http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/01/19/the-darndest-things Comments On: ...the Darndest Things by Dennis Dale en-us Copyright 2013 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Thu, 23 May 2013 00:00:01 -0700 Thu, 23 May 2013 03:30:00 -0700 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Posted by Lissa]]> Fri, 21 Jan 2011 19:17:33 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Rhettro]]> Fri, 21 Jan 2011 18:45:28 -0800 The Stranger Posted by samktg]]> Fri, 21 Jan 2011 14:00:59 -0800 The Stranger
While I don't pretend to be a music historian, just an enthusiastic amateur, I have no objection to the rich variety of music given us by various cultures from Africa or anyplace else. . Native American traditional tribal music and African music and Budhist prayer music and the roving jongleurs of Europe, and Appalachian improvisations on the fiddle can all contribute to the latest and most innovative piece of music in the hands of a knowlegeable and talented musician.

I'm even aware of the value of going back to the root of a skill. Often the reason for why things are done boils down to 'because it's always been done that way.' In my industry the phrase is 'standard practices and procedure.' But innovation becomes possible sometimes when we ditch the preconceptions we learned in acquiring a skill, and think of the material and why it should be used in just that way, or why some combinations work and others don't. It's true of cooking and and wine making. It's true of artistic pursuits in paint or sculpture. It's true of wood-working or home-building. It's true of manufacturing automobiles or airplanes. From the most tactile and instinctive pursuits to the most abstract and mathematical, exploring the source can be a way of finding new ways forward.

What's also true is that without a sound grasp on the principles innovation is imposssible. Without knowing about why white pine planes one way and ebony another, creating interesting uses of the grain of the wood is not possible. (The Italian word for the highest skilled carpenter is 'ebonista', from ebony. Only this person would be trusted with an expensive and difficult material to work his creative wonders on, when the term became common. Friends in Italy called me this to a shopkeeper in a store specializing woodworking tools before I understood the term. His response was that Christ himself was a carpenter, a falegname. I haven't ever used the word ebonista to describe myself since being very properly chastened by that genteleman.) Without talent and an acquired skill in music improvisation works only by accident and unpredictably. With that talent and understanding, improvisation can be the basis for whole new forms and expressions in music or sculpture or designing the latest jet engine.

It's when going back to the root doesn't take things forward but mires them in the past that I lose interest, and this is my objection to hip hop.
Posted by Seattleblues]]> Fri, 21 Jan 2011 13:44:08 -0800 The Stranger
Which is a pretty hilarious thing for a "libertarian" to say.

Ah, if only people like you would have disappeared down a different rabbit hole, say, for instance, logical positivism. Your dilemma would be much simpler and your answers, or lack thereof, wouldn't trouble you so much that you would have to build these elaborate systems of whispering B.S. to prop them up.

B.S., because none of the words you're using mean what you think they mean. In fact none of them mean anything at all. Meaning is the one thing that your sandcastles utterly lack.

Myself, I don't believe in freedom; I think we're programmed by our genes. But it is incumbent that we behave AS IF we had freedom.

All this "racial soul and purpose" is baloney designed to cover up the total absence of soul or purpose in what you incorrectly believe is your own racial heritage or culture, and your total lack of understanding of what that culture is, or where it came from. This thing you call "white" isn't white at all; it's a construct, and a recent one. Yeah, sure, "Beethoven", but Beethoven isn't yours. Not even if you're German, which you aren't.

You think these multis are taking something away from you, but they, er, WE, are giving you so much more. White culture without constant infusions from somewhere else suffocates and dies. For every example of some sub-racial horror I can show you a thousand examples of white people doing even more mud-brained things. Your Volkstum is the Olde Country Buffet and "Matlock", dude. Your heart swells when you read your Nietzsche and listen to your Beethoven but what you really are, deep down inside, is Mantovani. All that great white stuff you're so proud of was done a long time ago by other people who weren't you.

Besides, it's simply not true that being interested in "white culture" means you have to be a racist. The roots and branches of white experience are everywhere, and they're fascinating. I've never heard a white nationalist who had the vaguest idea what they were. The white nationalist version of white culture is even blander and stupider than I could ever mock.
Posted by Fnarf]]> Fri, 21 Jan 2011 12:56:05 -0800 The Stranger Posted by samktg]]> Fri, 21 Jan 2011 11:07:24 -0800 The Stranger Posted by samktg]]> Fri, 21 Jan 2011 11:05:42 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Rhettro]]> Fri, 21 Jan 2011 10:54:14 -0800 The Stranger Either you're not traumatized or you don't feel safe and are shy and cowardly. Pick.

No, I'm still both. I'm not threatened, but for the most part I'm unmoved by insistent calls to "Explain yourself! Justify your point of view!"

I'm saying you want to throw sass, be prepared to back that sass up with something other than rephrasing what people say in a sarcastic voice. That's not argument. That's not dialog. That's "I know you are but what am I?"and that shit is for children.

You still seem to think I need this explained to me. Duh, it's not dialogue. Duh, it's childish--largely audience-appropriate, to my observation and prejudice.

When I started out with the rightward dissent I was on your page, thinking, "Oh, these libertarians [at the time] have a point. I'll just dialogue about it with people, since that's what people do and how the world works, and we'll all come around to an improved view of things." Doesn't work that way, I'm afraid. You have to observe something more of people before you grant them admission to the courtroom of ideas--and you have to vet yourself even more heavily, since you should be asking, "Who am I to judge, and to what extent? How to I account for my malfunctions, in relation to myself and others?"

Eventually my emphasis on attack, defense, and justification diminished. It didn't disappear--I'm still interested in the best case or portrait or whatever. But I've been hemming and hawing and arguing and weighing and thinking for years, and through all of that the arrival at agreed-upon terms with people ends up being much less than it's cracked up to be. It happens rarely and briefly and yields little of use. So why be so anxious about it? I mostly just go after people I think are being mean. Hey, I was as surprised as anyone when I met some "racists" and found them to be far less mean and petty than even the average liberal arts student of my daily encounters.

And by the way I probably totally disagree with your ideas but I'll never know if you don't FUCKING ACTUALLY TALK ABOUT THEM.

Oh. Well, maybe we'll talk about them sometime.

Those particular books, by the way, were just an entry point to a paradigm. It got much, much worse after that.

159: Given the fact that humans have been making art and music for at least 35,000 years (i.e. making culture), the idea that any one tradition is superior to any other is patently absurd. Furthermore, no human has the objectivity to so much as select any criteria by which one could even begin to judge the quality of a culture as a whole.

Agreed, to a large extent. But this runs into problems.

First, these days (or any days) traditionalist, Occidental types aren't typically so chauvinist that they'll argue objective superiority. Heck, even the Nazis didn't say this unambiguously. They fully accept the idea of objectivity, as far as it goes, and the consequent relativity. I think it was Schumpeter who said the challenge was observing the relative quality of things while still spiritedly defending something. If you can't defend anything that isn't fully objective you aren't left with much, or anything, to defend. That's an obvious problem.

Typically the way out is supposed to be that we'll defend a setting or society based on openness and preference. I'm rather convinced that doesn't work. If all there is for people is preference, that's very shallow. There's no soul in it. Preferences fluctuate wildly, and it's impossible to see what truth, meaning, or deep purpose preference, or a regime that valorizes preference, is rooted to. This is jumping way ahead, but I might as well cut to the chase: people aren't free when they're free to do what they like. They're free when they're doing what their deepest soul calls them to do. Making a virtue of preferential freedom doesn't get us there. It would be easy to call, "confirmation bias," but to me the evidence is legion that people lose their minds in myriad chaotic ways when they're allowed to be free, free, free, on the current model.

You also have to notice the extent to which this sort of multiculturalism makes people into interchangeable automatons. This is where you can start to see the imperialistic aspect of liberalism emerging. Someone with a racial outlook might say, "Look--since culture and institutions basically reflect racial soul and purpose, if you try to mold one race in terms of another race's culture and institutions, you're essentially performing and aggressive, mistaken, imperialistic act. Even if you're just doing it by, say, installing McDonald's and universal suffrage, it just means it's a soft imperialism. You're attacking the soul more than the body, but it's still an attack. The fact that it's framed in terms of universality and fairness and opportunity doesn't change the basic dynamics of it."

I think the first problem that little diddy of mine raises is the issue of racial distinctiveness. Once you allude to racial soul and purpose, isn't it an issue that clear boundaries between races are hard to come by? Yeah, it is, to a degree. On the other hand, just because the line between the colors in a rainbow are hard to pinpoin doesn't mean there aren't different colors. Anyway.

Human cultural endeavor is sublime in its variety, expression, and most importantly, similarity. Quality of production and content may vary depending on its context (here is where one may make qualitative judgments, like 'this painting is better than that painting', or 'this movement is better than that movement'), but even the trashiest velvet painting is indicative of the stunning beauty and complexity of the human experience. In such an enormous and tangled web as humanity, you are in no position to pass judgment on entire cultures.

There's a lot there, but I get what you're saying. But again, suggesting that valid judgment extends no further than preference opens up other, deeper problems.

Yes, this is all breezy. Yes, it raises more questions than it answers. All I'm saying is that there are places you can go with the anti-multicultural dissent that aren't so stupid and binary and chauvinist as, "West is best!"

As critics go in these matters I like Paul Gottfried and Jim Kalb. For example, http://turnabout.ath.cx:8000/

161: Honest to God we are trying to understand. Please describe how we are "trained." What does "unreflective" mean in this context. And for heaven's sake, define "secretions."

Briefly: we're softly and relentlessly trained by an academic/media priesthood. My classroom education from kindergarten through college emphasized egalitarianism, as does the media, as do all sectors and institutions, to the extent they're considered respectable. I'm not implying any sort of creepy, centralized conspiracy--I think there's a "conspiratorial" element to humans basically, and that if you smash old taboos in the name of freedom and openness you're indulging in a lie. The only question is what the new taboos will be and how they'll be enforced and applied.

"Unreflective" just refers to the extent to which people decline to question or challenge the secular religion.

"Secretions" refers to the extent to which views aren't individually-derived through fair, methodical observation of truth, data, input, or whatever. People are molded to produce prefab response. Or, in my dyspeptic phrasing, secretions.
Posted by Rhettro]]> Fri, 21 Jan 2011 08:49:35 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Fnarf]]> Fri, 21 Jan 2011 06:57:51 -0800 The Stranger
"We're all trained to reproduce these routinized, unreflective mind secretions"

is one of many impenetrable thoughts in this essay. Honest to God we are trying to understand. Please describe how we are "trained." What does "unreflective" mean in this context. And for heaven's sake, define "secretions." This sounds a little weird and paranoid. Please explain yourself a little. If your points are valid we'll have a spirited conversation.
OK?
Posted by Sandiai]]> Thu, 20 Jan 2011 23:49:52 -0800 The Stranger I love the allegretto of the 7th too. I do find it sad though... but I like that it's sad. I feel that the minor keys should be sad, and this one is perfection.

I have to admit that, even though it seems like the "popular" choice, I just adore the 9th symphony more than any of his other works. I've listened to the entire thing over and over countless times, and it always leaves me absolutely amazed! I guess that's why it IS so popular.

Anyway, I was just wondering, since I'm a Beethoven enthusiast. Then again, everything he touched turned to gold, so if the 7th is your favorite, I can't really argue, it's another masterpiece among masterpieces. What more can be said, the man was pure, artistic genius.
Posted by Urgutha Forka]]> Thu, 20 Jan 2011 21:24:13 -0800 The Stranger Posted by samktg]]> Thu, 20 Jan 2011 21:21:48 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Lissa]]> Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:56:39 -0800 The Stranger
The 7th, particularly the 2nd movement, is my favorite. A favorite author says of Beethoven that he "puts the world in perspective, even if sometimes sadly." I don't find that particular piece in its' totality sad, but I do find it puts things in perspective. I guess it's because the piece is so delicate in construction, but so powerful in effect. As long as anything that perfectly beautiful can be made by human beings and we know enough to treasure these things, it's difficult to let temporary distractions trouble me.
Posted by Seattleblues]]> Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:27:01 -0800 The Stranger
Well, this should be fun to watch.
Posted by Backyard Bombardier]]> Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:25:53 -0800 The Stranger I'm not wagging my finger. I don't think you're in a pickle. I'm saying you want to throw sass, be prepared to back that sass up with something other than rephrasing what people say in a sarcastic voice. That's not argument. That's not dialog. That's "I know you are but what am I?"and that shit is for children. You read grown up books ( and thank you by the way for those two titles, no idea why they are Forbidden, will have to look into that) Act like a grown up and defend your ideas.( Ok, maybe I'm wagging my finger a little.) And by the way I probably totally disagree with your ideas but I'll never know if you don't FUCKING ACTUALLY TALK ABOUT THEM. Otherwise, yeah, you're just a troll. And who wants to be that?
Posted by Lissa]]> Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:21:33 -0800 The Stranger
Totally off topic, but why'd you pick Beethoven's 7th symphony?

The 9th or 5th (or even the 6th) seem like better examples. The only reason I can think is that Beethoven himself thought his 7th was one of his best.

Or is the 7th simply your favorite? Or did you just pick one at random?

Just wondering
Posted by Urgutha Forka]]> Thu, 20 Jan 2011 19:48:29 -0800 The Stranger safe around you folks. I'm very shy and cowardly and easily intimidated, and I need to have a lot of trust built before I open up.

And why are you asking about these books? What is the point? Don't you see the other shoe dropping? It'll land at some point. But if you must know, the first two non-assigned books I read were America's Great Depression, by Murray Rothbard, and Democracy: The God That Failed, by Hans-Hermann Hoppe. I was never converted or convinced by anyone but those books did smash my trust in my handlers, and I never took them seriously again.

But what was the point of bringing it up? Now we both get to hear huffy insults about Austrian Economics and Ron Paul and whatever grab bag of allusions people here can pull out of their ideological grids. It's not getting anyone anywhere.
Posted by Rhettro]]> Thu, 20 Jan 2011 19:46:22 -0800 The Stranger Posted by samktg]]> Thu, 20 Jan 2011 18:51:13 -0800 The Stranger You think you hate the music your kids listen to now? Wait until you hear what your grandkids generation will be playing at their same sex weddings! And your children will stand by the buffet table and say the same thing you just did: "The difference is that the music I and my dad listened to was actually music" Harumph, harumph!
Go to bed Grandpa, go to bed.
Posted by Lissa]]> Thu, 20 Jan 2011 18:11:26 -0800 The Stranger
Nah. It isn't incomprehensible. Fuck and bitch and ho and nigger and all the other wonderful words they use of peace and love for their fellow men are perfectly understandable. The perfect example set by the performers is one I would wish I could emulate, too. Wearing exercise clothes out to dinner in fine restaurants and enough gold to ballast my sailboat on my person at all times, while shooting or threatening to shoot my fellow performers sets a fine tone for the industry. I mean, what better could I want for my daughter than to listen to music which refers to her with eminently respectful terms like bitch and whore, and talks about treating her like a sexual toy for some thugs amusement? What better for my son than songs about killing policemen and gang fights and doing drugs and treating women badly? What better musical education than simply eschewing all that music accomplished in 4000 years and going back to tribal campfire chanting?

I don't actually have a lawn. I hate mowing them, so we bought a place that is mostly forested, with a bit of paved patio area for outdoor use. Nor am I all that old. I just have taste in music, unlike most high school and young college age kids currently. There is a continuum in which my grandfather thought Elvis was disgusting. My father disliked my music. And I dislike my kids music. The difference is that the music I and my dad listened to was actually music. My dad may have disliked it, but a person actually had to have some musical ability to perform it. He could dislike it, but recognize it as taking part in the western musical tradition. Rap is not music. It is hateful violent angry and ill educated ranting in surprisingly ineloquent verbiage. If I want that I'll go to some anti-war protest, or watch the French on TV in one of their interminable and pointless strikes.
Posted by Seattleblues]]> Thu, 20 Jan 2011 17:26:13 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Lissa]]> Thu, 20 Jan 2011 17:05:56 -0800 The Stranger Rhettro, I told you that this wasn’t your house, and that the people here weren’t going to let things slide. Sloggers fight among *themselves* like cats in a sack and if you want to play you have to bring your game. Go big or go home.
We’ll start with a simple question: What Forbidden Books?

Posted by Lissa]]> Thu, 20 Jan 2011 16:56:08 -0800 The Stranger Posted by samktg]]> Thu, 20 Jan 2011 16:08:30 -0800 The Stranger