Bring the Noise

[Ralph Dumain]

At 12:55 PM 8/7/97 -0400, malgosia askanas wrote:
>I think that perhaps we need to get a better grip on what we are discussing.
>My understanding of Ralph's drift is that it has to do with the spiritual
>value of high-quality cultural things.  In this regard, the question of
>whether or not these things are distributed for profit becomes somewhat
>unimportant.  This, I think, is why he brought up the fact that Duke
>Ellington was commercially successful, and yet less obviously "complicitous"
>with the commercial establishment than, say, Springsteen.  The question is:
>does aesthetic quality constitute a value that is in and of itself, in some
>sense, revolutionary, progressive, visionary, in complicity with the forces 
>of Light rather than Darkness?  

Of course.  Why are such simple things so hard to understand?  Thank you.

>And if it does, why are we so feeble in championing it?

Why indeed!  Of course that is the question that "we" the feeble ones,
feminists, union organizers, professors or not, ought to be addressing.
Earlier today when I read your post, I had an answer all worked out.  Now
I'm not even inclined to bother.  This feebleness, this fundamental
dehumanization, bureaucratization, and moral corruption, is why I have
washed my hands of all professors and the left at large.  All their gimmicks
will not work, for they are playing games with forces they do not understand.