and public schools there’d be more competition and more cultured individuals respectively (and consequently better music), but I don’t really think that’s going to work to be honest.
The fact is that whether or not people here like it on some level pop music is appealing to the majority of people and the music industry, which is just that, will cater to this. The “artists” and producers have no real interest in producing good music for the most part but producing music that they is going to sell well and they’ll do whatever they can to make sure the music will sell. Keep in mind, what the labels are selling usually has little to do with the music. This is why they’ll put so much effort into maintaining the image, or whatever else, of the artist.
It’s the same for places like Starbucks and McDonalds. A lot of people lament the rise of these places because the coffee isn’t that good (I don’t really think it is either) and the food is crap (same as before). But the point is that clearly both of them are supplying a good that people want and are doing it exceedingly well.
To be honest, I think it’s a wonderful illustration of Adam Smith’s point. None (few?) of the most successful artists are rich because they give a damn about how profound their lyrics are or because they want their music to be technically good ( some metal is, I suppose, “technically good” but the genre is God awful as far as I’m concerned) but because they want to make money and there are people who want catchy music with lyrics they think they can “relate to”.
That’s just stupid. The USSR produced a massive amount of phenomenal musicians. How many of the classical Soviet movies have you watched? They actually dedicatd classically trained composers to write music for them. And they did it well. There were also a bunch of very good piano and violin players, and various classic rock bands and jazz bands. Just because you’re ignorant of a countries musical heritage doesn’t mean it didn’t exist.
Having said that, I don’t think culture diminishes due to commercialism. This is a common argument in soviet block countries and especially Russia and the Ukraine. The older generation says that capitalism destroyed all the classical and folk musicians, but its actually not true. If you think back to the days of aristocracy in the Renaissance and up until the 19th century, the aristocracy was always a tiny minority. Most people never listened or had access to great classical music, and instead listened to folk music.
Well guess what, the proportions are probably the same today. I think there are just as many people listening to “good” music today as there ever were, it’s just that pop music and what many see as “vulgar” culture has come more into view. It was always there, but now due to the spread of T.V. and the internet, “vulgar” culture is more difficult to hide from, and it appears to have obsucred the better music. But you just have to look harder. As an example, last winter I attended a Jazz club event in Minsk with exceptional performances and improvisations. They have events like this on every week in Belarus.
On Russian TV there is a dedicated culture channel that hosts great shows and every day they list all of the cultural events going on in Moscow. Trust me, there are no fewer of them today than there ever were in the Soviet Union. But of course if you flip to a popular music channel you’re going to see half naked chicks without talent screaming stupid lyrics that don’t make sense - It’s called ratings.
Im fully aware there many virtuosos in the Soviet Union, but that is what the state sponsored, they wanted to show off. While in Britain, things went much more spontaneous, ranging from progressive rock (Pink Floyd, Genesis) to the bare bones punk (Sex Pistols). In the Soviet Union, an electric guitar was not well seen at all, they could breed all kind of violin and piano virtuosos, but it’s like Cuba breeding good athletes, just a way to show you are not a complete failure, trying to prove something.
Tell me any Soviet band/musician that had 1/20 of the cultural impact of Clash, Led Zeppelin, Elvis, or Chuck Berry. The guitar riff of Johnny B. Goode had more cultural impact and changed the landscape of music more than any “massive amount of phenomenal soviet musicians”.
Or what about Mashina Vremeni with Makarevich, the cult rock group? I’m not that much into rock-n-roll but I’ve heard lots of their songs.
These people had as much of a cultural impact on me as any of those you listed, and this is despite being born after the fall and raised in Western Europe. In fact, I’ve never even heard of Johnny B. Goode. And to say the state sponsored them all to show off is also false. That only applied to internationally competing musicians, of which I know almost none.
The point is there are great musicians in all countries, and musicians usually find a way to flourish either because, or in spite of state sponsorship or censorship.
This perception is probably a myth. It is much easier for the common person to have access to the high brow than it was a century ago. I would also wager there is a greater number of people per capita who appreciate higher browed things, I unfortunately know of no study to back that statement up though.
Lower culture will always be more dominate. When people market things that appeal to the “lowest common denominator” it will always outsell the better things that are there for the connoisseur whether that is music, food, clothes, art, or whatever. That is the nature of the connoisseur; it will always be like that there is no aristocracy needed for culture.
I agree with you here. I am actually in the music business, I manage a few music venues in Brooklyn, the mear number of acts and types of music that I deal with on a day to day basis still astonishes me. There are so many folks making a living at this and creating music that appeals to them. You hear some of it on select radio stations (NPR, Satellite) but for the most part they remain underground.. yet I see people show up in droves willing to purchase a $20 dollar ticket and drink $6 beers just to see this band.
The market has allowed this to exist, In a big city like New York, or London, or even smaller niche markets like New Orleans, there are endless amount of culture. With the internet the possibilities are limitless, pick something you like and I bet there is an entire sub-culture dedicated to just that. I just don’t even understand how you can define culture like this anymore, its too limited, there is so much going on out there its mind boggling.
Heres an example, this is what the three establishments I work for have on tap in the next 24-48 hours: I have a big brass band playing, later there is a sort of goth burlesque show, then there is a band from Sweden and a band from the UK playing. ANother venue I work with is celebrating Oktoberfest with steins et all, then the following morning will have the british soccer games on with fan clubs for each team showing up to support. Not to mention a rockabilly bbq later in the day on, on top of all that there is about 3-4 local brooklyn bands playing shows… I mean this is 2 square miles of brooklyn between 3 establishments and its impressive no?
I don’t know if any of this qualifies as “high brow” but it certainly doesnt seem vulgar to me (with the exception of maybe the burlesque show!) The point is how easily accesible it all is.
Hey Fred, Im not talking about Russia, but Soviet Union, Im fully aware that during the last years of the Soviet Union, many russian bands were able to hit the spotlight. And you have listened to Johnny B. Goode, you just dont know it had this title.
Good points on music. I actually am part of the underground music scene, the sad thing is most musician’s are still hopelessly anti-free market even though they tend to stand for everything a free market is for by the way they carry about their business and practicle philosophy. That goes to show how deep the propaganda of socialism is within the art scene.
While I don’t think I would consider the vast majority of underground music “high brow”, it is certainly a hundred steps above the mainstream. Of the people I know some may be somewhat familiar with Jazz but they tend to have little interest and a lack of knowledege in more composed pieces from European schools of thought. I think it would be a fascinating study to show the rise of more independant music in culture with a free market perspective. On the other hand, classical music has become more subsidised and more government dependant, that may be an interesting study as well.
I’ve thought about this, but I’m not sure how interesting it might be from a free market perspective. My consumption of music and activity on various torrent sites dropped considerably about two years ago (anybody guess what this coincides with?) so I don’t really know much about the rise of indepedant music. But I just see it as filling a niche than mainstream music hasn’t, just like one gets various hip coffee shops that that fill a niche (somebody bad analogy, but there you go).
Although, I wonder if on the one hand IP laws don’t unintentionally give an advantage to small independant music producers.
I am a composer and musicologist, so this is a subject that I care deeply about.
In a capitalist system the market will supply what is demanded by the consumer. Those who do not produce what is readily demanded by the masses will be marginalized, if not removed from business. This is the fundamental nature of the market, and of profit and loss. So once we determine that the tastes of the masses are not compatible with some desired cultural plateau, we can very well assume that our desired level of culture will not be reached outside of a fundamental shift in consumer demand.
I would contend, based upon my own observations, that the shift towards understanding music will never occur within a majority of humanity. This is for two reasons:
The majority of people are not directly concerned with the properties of music. The masses don’t care whether you play a flatted fifth or parallel elevenths.
Those not interested in music for it’s own sake - rely heavily on rhythm as the driving factor in music. Whereas classical and jazz composers realized that harmony and tonality are as fundamental, if not more demanding, to the various facets of music.
It is in this way that musical reverts like Chuck Berry and the plethora of ‘culturally significant’ rock bands did nothing to further music but supplied the demands of the consumer (the ‘riff’ from Johnny B. Goode was nothing new or exciting to jazz musicians - there is only so much you can do with only basic triads and a single five note scale) - whereas Shostakovitch worked to further voice leading as a integral part of the expansion of harmonic intervals but is not known at all outside of a relatively small number.
The general culture is what the majority demand, which is a good thing. But we can in no way equate popularity with advancement. I would also like to second Fred by restating that “musicians usually find a way to flourish either because, or in spite of state sponsorship or censorship.” But, I would like to add that musicians also find a way to flourish in spite of the masses, not because of them.
