Was going to post this as a comment, but it seems a bit too long for that, so here goes, in reply to Squid's "ethics of words" posts and comments.
On the hippity hoppity genre, yes I've long had a Jurassic dislike of most of it. Wouldn't condemn the entirety since it's possible for people to do intelligent and creative things in any artistic form. That said, what I hear a lot of – usually at supersonic jet decibels (which seems to me a deliberately hostile gesture: don't like my music? eff all y'all!) – is racial animosity, gender-based hate and degradation, praising of a vicious, depraved lifestyle centered on impenetrability ("hardness") and violence that few listeners would dare to practice (or, one may hope, would even want to practice). A lot of them probably just enjoy the beat and think it makes them seem cool, or something like that. Are they even listening to the words? Best send-up of hip-hop culture I've seen lately: that episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm in which Larry advises the "it" rapper Crazee-Eyez Killa on his lyrics. It's priceless watching these two huddle over a string of ridiculous boasts, obscenities, and threats.
Some who defend certain kinds of rap are buying into a time-honored – and very flawed – theory of art that responds to any and all criticism with the inane utterance, "Don't blame me; I'm just telling it like it is." These people haven't read the utterly utter Oscar Wilde, evidently, because his put-downs of realism as a method in art are decisive: everyone knows the critical dictum "life imitates art far more than art imitates life." Wilde also said in defiance of Matthew Arnold that the critic's task is "to see the object as in itself it really is not." Bravo, Oscar! But best of all is his observation that Hamlet's insistence that dramatic players "hold the mirror up to nature" merely proves the man was afflicted with "absolute insanity on all matters pertaining to art." Speak the speech, Oscar! But seriously, the point here is that perhaps artists, while their first responsibility is simply to do what they must because they are creative people, might also do well to consider that art hath a shaping power over the mind and perhaps even regarding our conduct. I'm starting to sound like a neoclassical moralist, but I've long said that those who deny the power of art to shape and influence us are telling us it is among life's "trifles, light as air." Strip art of its danger altogether, tell us it's just entertainment or adornment, and we trivialize it. This is not to say that politicians and priggish religious fanatics should be allowed to censor artistic expression at will. It's up to il popolo to patronize or not to patronise what we like and don't like. È la cosa nostra, non è vero?
As for the popularity of prison life and lingo …. I've noticed that there are even television shows devoted to this lurid and, finally, sad theme. I can hardly think of anything more vulgar and degrading, or more revealing of the sickening crudity and moral imbecility of an entire culture, than this fad. It is as if a bunch of domestic puppies (may I use the word "bourgeoisie" here?) get a thrill from watching the doings of their wild cousins, the wolves. The role this piffle plays in the cultural imaginary is obvious: nearly every time you hear a joke about (or indeed any reference whatsoever to) prison, out comes the obligatory sneering mention of homosexual rape. First, that practice is almost certainly much less common than the commenters imply, and second, it betrays the depraved sexual aggressivity of the unincarcerated commenter. We rightly denounce the political and "military" use of rape against women in places like Bosnia or Darfur, but then we tout what we imagine to be male-on-male rape camps as normal manifestations of our sense of justice. No wonder there was so little outcry here about Abu-Ghraib, or, as our learned former president of blessed memory might call it, Aboogaroogah (thanks to David Corn, if memory serves, for that silly pronunciation). There would be more to say about this had I time. Perhaps some will pick it up as a thread? What I'm addressing is not surprising at all. With her usual acumen, Squid delineates the issue well: placing males as females and then insulting them is the oldest trick in the book: indeed, the worst insult men can think of to put down other men describes what half of them seem to believe a female should do for them on a first date. Preferably before they've said hello….
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The way I see it, it is not up to censors or government agencies to remove the kind of language and images that are demeaning, degrading and sometimes dangerous.
ReplyDeleteIt really is up to those who make up a society to take a stand.
We need to not buy product, patronize establishments and venues, etc. We need to demonstrate to young people why we protest the language.
And we need to take it further by embracing our young people and sharing our time and experience in helping them to increase their sense of self esteem, societal worth and empowerment.
Many thanks, Bloggingdino, for this excellent analysis. I agree that volumes can be written on how pop culture vulgarizes our language and attitudes. We can blame Krazee-Eyes Killah for ugly lyrics, but we also should blame the record company executives who are motivated not by ethics and good manners but by profit. Free speech may protect hip-hop lyrics, but does free speech set us free when more than half our population … our daughters, mothers, wives, girlfriends, and colleagues … are turned into commodities for titillation and profit?
ReplyDeleteMy comment here focuses on an issue raised by Echidne more than a year and a half ago. It was a short post that received much attention:
Title: Will You Have My Back?
Date: Jan 1 08
“An odd aspect of writing both on liberal politics and on feminism is that I tend to think of certain male liberal bloggers as in my team. Some of them I admire and respect and some of them I'd even want to have as friends. Then I read something like this blog post. (…) It's a trivial post about a trivial gender, just a little bit of fun among the guys. Some ideas how sex could sell ice-hockey games better. To men, of course.
I have to keep reminding myself that those* guys will not have my back. Unless it's naked.”
The writer to whom she refers is Matthew Yglesias of The Atlantic who wrote this:
When I went to a Capitals game in February I came away with the view that professional hockey needs some kind of equivalent to the cheerleaders of football or dance teams of the NBA.So what is wrong with Ice Girls performing at professional hockey games? Predictably, feminists were upset by what they perceived as another example of women being commoditized and objectified. And just as predictably, Matthew Yglesias was flummoxed:
Matthew (01.02.08 - 10:52 am): “But why won't I have your back? It seems to me that one can simultaneously maintain the idea that scantily-clad women are often an effective sports marketing device, and also that society treats women unfairly in various ways. To be a good feminist does one need to deny that "sex could sell ice-hockey games better" or that men are, in practice, the main target audience for ice hockey?”
Surely, there is a missed point here. Echidne is not just referring to the “othering” tendency, i.e. the tendency to turn people into “objects” for derision, ridicule, scorn, or economic exploitation.
This issue is also about “trust” and “betrayal.” Why should this phenomenon of “othering” take place in the progressive blogosphere of all places, most especially among progressive bloggers from whom one would expect a higher standard? When Echidne asks, “Will you have my back?” it should not have to mean, “watch my back,” against presumed friends and allies. What she means is counting on fellow progressives to “defend my back.”
I mention this post by Echidne because it bears relevance in this forum where we have fellow contributors who counts on us to protect their backs.
Telling young people that their language is offensive isn't productive when the entire purpose is to demonstrate contempt for civilization and it can't work when we get automatic responses about language belonging to the lowest common denominator every time we mention linguistic decay.
ReplyDeleteOur "culture" and economy are based on seeking out every solecism and vulgarity of the adolescents (of all ages) and selling it back to us for profit.
Octopus - It shows how pervasive the demeaning of women is that it can show up in the progressive blogosphere.
ReplyDeleteThe subtlety of these forms of diminution makes it difficult to confront the problem. "These are just words" or "sex sells" are used as a defense of treating women as less than.
The same way that there is a mindset that racism is gone - especially now that we have a black president - sexism is just enough under the radar that it doesn't get dealt with.
Progress has been made with each successive generation, but we are now at risk of stalling (or even reversing course) if we don't continue to confront prejudices around us.
Fogg - you are right about children gravitating towards anything they shouldn't on principle. How do we combat that? Set better examples? Tough issue.
ReplyDeleteBrian - "words are just meaningless" - you are right about this sham-claim. I left you a comment about this issue on the last post comment thread. As for "sex sells" - yes, we women are conditioned to accept this as good ole american marketing. And we do not fight it. Why? I hate to say this - but a lot of women just don't get it which, in turn, enables a lot of men to continue not getting it willfully. I think a lot of us also just simply get tired. That may sound silly. But sometimes I just turn a blind eye because to engage a sexist issue makes so tense.
Octo - I have sadly at times been troubled by language use by progressives - not just in the blogosphere but people I now. The comment by "Matthew" in the comment thread you posted pretty much says it all. Liberals rationalizing sexism?
DINO! I am sorry not to have commented on this post sooner. The issue of the responsibility of art to society & society to art is a complex one. When I read this yesterday I wasn't sure where to begin to wade. I'm still not! Thanks for your thoughts.
Squid: “DINO (…) When I read this yesterday I wasn't sure where to begin to wade.”
ReplyDeleteThat is why I am always eager to read Bloggingdino’s posts, which are elegantly phrased and supported with perfect quotations that can lead us down many paths. A gift to all of us, our Bloggingdino.
Dino raises an interesting point about hip-hop culture and its negative influence on our younger generations. I am inclined to take his argument even further and lay blame, not just on pop culture, but on those who commercialize it.
About two years ago, Lindsay of Majikthise posted an article on the topic of dead woman fetishes. What shocked and surprised me were the women, the worker bees of the modeling industry, the models, art directors, designers, photographers, stylists, and writers, who participate in gender debasement. If one were to ask them, “Do these photos debase woman and do you sometimes feel debased by them,” they would probably respond with incredulity or denial.
There is such a thing as the Lauren Hutton School of Self-Promotion.
Where am I going with this? What I am trying to say is that these photos are not just limited to gender debasement. There is downright pathological about pop culture and mass merchandising and the industries that drive it.
Advertisers create promotions to sell products, and the products in this case are not dead women fetishes but fashions or corn chips or cable television service. The advertising industry calls it “creativity.” There is competition for concepts and ideas, competition for jobs and recognition, competition for clients and audiences. Creative meetings are collaborations of men AND women; these are not master-slave relationships. All who work this industry are supplicants in the Temple of Crass Commercialization, and competition pushes back the boundaries of taste and decorum farther into the wilderness with each passing year.
Not just dead woman fetishes, frankly almost all advertising offends me. One cannot ignore how adverts diminish people and reduce them to degrading roles. Adverts turn people into ciphers, ridiculous little ironic mode caricatures, and Chaplineseque clowns that hardly rise to the level of humanity. Every product package framed in the camera becomes a monolith, and we are supposed to be monkeys surrounding it, wanting to touch it and devolve into something less than human.
Yes, A1 Steak Sauce really is important as the camera frames a dog lapping water, but when the dog stops drinking, you realize the SFX of a dog lapping water is really the man licking his plate. Ergo, man reduced to dog. Whether one is selling corn chips or cable TV, notice how eager and excited are those silly little monkeys. That is how corporations see us, or perhaps more disturbing, that is how corporations want us to see ourselves: As obedient and compliant little monkeys worshipping at the base of the Monolith.
For some reason, people hear the "B" words and the "C" words but fail to notice the degradation when looking at simulated dead woman fetishes, or the woman folding heaps of laundry while the detergent Monolith is framed in the foreground. Many advertising messages are demeaning and dehumanizing, but advertising pervades our culture. It is a systemic abuse, and no one seems to notice or complain.
"It is a systemic abuse, and no one seems to notice or complain."
ReplyDeleteI thought I was becoming a bit of a bore on the subject.
Squid, yes, the relationship between art and other things is complex, and the arguments surrounding the issue go back millennia.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the kind words, Octo. I do the best I can with a brain the size of a walnut. On ads, yes, I believe they take advantage of a relationship to objects people have had probably even before the advent of Kapitalismus and its "fetishism of the commodity." (A key point in Marx, as I'm sure you know, is that under capitalism objects are treated as living beings, and living beings more or less as objects.) We really do become obsessed with material things – I mean literally obsessed with them, as anyone who's ever bought a new car and then fretted when it got its first nick or scratch should know. We invest in things more than we would care to admit – perhaps, in their firmness, their solidity, their seeming "value," they suggest to us nothing less than the personal immortality we may desire. I say this as someone who rather likes the idea of "retail therapy," so I'm hardly an anti-market puritan. When I get depressed, I buy books, good coffee, and a few other nice things. Evidently, dinosaurs are easily fascinated by shiny objects.
Captain: "I thought I was becoming a bit of a bore on the subject."
ReplyDeleteWhat do misery and misanthropy have in common? They both like company (a paradox, not a contradiction).
Dino: "Evidently, dinosaurs are easily fascinated by shiny objects."
Confessions of a cephalopod: We hide our baubles under a mantle and disguise them with camouflage. May I surmise that corporations are living beings with more pull in Washington than Boxer or Clover?