A commitment to justice and a willingness to risk one’s life, livelihood, or reputation in its pursuit…These are the very qualities needed to defeat both Perverted Liberalism and Irrational Conservatism.
September 7, 2016
Vulgarity is understood to mean indecency, obsceneness, and lewdness; but this is the vulgar definition of the word. The classical meaning of vulgar is of or pertaining to the common people, unrefined, undiscriminating, and accessible to all. The title—The Triumph of Vulgarity—captures the paradoxical nature of Robert Pattison’s examination of American culture through the lens of rock—it is a refined, discriminating, and narrowly accessible discourse on music that celebrates the opposite of those qualities.
Pattison contends that rock is “the music of triumphant vulgarity” and “the liturgy of vulgar pantheism.” A reflection of nineteenth-century Romanticism, rock is “America’s most powerful weapon and most successful export.” Having received the embrace of both “high” and “low” classes in less than thirty years since its inception in the American south, vulgar rock has triumphed over the long tradition of humanity’s refined culture, embodied by the work of poets and artists from Homer to Wordsworth. Pattison’s claims hold implications for culture, society and politics, and are as worthy of consideration today as when Vulgarity was published thirty years ago.
Again, the book is paradoxical. The central revelation—“vulgarity has triumphed”—personifies vulgarity, like the Nike of Samothrace, and positions it over its enemies. This personification is a kind of metaphor commonly used in Classical and Romantic literature to uncover otherwise hidden or obscured truths; but the vulgarity that has triumphed scorns such revelatory talk. Pattison writes, “Vulgar is not a word in the vulgarian’s lexicon because he has no transcendent vantage from which to make the implied distinction between the ordinary and the cultured.” That vulgarity has triumphed is not a cry of exultation before the masses, but a frank revelation—perhaps a bitingly sarcastic one—given to those who speak the language of classical poetry—the cultured and the refined. The opening lines of the first chapter capture this irony with brilliant wit.
The Nike of Samothrace
What follows is a beautifully articulated description of vulgarity and refinement, the history of pantheism, and its necessary connection with vulgarity and rock. The author’s stated methodology is “not to condemn [vulgarity], which has been done without success, but to describe it, which has yet to be undertaken.” Pattison’s description of pantheism overlaps with what some term “postmodernism” and “poststructuralism” today—“Pantheism is necessarily vulgar because it rejects the transcendence from which refinement springs, because it delights in the noisy confusion of life, and because it sacrifices discrimination to eclecticism.” The author enumerates the positive features of rock’s vulgar pantheism—infinite tolerance, personal contentment, and outrageous energy, fun, and humor.
The examination of the mythology and pantheist ideology of rock that unfolds in subsequent chapters is challenging, even-handed, and hilarious. The tone long remains objective, however momentous may be the implications of vulgarity’s triumph. In the last two chapters, the author opens his mouth for the voiceless, articulating for the rocker a defense against the Marxists, psychologists, and fundamentalists that have attacked rock. In the end Pattison rebukes his academic peers and President Reagan’s Secretary of Education who “lust after foreign models of culture,” and counsels the few American “champions of refinement” that remain to pay tribute to triumphant vulgarity, which merits no more or less respect accorded to the “prophet of vulgarity” who anticipated the spirit of rock, Walt Whitman.
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Make the Most of Vulgarity?
Pattison says “vulgarity is here to stay.” He asks whether we can escape the fate of Rome given “the probability that civilization cannot survive vulgarity.” He estimates that “if vulgarity is without redeeming features, then civilization is lost, because the triumph of vulgarity is assured.” In his satire of American vulgar culture, he imagines a bitter end: “Civilization would pulsate briefly in the throes of anarchy, lapse into the paralysis of overindulgence, and pass finally into the void beyond mind, taste, and decency.” Despite the apparently grim prognosis of culture, the author’s suggestion is to “make the most of it,” and appreciate what redeeming features vulgar pantheism has to offer. There is an implied fatalism in this perspective, despite the appeal of vulgar pantheism’s benefits. Paraphrasing Wordsworth, Pattison says, “We cannot stop at vulgarity unless we are prepared to die in our souls, any more than the child can prevent his growth to manhood unless he is prepared to die in his body.” To accept vulgarity without moving beyond it is to substitute death for eternal life, according to Wordsworth. But his transcendent Romanticism is dead, Pattison says. Meanwhile, the “bastard” version of Romanticism, “unwilling to grow up,” is alive and well in rock. In his commitment to ideological consistency, Pattison offers his cultured readers two unattractive choices—continue to hope in the dead vision of self-transcendent refinement, or make the most of vulgarity’s triumph. It may be that the choices are not quite so stark if traces of transcendent Romanticism can still be found even in triumphant rock.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
Is Rock Necessarily Solipsistic?
Pattison states frankly that rock music is self-centered, solipsistic. This is largely undeniable, but surely some songs under rock’s wing are nothing of the sort—“You’ve Got a Friend,” by James Taylor/Carol King; “Don’t Give Up,” by Peter Gabriel; “Tangled Up Puppet,” and other Harry Chapin songs about fatherhood, “Tears in Heaven” by Eric Clapton, etc. The list is long when rock is taken as a blanket term for post-mid-century popular music. In the nineties and beyond, hip hop songs such as “Unconditional Love” and “Keep Ya Head Up,” by Tupac, “Runaway Love,” by Ludacris make the grade of “vulgar” but self-transcending popular music. If the broad definition of rock is just, then without qualification it has become the musical idiom of American culture; but though rock was birthed as a willful reaction to the moralistic strictures of “respectable” society, it is not necessarily fated to remain the music of self-preoccupied youth. Perhaps in the rock idiom there is no way to denote the sort of joy, rapture, and ecstasy that, Pattison notes, is the subject of refined works like Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony—and still remain rock. These qualities, indeed, belong to a world of transcendent values, which vulgar pantheism denies. But if the rock idiom is limited by a vocabulary that does not include “joy,” “rapture,” and “ecstasy,” musicians may yet denote those or similar ideas in whatever capacity the language does allow. In fact, the limitations of the vulgar language may permit a form of expression that was denied to Beethoven because his language was limited in other ways. James Taylor can informally deliver lyrics embodying brotherly love before relaxed audiences in the concert hall or living room. He can sing comfortably without projecting vibrato or displaying refined poetic craft, as a solo baritone reciting Schiller. He can use his catchy rock syncopations, warm major seventh chords, vernacular American English, and hint nothing of solipsism.
Though rock was born as the music of self-preoccupied adolescence, it may, for better or worse, move beyond that stage. Steven Tyler and the Stones celebrate rock’s myth of eternal youth—examined by Pattison—to the present day; but Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens) has expressed his monist worldview using the rock idiom, and Bob Dylan has opened the Great American Songbook of his generation’s sires. These examples, of course, come decades after Vulgarity was published, but they are living proof for today’s readers that rock is not necessarily solipsistic. Old and young artists, whether a minority or no, continue to prove otherwise.
It is highly likely, however, that certain subgenres of rock lend themselves more to self-transcendent expression. “You’ve Got a Friend,” for one, belongs in the soft or folk rock categories. It is less likely that psychedelic rock or heavy metal should fall short of self-glorification. This is no pejorative comment per se. Pattison has made the case compellingly that, as vulgar pantheist, the true rocker would either welcome the indictment of solipsism with alacrity or else shrug at it with indifference. Pattison’s contention that it is impossible to make the liturgy of vulgar pantheism “respectable” must be granted—but all rock music may not constitute that liturgy.
Does Rock Music Have No Effect On Its Listeners’ Behavior?
Pattison demonstrates that rock is “impervious to the diatribes” of its accusers. Answering charges that rock correlates with violence, immorality, and crime, Pattison argues that there is a gulf between what rockers feel and what they do. Like religious believers, they can “live a full emotional life inside the myths, not in the danger of external events.”
The traditional metaphysician may argue that under true vulgar pantheism, morality disappears. The “kindness, decency, and toleration” of which Whitman was a model become matters of personal preference, and cannot logically be superior to their opposites. Thus Charles Manson cannot truly be condemned for his violent intentions and murders, apparently inspired or exacerbated by the Beatles’ proto-metal song “Helter Skelter,” because to condemn him or anyone else is to stand in the transcendent place and look down like a judge on hateful deeds—but that place is supposed to be illusory under vulgar pantheism. So the one who approves not only the mythic celebration of violence in music, but the enactment of it in the real world as something neither better nor worse than Whitman’s kindness and toleration holds the most ideologically consistent view under vulgar pantheism.
But if the rocker who maintains the moral rectitude of his Romantic predecessors is accused of contradiction for claiming “nothing is forbidden, all things are permitted,”and meanwhile holding signs that say “fuck war,” the response available to him, Pattison says, is a spate of nonsense syllables. “Rock in its vulgarity,” he articulates, “wants no part of eloquence or logic.” Whether this constitutes a defeat of the rocker’s ideology can only depend on one’s predetermined system of values. Insofar as logical consistency and articulateness are good, the rocker loses; insofar as unfettered commitment to the expansion of infinite self is good, the traditional metaphysician loses.
In any case, while the suggestion that rock inspires violent intentions in those who have not already entertained them may indeed remain nebulous, it cannot be that rock (or any other kind of music) is without effect on its listeners. If so, it is meaningless to speak of it as a “powerful weapon.” Pattison writes, “Any connection between rock mythology and the behavior of large numbers of people is unproven and probably unprovable.” And yet earlier he states that the rocker’s apathy toward capitalism “translates into decreasing percentages of voter participation and detachment from public debate and gainful employment;”and later he cites the marked decrease in church attendance that has coincided with the advent of rock. Whether either of these trends are good or bad, again, depends on a predetermined value-system; but if rock helps create or sustain apathy toward religion and politics, then it is not, as intuition seems to confirm, without effect on the behavior of its listeners. Its status as a powerful force is evident in the real world.
Is Civilization Doomed?
Pattison claims that rock is the product of vulgar American democracy, which is premised on self-interest and liberation from authority. In his words, the American revolutionary myth prizes the same values stressed in rock’s liturgy under the names “democracy, pluralism, individualism, limited government, manifest destiny, and civil rights—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” American democracy, he states, provides “an ideal setting for the growth of romantic pantheism.” Those in American leadership who wish to “save America from its own vulgarity” live in contradiction, because it is impossible to disdain vulgarity while supporting “the democracy out of which it grows.” That the political system of the United States explains the vulgarity of its popular culture is a point well taken. De Tocqueville, Pattison notes, foretold it before the Civil War, and Arthur Sullivan, he observes, trembled prophetically at the prospect of Edison’s talking machine putting great power into the hands of the vulgar masses.
Donald Trump (b. 1946)
Perhaps the American Experiment of democracy has proven that, especially after the Industrial Revolution, vulgarity trumps refinement; but to undercut those who would encourage American citizens, particularly children in the context of education, to move beyond vulgarity is surely fatalistic. Those whose commitment to self-transcendence is absolute may take heart that Jefferson, with Adams, envisioned an America led by the “aristocracy of virtue and talent,” that the political system is not immutable if people are willing to sacrifice for the possibility of achieving a more perfect union; they may respond to Longfellow’s exhortation in his “Psalm of Life” to summon one’s commitment to higher things, and reject the authoritarianism or moralism that serve to stoke the flames of the very vulgarity it seeks to quell. They may do all this and not be guilty of lusting after foreign models of culture. Artistically, Americans have many examples of culture-creators past and present whose work moves beyond vulgarity—Samuel Barber, John Coltrane, Leonard Bernstein, Wynton Marsalis, Eric Whaticre, to name a few. A fatalistic response to the truths, realities, and powerful myths described in Pattison’s work is not the only response available.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Conclusion
Pattison’s analysis of rock as idea offers unique perspective that thinkers and creators of today ought to consider. His command of world literature and assimilation of a broad spectrum of scholarship inform the challenging discourse presented in Vulgarity. The book succeeds brilliantly in relating the underlying philosophical divisions that are reflected in contemporary music, culture, and even politics. Pattison states that, “American democracy necessarily grows more not less vulgar.” Using popular culture and the RNC as the barometer, who can deny that this statement has already proven accurate in the thirty years since Vulgarity was published? While artists, educators, and critics that still value refined craftsmanship must look squarely at the stark reality around them which Pattison has described, they may yet—perhaps they must—contribute to culture in ways that move beyond or coopt vulgarity, whether or not its broader triumph is absolute.
Bob Blaisdell, ed. Civil War Letters: From Home, Camp & Battlefield (Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, 2012).
This collection of Civil War letters—written by small and great, northerners and southerners—offers a direct glance into the minds, hearts, and experiences of those involved in this fascinating and tragic moment of our nation’s history. The racial tensions of the present day in the US recall to me the time when blood was spilled, copiously, over political disagreements ultimately resulting from racial injustice. While the war was set in motion due to slavery, the subject apparently took a back seat in the minds of those in uniform. There is evident racism in the letters of some of the Confederates—such as J. Traviso Scott, who looked down upon negroes, and hated with the utmost seething hatred the band of Yankees that “invaded” the land of his countrymen. Other Southerners took to arms simply because their fatherland demanded their service. Some Northerners cite the cause of the Union, but seldom is slavery ever mentioned. Interestingly, Northern soldiers were generally apathetic about their service compared to Southerners, who were fueled by a sense of strong indignation. Perhaps this is because, indeed, the North was invading—fighting for a cause that did not directly affect their own freedom, although their efforts ultimately loosened the chains of the southern slaves. It is baffling to reflect that this bloody reckoning took place on American soil.
Stonewall Jackson is a fascinating character. He is the kind of man that Christian churches the nation over would welcome into their fellowships with open arms: committed to scripture, God, country, and family; and yet he was ruthless in his defense of Virginia against “Northern aggression.” Most intriguing of all to me was General Lee, who was firmly convinced in the rectitude of the Confederacy’s intentions—self-defense against distant military power—and yet acknowledged slavery as a “moral and political evil,” and exhibited the character of a deeply loyal, humble, reflective, and spiritual human being. I am reminded that, under the right conditions, political disagreements could mean military enmity with quality people. Some might seem just fine with such a state of affairs; but how many indeed wouldn’t be pained to know that some of their family and friends were on the other side? Perhaps we should take this to heart before railing against the political tribes we hate.
Finally, what struck me was that at this time in history everyone believed in Providence (even the foul-mouthed soldiers that cursed him). All events were interpreted through the lens of God’s direct involvement. One Union Lieutenant, Richard C. Derby, nearly drowned in a river, but was cast ashore in time, the only one of his comrades that survived. He believed it was Providence that spared him, but went on to give his life less than a year later at Antietam. Did Providence indeed spare him only to lead him to death on another field? Or was his escape from death a matter of chance, which he interpreted as Providence because he was the only one who happened to survive? Perhaps it is impossible to tell with certainty. The naturalist would assert chance; the theist may defend Providential action. But then what about Stonewall Jackson’s thankfulness to God for sending favorable weather, for working all things together for his good on the battlefield? Was God doing this and at the same time working on behalf of the Union Captains who believed the same thing when they won the day? It would seem not. In any case, these are the case studies on divine providence. One can learn as much and maybe more about the subject here than consulting thick theological tomes. These letters also confirm the need for a more refined belief in Providence among those committed to the good fight of faith today.
E.F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered [1973] (London: Vintage Books, 1993).
This book is a response to the prevailing materialist paradigm of economics that has been the driving force of developed nations since the industrial revolution, especially since World War Two; it is also a vision of what human civilization could be, based on an economics that prizes not only profits, but human and environmental dignity. Schumacher exposes the folly of devout adherence to the notion that “bigger is better,” and urges a “self-limiting principle” to world economies, especially the advanced ones including his own, Britain. Such economic self-limitation is a stench in the nostrils of those preoccupied with amassing material wealth despite any social and environmental costs, and the ego which is the driving force of that pursuit. Schumacher brings balanced wisdom to the economic problems facing the modern world, acknowledging the necessity of economic profitability and individual freedom as well as the social and environmental consciousness which we silence to our own peril. In the end he navigates clear of the noisy extremes characterized by the defiant defenders of unbridled capitalism and the livid champions of the proletariat. Schumacher decries lifeless factory working conditions, the worship of the machine, and unsustainable consumption of energy (or “natural capital”); and urges emphasis on local economies, practical but non-technocratic assistance to developing nations, and proposes a form of common ownership of large businesses. 
Despite the age of this publication, the principles it embodies remain as relevant today as ever. His chapter on education powerfully articulates the beauty of bestowing charity and magnanimity to our children instead of the impoverished metaphysics preached by the intellectuals of the nineteenth century–Marx, Darwin, Nietzsche, Freud, etc. The truth-content in this volume is staggering. Many books one must read long and hard to find some silver or brass, and occasionally some gold; every page of this book pays dividends. Some chapters are pure gold. The most challenging part to me was the concluding section in which he proposes 50% government ownership of businesses that grow past a certain threshold in size. Setting aside any prejudice on the matter and considering the argument through the lens of pure reason in the service of love and freedom, I find his idea very difficult if not impossible to find fault with. In short, Small is Beautiful is a beautiful book written by an uncannily gifted but humble intellectual, respected economist, and friend of humankind.
E.F. Schumacher, A Guide For the Perplexed [1977] (London: Vintage Books, 2011).
My review of this book was first published in October 2015 on Amazon.
Schumacher’s A Guide for the Perplexed is the author’s response to the philosophical juggernaut of materialism in the western world. In it, he exposes the intellectual and spiritual poverty of the view that man is nothing more than a naked ape with advanced computing power; that there is no essential difference between inanimate matter, plant-life, animal life, and human life; that all these levels of being merely represent different arrangements of matter; that all reality and knowledge can be reduced to the objective measurement and analysis of physics and chemistry. This has been the prevailing view of scientists and intellectuals in the modern age, beginning with Descartes, and remains so today. In this book, as relevant in 2015 as it was in 1977, Schumacher demonstrates the inadequacy of this philosophy, while pointing to the ancient tradition–confirmed by modern writers and mystics–that matter, life, consciousness, and self-awareness represent progressively higher Levels of Being, and that recognition of this hierarchy is essential to a true understanding of the world. He posits “four fields of knowledge”: knowledge of oneself, i.e. one’s own interior existence; knowledge of the interior existence of others beings, achieved indirectly by communication and interpretation; knowledge of how one is perceived by and exists in relation to others; and finally knowledge of the outside material world. “Materialistic scientism” focuses exclusively on the last of these fields. While the study of this material field has yielded breathtaking results in science and technology, the study of all four fields is essential for a true attainment of human progress, peace, and purpose. Those who ignore the first three fields of knowledge remain ignorant of what truly matters.
This book is offered to those who, like Schumacher once did, find themselves perplexed that the desires and experiences that make us human—the desire to live a self-transcending life, the appreciation of beauty, our yearning for purpose and fulfillment—are reduced to illusory or accidental byproducts of evolution. The author respects and values the advances of science, but differentiates between these and the preposterous metaphysics with which they are clothed. He warns that the modern world cannot long survive in them.
The author’s distinction between the instructional and descriptive sciences is brilliant and essential reading for anyone working to contribute to human knowledge in any sphere. As a musician, I am particularly inspired by his appraisal of the value of art, how its highest value is evident in the communication of truth.
Schumacher’s power of synthesis and wisdom is evident in his appeal to an impressively wide range of sources—ancient, medieval and modern. In his appeal to the various religious traditions of mankind, he assembles a universal chorus that harmonizes in recognition of the deeper realities beyond the superficial layer of the physical. While Schumacher wrote as a Christian, his intended audience is broad, and he makes no demand that the reader even assent to belief in a deity. Meanwhile, the theist can savor the truths he articulates as if at the table of the Lord. In the chapter devoted to the first field of knowledge, Schumacher emphasizes the importance of meditation, characterizing it as an exercise of self-disciplined focus, and celebrating a variety of methodologies. Here religious disagreements may arise; and yet when viewed within the larger context of challenging materialism and of subordinating the intellect to the spirit, any such disagreements will seem peripheral. In any case, the book is indeed a precious and accessible guide for those perplexed by the inconsistency between their desire to live a meaningful, self-transcending life and the materialistic scientism preached by our modern intellectual authorities.
January 11, 2016
This post marks the first in a series of reflections on books I read in 2015, offered mainly for my friends and family, as well as anyone else online looking for reviews of these works or otherwise interested in subjects ranging from philosophy, science, theology, and spirituality to economics, politics, and history. The first on the list is:
Plato, Republic. Translated by Benjamin Jowett, Edited by Elizabeth Watson Scharffenberger (New York: Barnes and Noble Classics, 2004).
There is too much in this long and truth-packed document for me to attempt to summarize or comment on in a brief space; but within the greatness, I found many striking parallels with the Bible. After reading through, I closed the book convinced that Plato was a Christian. Of course he predated Christ, but the essence of his teaching harmonizes beautifully with that of Christ. No wonder medieval Christian thinkers like Augustine and Aquinas deeply respected him. Among the striking parallels with the Bible are the following: Glaucon poses the question as to who is happier, the unjust man who is prosperous and celebrated as righteous, or the just man who is viewed as wicked, and then “scourged, racked, bound…and, at last, after suffering every kind of evil, impaled.” Years ago I read C.S. Lewis cite this passage as one of the most outstanding ‘pagan’ anticipations of the truth. Reading it for myself confirmed to me the idea that what I as a Christian call the Spirit of Prophecy is not limited to people who have a conscious knowledge of the Gospel. Equally striking, furthermore, was Plato’s quotation of Romans 8:28 in Book 10 (four centuries before Paul!): “Even when [the just man] is in poverty or sickness, or any other seeming misfortune, all things will in the end work together for good to him in life and death…” Peppered throughout Plato’s Republic are many other images, ideas, and turns of phrase that recall various passages in scripture. If there is a single Spirit of Truth which, as Paul preached to the Athenians in the first century, is not far from all men but quite near, it is no surprise that such spontaneous concord should be discovered.
Overall, Socrates’ task is to answer Glaucon’s challenge to prove that the just person is truly happier than the unjust; this he does by sketching in detail the structure of human civilization, ultimately drawing parallels between the State and the individual, which is a microcosm of the former. Like the State, the individual has forces within that strive for mastery, but which must be ruled by wisdom and love for absolute truth. The dialogue becomes an occasion for Plato to propound his political vision, and to envisage the ideal State. Few works have been as influential throughout history.
Glaucon’s challenge is only resolved in the end when Socrates appeals to the immortality of the soul. The idea that there is reward and/or punishment beyond the grave offers rational justification for preferring the life of a just man, even when it means misery and sore travail, to the life of the unjust man, even when it means adulation, merriment and delight in this life.
Also paramount in this book, and of special interest to me as a composer, is Plato’s view on literature and music. Its purpose, he says, is to impart and reinforce the love of virtue within the citizens of the State, particularly the young in the context of education. Music and poetry—Plato often singles out Homer—can be judged based on whether it tunes the strings of the soul either to courage and temperance or to pusillanimity and lust. Reading this reminded me of Beethoven, whose personal library included the Republic and whose music often embodies the virtues Plato praises in this work. The essence of Plato’s teaching, I believe, remains relevant today: goodness in art reflects goodness in humans, and both should be encouraged and celebrated heartily.
