The clash of cultures and what needs to be done about it? [Archive]

jgx

01-02-2007, 01:41 AM

There are dangers of translating a personal evaluation of hip hop as art into a cmmunity validated defintion of art.

It is popular. But the very fact that many do not think rap/hip-hop deserves respect keeps it stuck in some type of dark hush-hush invisibility (interesting that "dark" implies danger, secrets while "light" the opposite...black vs light/white) Those called "criminals" and "social deviants"lurk in the shadows even while also being everywhere in tv cop/psych drama shows, movies, books, music.

There is a repulsion, a fear, and a strong attraction as well. And I believe the one feeds into the other. The repressive act of the closed door gives one a sense of security while, at the same time, signifying by its very nature the danger and the fear.

Think of the closet. The secret. The lie. Think of how hip-hop not only spreads songs of hate and violence but also exposes the ideations,fantasies, angst of a community and expresses it not through the literal acts but via an expression, description of them. Art is and art also mediates. In fact it is the dualistic nature of language to both express and mediate at the same time.

I write to communicate, to reach, to be understood but I also write "about" and never really write...(the only word that can follow the word write is a preposition...of, about,to,with,on)...I am forever stuck within the limits of language.

Would we actually be any safer if all of the violence in hip-hop was, somehow, stopped. I would start to wonder what happened to the ideas, feelings behind the songs. It is similar to how I feel about the "cleaning up" of Times Sq in NYC my hometown.

Sure it used to be a dangerous, booze, drugs, dice playing, hooker turning trick, all night dinner urban terrain and you could find cheap sex as easy as a knife in your gut. But now there are the huge corporate buildings of Nike and Macy's and Sony and so forth. What happened to the actual human beings that were surviving in the alley ways and torn up mattresses? And was it cleaned with a soft towel or was a gallon of toxic bleach poured all over killing not only all that the beast but the beauty.

Art serves so many purposes that we need not be suprised that our best efforts at "improvement" turn into the worst acts of negation, denial and silence.

There are very tricky dialectics involved in all things artistic. We need to be cautious and sometimes remember to be careful for what we wish for...cause when we get it things may be quite different then what we had anticipated.

Oh...and I can already feel some folks ready to pounce on the word 'dialectic" but so be it. Bring it on.....:)
aka
ghideon

jgx

01-02-2007, 02:05 AM

No, it was actually called "hip hop is NOT art"

Yea, my bad. I guess I underestimated Sir jon1's capacity for taking a strong position and voicing it without reservations. Afterall, I am the relativist and he the Absolute. :)

I deleted my post.

Oh, and as regards the one where I reply to yours. All in respect my good friend.

dramasnot6

01-02-2007, 02:24 AM

"Also, the end of the sentence "or any other societal concept" is so vague that I have my doubts that the writer would actually defend what it means
What is a societal concept?
And are you arguing that every societal concept should be given respect.
If we use the usual meaning of "concept" then the argument being made is that all ideas in a society deserve respect and acknowledgment. I would guess that a concept of fascism or anti-semitism would not be considered worthy of respect nor acknowledgment by the writer of the post. At least I would argue that such concepts do not, simply by virute of being concepts, force individuals or institutions to grant them respect or even acknowledgment.

I also think there is a big difference between acknowledging something and respecting an idea or thought

I did not neccesarily mean directly respecting someone's interest, but respecting their right to have that interest. Societal concept is pretty self-explanatory, it is a concept that impacts and is involved in a soceity, such as racism, political justice, etc.

" I would guess that a concept of fascism or anti-semitism would not be considered worthy of respect nor acknowledgment by the writer of the post."
Oh please. Of course i acknowledge fascism and anti-semitism, am i jsut to ignore a major part of recent history that im actually currently studying? You yourself said "I also think there is a big difference between acknowledging something and respecting an idea or thought." So why do you suddenly make assumptions about my personal beliefs as if they are the same thing?

"I guess it makes me think of how criminals and societal deviants lurk in the shadows even while also being everywhere in tv cop/psych drama shows, movies, books, music.
There is a repulsion, a fear, and a strong attraction as well. And I believe the one feeds into the other. The repression of the closed window creates another need to open the window and shed light on it. But we do not want too much light or we certainly want to be in control of when the light is shed and what it is shed on and who sheds it and for how long it is shed."

Your metaphor is unclear and irrelevant. I was not implying the world should, or even could, be perfect and certain forms of entertainment were preventing that. Merely stating that the term "art" is such an ancient and powerful one that anything labeled as art will adopt the positive connotations of art itself. If we called classical music rubbish and were raised with negative ideas about it, we just might be believing as much. The same with hip hop. If it is seen with admiring eyes as an art, it and its content may been seen in a more positive light. And i think most can agree seeing the obscenities contained in some of hip hop in a more positive light wouldnt exactly be bennificial to society.

"Words will never be anything more then just that, words.

The tree is not a "tree". And "the punk cop eating doughnuts at every stop" is also much much more then just words. I know this because, I love doughnuts and I have known, hated, admired, trusted, kicked, cared about a large number of cops."

What is the signifigance of this "insight" exactly ghideon? That there is no point in classification and labbeling because it is meaningless? This is not true. Words are incredibly powerful tools, why else is reading such a wonderful activity? The quill is mightier then the sword. Words do matter and do have an impact on every member of humanity. Language has taken thousands of years to develop into what it is today, over the years billions have appreciated, been inspired, entertained, and influenced by words. They are much word then jsut "words" or ink on a page or sounds from a mouth. They are symbols, messsages, and in my opinion the ultimate expression of human development and character.

dramasnot6

01-02-2007, 02:26 AM

Yea, my bad. I guess I underestimated Sir jon1's capacity for taking a strong position and voicing it without reservations. Afterall, I am the relativist and he the Absolute. :)

I deleted my post.

Oh, and as regards the one where I reply to yours. All in respect my good friend.

Of course. Sorry if i sounded a bit indignant in my last one, but what i say is true to my reaction to your reply. All in the fun of the discussion though, dont worry:)

stlukesguild

01-02-2007, 02:46 AM

Virgil- This may come across weird. But here are my feelings on this. In a discussion within a political context, I would rail against rap for its immorality and all the other issues that have been raised. Within an artistic context I would accept its artistic merits and the right for the artist to create what inspires him. Now is that inconsistent? Well, perhaps but I'm of fragmented mind and think on two levels here.

Virgil... I completely understand. Earlier here I argued in favor of the concept of l'art pour l'art and noted that I was quite uncomfortable with the notion of judging art upon extra-art or non-aesthetic criteria, be they morality, politics, religion, sexuality, etc... At the same time I admitted to having personal preferences that might turn me towards or against appreciating a given work of art that might certainly have nothing to do with the aesthetic worth of the work in question. In other words... being open to the notion of "freedom of expression" does not preclude personal taste. Neither should the concept of "freedom of expression" suggest that we place art and artists above moral judgements. The concept of artistic freedom is an abstraction. Like any abstract concept it engenders endless difficulties and falls apart when taken to a logical/absurd extreme. If I cannot define art, then how can I define what is NOT art? What then, is to stop someone from suggesting that not merely the glorification of violence is art but the very acts of rape, incest, child molestation, and murder are works of art? Again, I note that DeQuincy played with this absurdist idea quite some years ago in his essay, "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts"... a work not far removed from the absurd satire of Swift's "A Modest Proposal".

Neither the artist nor the audience live in a world of absolutes or abstractions. Yet both the arguments for the absolute freedom of the artist and against often employ the most exaggerated claims: If we censure the artist in any way it will spell the end of freedom as we know it and we will be on our way to nazism, communism, and islamic fundamentalism... or If we do not immediately do something about all the morally deviant art churned out by Hollywood and the music industry we will soon be witness to the collapse of Western Civilization.

The reality is that for the artist the politics matter little. We have illusions of the great innovations of American democracy versus the stagnation of Soviet Communism and Nazi Germany. The reality is that Soviet Communism produced brilliant composers on the level of Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Khachaturian and Myaskovsky... poets on the level of Boris Pasternak (far too underrated in the US where he is mostly known only for his novel, Dr. Zhivago), Anna Akhmatova, Vladimir Mayakovsky, MarinaTsvetaeva, Osip Mandelshtam... artists such as Kandinski, Malevich, Tatlin, and we could go on and on. Had Hitler not been rejected from art school twice he probably would not have been so adamantly anti-Modernist and artists such as Paul Klee, Max Beckmann, E.L. Kirchner, Emil Nolde and writers such as Hesse and Mann would probably have continued to work unhindered. Even so, the arts even under facism did not completely collapse. Otto Dix continued to work in seclusion; Leni Riefenstahl succeeded in producing some of the most innovative... and disturbing films, composer Paul Hindemith would remain in Germany until 1940 and Richard Strauss (who would be acclaimed as Hitler's favorite contemporary composer) would never leave. To this we might add such brilliant conductors as Herbert von Karajan and Furtwangler as well as singers of real genius such as Elizabeth Schwarzkopf. I quote all these examples just as I have earlier noted the production of such works of artistic genius under the patronage of the various Renaissance tyrants to make the point that art does not shrivel up and die at the first sign of a government employing certain limits upon artistic freedom. I might even note that even America's own cultural achievements seem much more profound during the first half of the twentieth century (T.S. Eliot, Faulkner, Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, Eugene O'Niel, Hemingway, Copland, Ellington, Armstrong, Charlie Parker, John Singer Sargent, Edward Hopper, George Bellows, Stuart Davis, Joseph Cornell, Mark Rothko, Motherwell, Frank Capra, Billy Wilder, etc...) when there were certainly far more restraints upon artistic "freedom" than at present Orson Welles' closing words from The Third Man continue to mock this concept as he snickers, "Switzerland has had 500 years of peace and what have they given us? The cukoo clock." If I were to offer thoughts as to anything that might be a measure of what is needed to inspire art I would suggest that it is wealth and power and an influx of trade with outside cultures... but that's another question altogether.

I noted that like you, Virgil, I had mixed feelings on the issue of artistic freedom. As an artist I have admitted to a personal belief in "art for art's sake" and freedom of expression... nevertheless... I don't have the illusion that as an artist this freedom is absolute or without limits. I realize that what I create I create within a society that is not absolute and does not exist in an abstraction. I am absolutely against any limits being set upon what art can be or say... as long as such does not infringe upon the more fundamental rights of others. Neither do I assume that because I am free to say and express what I will that the government or the audience owes me the support needed so that my work might reach the multitudes (and I might become wealthy along the way). Indeed, I would go so far as to suggest that my freedom to express myself does not preclude the government or society from the right to limit access to my work or to censor it if it is deemed as not meeting certain standards of the community. The notion that art can not be a dangerous influence would seemingly suggest that art has no influence at all. How can it be uplifting if it cannot be equally degrading? Certainly our etertainment industry does not believe this. As much as they mock the notion that excessive sex and violence have a negative impact upon children and our culture as a whole, they continue to rake in billions for advertizing that would apparently be effective in influencing audience behavior in terms of spending. Either this is a great paradox... or a great hypocracy.

dramasnot6

01-02-2007, 04:44 AM

jgx

01-02-2007, 04:54 AM

[QUOTE][Last edited by jgx : Today at 03:48 PM. Reason: major revision /QUOTE]
why did you delete so much of your reply to my post ghideon? you were seemed so passionate and confident in your thorough argument over my points....tis a shame.

Ya know this thing about passion is a double edged thing. On the one hand passion is full of life and thrust and vibrant dyanamic movements.

Or the one that gets in the way of reason and thought and knowing that there is another person is passion because it is so absolute and intense it is like such a force that it can be both rewarding and damaging....and sometimes both.

In many schools of Buddhism the goal is to leave passion behind...but in the sense that passion always does indicate deep strong attachment and that can inhibit flexiblity..

used to do a lot of yoga....like downward dog or scorpion asana:p

jgx

01-02-2007, 08:08 AM

I did not neccesarily mean directly respecting someone's interest, but respecting their right to have that interest.

I will get back into my lawyers clothes and proceed. So...you "did not neccesarily mean directly respecting someone's interest in" say democracy, sadio-masochism...but instead you meant "respecting their right to have that interest"

Your use of the word neccesarily...are you sure that what you are writing is what you mean?

Be that as it may...your position is that the content of an individuals beliefs may not be worthy of respect but their right to have the beliefs are.

I do think that is a key clarification and one that needed my input to be articulated.

Societal concept is pretty self-explanatory, it is a concept that impacts and is involved in a soceity, such as racism, political justice, etc.

Uhhh...a "societal concept" is a "concept that impacts...is involved in a society" First, can you come up with any concept that is not "involved" in a society. Second, it is usually not very useful to use the word you are defining in the very definition.

Oh please. Of course i acknowledge fascism and anti-semitism, am i jsut to ignore a major part of recent history that im actually currently studying?

Would I be way off base in suggesting that the only reason to study is to cut through that which we are either ignorant of or ignoring. If I know something then there is no need to study it. Unless I want to know more about it. And yes, if you want to remain an ordinary, run of the mill, member of the United States you are to remain in ignorance of most of recorded history.

What is the difference between being aware of facism and acknowledging it. I am aware of my guest as he enters my house. I acknowledge him. But I can acknowledge him begrudgingly or happily. I can acknowledge him by telling my butler to read a note stating "Yes. I acknowledge you."

You yourself said "I also think there is a big difference between acknowledging something and respecting an idea or thought." So why do you suddenly make assumptions about my personal beliefs as if they are the same thing?

What I wrote was that I greatly doubted that you would actually convey or feel respect towards fascism or any other of assorted ideologies of despotic violence.

I am simply showing how your word choice is not precise enough to clearly convey your meaing. I know you would not respect those paradigms but that is not a necesary logical consequence of your stated position.

Your metaphor is unclear and irrelevant.

It can be one or the other. My metaphor can not be both. If it is not clear then it is not going to be understood well enough to determine if it is relevant or not.

If you know it is not relevant then either you are also not too clear or the metaphor was clear enough to reveal its irrelevancy.

Music as freedom of expression is fine, I do not mean to strip people of their right to their music.

OK. Music in a particular mode..."as freedom of expression is fine" but by saying that you create the contradiction "that some other mode of music is not fine...some mode of music that is not 'freedom of expression'."

You do not "mean to strip people of their right to their music"

Well, I am not concerned with whether or not you "mean" to I am concerned with whether or not you want to, would like to, think that in some situations it would be a good idea. If people do have a "right" to "their" music then they have a right to music that has a definite relationship to them. That relationship expressed as being "their"s. This would seem to argue against taking shots at hip-hop since that is most certainly understood by millions of people as "their" music. I say this because hip-hop is not just a musical form but an entire culture and if culture is to be understood at all it most certainly has a it is my culture...or to an outsider it is "their" culture. If the relationship an individual or a community has with their music is significant then certainly the relationship that exists between the hip hop community and the music is worthy of the same protection that a "right" would entail.

If we called classical music rubbish and were raised with negative ideas about it, we just might be believing as much. The same with hip hop. If it is seen with admiring eyes as an art, it and its content may been seen in a more positive light. And i think most can agree seeing the obscenities contained in some of hip hop in a more positive light wouldnt exactly be bennificial to society.

I really do not know if I agree. It is a hypothetical situation so I do not really know for sure but my hunch is that the phrase "music hath charm to soothe the savage beast" is true and so there is music that simply by virtue of its depth, subtleties, tones, chords, harmonies can soothe someone who is an angry, dangerous "beast" and if that is the case then it may have enough power to be considered quite extraordinary and blessed by people even despite the bad rap it has been given. Certainly there are examples in which times change and people who were raised to think one way grow and evolve.

What is the signifigance of this "insight" exactly ghideon? That there is no point in classification and labbeling because it is meaningless? This is not true. Words are incredibly powerful tools, why else is reading such a wonderful activity? The quill is mightier then the sword. Words do matter and do have an impact on every member of humanity. Language has taken thousands of years to develop into what it is today, over the years billions have appreciated, been inspired, entertained, and influenced by words. They are much word then jsut "words" or ink on a page or sounds from a mouth. They are symbols, messsages, and in my opinion the ultimate expression of human development and character.

If words are what you say they are then why worry about giving hip-hop the status of "art". Certainly there are plenty of individuals who can use language of adequate power, eloquence, and beauty that simply via the force of the "words" they could effectively counter whatever problems the hip-hop community and its music may be creating.

On the one hand language is the force of forces and the "ultimate expression" on the other hand hip-hop language needs to be limited, censored (according to some), shown no respect.

I would think that somebody who believed so passionately in the power of language would be supporting a different strategy in relation to hip-hops violent language. Perhaps the monetary backing of hip-hop music without thoes lyrics. Perhaps books, plays, movies that show respect to the people of the hip hop community but do not show respect to the irrational harmful parts of the music.

The very potency of language is what you seem to fear and yet it is this very power that would seem, from my perspective, to represent the best tool to be used in transforming the culture. Or do you not think that language is up to the challenge? If so, why not?

There
I'm done
jgx
aka
ghideon

Virgil

01-02-2007, 10:55 AM

jon1jt

01-02-2007, 11:08 AM

jon1jt

01-02-2007, 11:42 AM

ghideon
OK. Music in a particular mode..."as freedom of expression is fine" but by saying that you create the contradiction "that some other mode of music is not fine...some mode of music that is not 'freedom of expression'."

You do not "mean to strip people of their right to their music"

ghideon
Well, I am not concerned with whether or not you "mean" to, am concerned with whether or not you want to, would like to, think that in some situations it would be a good idea. If people do have a "right" to "their" music then they have a right to music that has a definite relationship to them. That relationship expressed as being "their"s. This would seem to argue against taking shots at hip-hop since that is most certainly understood by millions of people as "their" music.

jon1jt
so then millions ought to catch buses to the nearest cities and watch that music be performed on street corners, not over air waves that invade my home, newpapers kids in my neighborhood read, hip hop jingles that go off on phones their hip hopping friends have, the ones who often wear the thuggery as uniforn in "obscenely" baggy pants and puffy jackets. or in the case of hip hop, gold chains, no shirts, pants riding low, low. (vomit)

ghideon
I say this because hip-hop is not just a musical form but an entire culture

jon1jt
wo wo wo --- whose culture?? aw c'mon now you're going to claim the "black community's," right? or do we count the white kiddies from the suburbs too? is that part of this culture you speak of? you degrade the use of the term, culture. place it under the umbrella of something else - call it hip hop under a music community. you use "culture" to add a tinge of refinement, to make the music matter. you degrade 2000 years of Culture and that offends me.

]
ghideon
and if culture is to be understood at all it most certainly has a it is my culture...or to an outsider it is "their" culture. If the relationship an individual or a community has with their music is significant then certainly the relationship that exists between the hip hop community and the music is worthy of the same protection that a "right" would entail.

jon1jt
there you go again. ugh.

ghideon:
I really do not know if I agree. It is a hypothetical situation so I do not really know for sure but my hunch is that the phrase "music hath charm to soothe the savage beast" is true and so there is music that simply by virtue of its depth, subtleties, tones, chords, harmonies can soothe someone who is an angry, dangerous "beast" and if that is the case then it may have enough power to be considered quite extraordinary and blessed by people even despite the bad rap it has been given.

ghideon
are you serious?? the suggestion that rap music is soothing??? :alien: i didn't know hip hop had tonalities and harmonies beyond Diddy's "Yeah" and "Bad Boy" whispers and all the cussin'. Is that a subtlety, please, enlighten me. :lol:

ghideon:
Certainly there are examples in which times change and people who were raised to think one way grow and evolve.

jon1jt
what chu talking about willis?

ghideon
If words are what you say they are then why worry about giving hip-hop the status of "art".

jon1jt
Because it's a word with a tradition. great art"ists" are associated with the term, that's why, and to degrade the term is to degrade the creators.

ghideon
Certainly there are plenty of individuals who can use language of adequate power, eloquence, and beauty that simply via the force of the "words" they could effectively counter whatever problems the hip-hop community and its music may be creating.

jon1jt
well that would be true if the media permitted adequate air time to levy such "words" tis not the case. $$$ talks, truth's neglected till it's too late.

ghideon
I would think that somebody who believed so passionately in the power of language would be supporting a different strategy in relation to hip-hops violent language. Perhaps the monetary backing of hip-hop music without thoes lyrics.

jon1jt
but there is no hip hop without those lyrics.

ghideon:
The very potency of language is what you seem to fear and yet it is this very power that would seem, from my perspective, to represent the best tool to be used in transforming the culture. Or do you not think that language is up to the challenge? If so, why not?

jgx

01-02-2007, 12:19 PM

virg, consider it this way: how does one reconcile those parts and in relation to the one's negative impact on the whole of society? let's face it, we can have and make all the lovely art our little hearts desire, but if 'art' is hijacked by the peddlers of gun-blazing, pot-smoking mediocrity (ghideon's band of hip hoppers from da hood) then how will "real" art ever be noticed, especially when networks, art shows, and print media are saturated by it, want more of it, the smut?

Jon et al:

When I read the above the rhetorical qualities of the writing suggest that the writer is torn (aren't we all). At first the question is posed as follows :"how does one reconcile those parts and in relation to the on'es negative impact on the whole of society? " This is a relatively clear question.

But the writer does not stop at that point. The rest of the post becomes highly rhetorical by deliberate choice of words and sytle. 'Art' which I assume to be what is generally considered to be 'fine' art is being "hijacked" and this act of "hijacking" is of enough power to make the author ask "how will 'real' art be able to be given the notice it, by implication, deserves?

I do not think that 'art' is "being hijacked". The relationship between the two arts being examined is much more complex then the phrase "being hijacked" would lead one to believe. I am not implying that it is of such complexity as to be beyond description. There are plenty of violent acts in this society (so many that I will not attempt a list) and while there is plenty of violence depicted in certain music and while more people seem to be paying attention to certain forms of music that are not generally considered "high art", I do not think this is due to some act or dynamic of "hijacking".

That does reflect what the above writers "feelings" are about this thorny issue but in this case I am learning more about this one person's emotional perspective then a reasoned examination of the problem. And I also come away from the post with a sense that the writer is not able or not willing to present the subject in a manner that would have a much greater likelihood of deliberate, serious discussion.

Now I may be told that my current attempt to clarify the discussion is actually just another act of an individual who has no absolutes or does not believe that absolute statements or perspectives are accurate. No. I actually believe that if language is to be the medium of this discussion then paying very close attention to it and working hard at clarity will further the discussion and thus, perhaps, further our understanding and future initiatives in relation to a problems resolution.

Certainly ending the post with, "the smut" adds little to the construction of reasoned discussion. Nor does it add any clarity to the above writing. The only impact that I observe is to give further illustration of the hostility the writer feels in relation to the phenomenan being discussed (hip-hop).

The first sentence was a question but what followed seems less a question then a statement clothed in a question?

Is the concern that fine art is being dominated by lesser forms of art? If so then we can investigate the relation between the two arts? We can ask about what is allowing such dominance to exist? Is it the force of the lower art or is there an aspect of the object of dominance that is not able to prevent/stop/respond to such force?

In workshops where activists learn how to do direct action activism they are taught, among other things, to personalize and polarize an issue because doing so will make for more powerful and more effective political issue based actions.

When writers engage in personalizing or polarizing they move into the domain of activism and as much as I may be considered to be a member of The Left I see the above writer equally a member of The Right (?). Now if I am to be taken to taks for a community that I am assumed to belong to then why does the above writer clearly indicate that he is not in a similar position.

Do you oppose the premise that you are as much a part of The Right as my writings would suggest I am part of The Left?

Do you believe that if this is the case then we are both as open to criticism in terms of having a political agenda, engaging in group think...

Or does a participation in The Left demand a criticism that an individuals participation in The Right does not?

SheykAbdullah

01-02-2007, 01:19 PM

I would just like to say in reference to Jon's last post, 'culture' has a significantly longer history than just 2000 years, and 'culture' defines any set of ideological tools used to organize a society. I would certainly say that there is a 'hip-hop' culture in this country, and very probably abroad as well.

SheykAbdullah

01-02-2007, 01:54 PM

The reality is that Soviet Communism produced brilliant composers on the level of Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Khachaturian and Myaskovsky... poets on the level of Boris Pasternak (far too underrated in the US where he is mostly known only for his novel, Dr. Zhivago), Anna Akhmatova, Vladimir Mayakovsky, MarinaTsvetaeva, Osip Mandelshtam... artists such as Kandinski, Malevich, Tatlin, and we could go on and on.

I am not sure that most of the artists mentioned were really produced by Communism; Stravinsky was born in 1882 and thus was 35 when the revolution occurred in 1917 and he permenantly left Russia in 1914, becoming a US citizen in 1939. He is buried in venice. Prokofiev was born in 1891 and left Russia in May of 1917 and didn't return until 1934, when he was 43. I would say Soviet music was not much of an influence on him. In 1948 he was arrested for espionage by the Soviet government, who disliked his music, and was not released until Stalin's death. Shostakovich was denounced by the party for most of his life as having an undesirable style of music. Khachaturian was also declaimed by the government as being 'anti-popular' and was required to publicly apologize for his music. Myaskovsky was also born in 1881 and so probably had a lot of pre-Communist influence. Pasternak's Dr Zhivago was not allowed to be published in the USSR and the gov't forced Pasternak to refuse the Nobel prize awarded for it. In fact, a famous Bill maudlin cartoon that won a Pulitzer showed Pasternak in a Gulag prison camp with the caption "I won a nobel prize for literature...what's your crime?" after he was threatened with an execution for the novel. From 1925 to 1940 Akhmatova was prohibited from publishing poetry in the USSR and was suspected of being dead when she finally published a collection in 1940. In 1946 her son was imprisoned in the Gulag and she was forced to write doxologies to Stalin to secure his release. Mayakovsky was tolerated and supported by the government, but only because he was their syncophant. Tsvetaeva lived abroad most of her life and when she finally returned to the USSR all of her friends who came with her were imprisoned, she was refused the right to publish and killed herself. If she lived since she lived abroad she probably would have been arrested. Mandelstam was arrested on several occasions and labeled a public enemy. He died in a Gulag of an unspecified illness, which means he may have been executed on the orders of a camp warden or the OSO special boards responsible for administering 'justice' inside the camps. Kandinsky was in his fifties when the Revolution ocurred and could no longer paint in the USSR when the government forbade all forms of abstract art in 1922. Malevich was already 39 when the revolution happened in 1917 and after the gov't attacked abstract art most of his works were destroyed or confiscated. He died in poverty, forgotten by his own people. Tatlin was a good Communist, but his Monument to the Third International, his masterpiece and the reason he is known to the world, was too prohibitively expensive to build.

I would suggest you go on, Stlukesguild, because the only artists not killed by the government of the USSR, exiled, persecuted, arrested, or muzzled were Tatlin and Mayakovsky and they were only safe because of their willingness to support the regime without qualification.

genoveva

01-02-2007, 03:01 PM

I would certainly say that there is a 'hip-hop' culture in this country

Yes, Yes! Hip-hop is definately part of a distinct culture (whether or not you consider is art- and it is definately music) so I cannot see how it would be right to censor it completely (but hey, isn't it already censored to some extent with labels at the music store?). Censoring culture is not to cool- especially in the good ole US of A. Hip-hop may offend some of us who are not part of that culture. What rap artists sing about is foreign to alot of us because we're not "in the hood". Most of us are probably largely sheltered from gangs, guns, hookers, violence, extreme poverty, etc. But, they are singing about what they know. If the songs offend parts of society, then maybe the focus should be on eliminating the gangs, guns, hookers, violence, extreme poverty, etc. instead of trying to eliminate the music.

genoveva

01-02-2007, 03:09 PM

genoveva

01-02-2007, 03:13 PM

I would rail against rap for its immorality

But, you are grouping all rap as the same. Not all rap sings about gangs, guns, violence, etc. Consider KRS-ONE's Edutainment, for example. Saying "rap is violent" or "rap promotes violence" is like saying "Christians are good people" or " Christians make good choices". You are stereotyping all of rap music.

Virgil

01-02-2007, 05:16 PM

But, you are grouping all rap as the same. Not all rap sings about gangs, guns, violence, etc. Consider KRS-ONE's Edutainment, for example. Saying "rap is violent" or "rap promotes violence" is like saying "Christians are good people" or " Christians make good choices". You are stereotyping all of rap music.

You're right. Frankly I don't know rap, just the stereotype. You must admit there is some legitamacy to the steorotype. Or do you dispute that?

To rephrase, I would rail against all art that I feel is detrimental to society.

Virgil

01-02-2007, 05:22 PM

virg, consider it this way: how does one reconcile those parts and in relation to the one's negative impact on the whole of society? let's face it, we can have and make all the lovely art our little hearts desire, but if 'art' is hijacked by the peddlers of gun-blazing, pot-smoking mediocrity (ghideon's band of hip hoppers from da hood) then how will "real" art ever be noticed, especially when networks, art shows, and print media are saturated by it, want more of it, the smut?

There is lots of crapy art that is very moral. I'm not sure art is ever hijacked. Now granted the music industry is different than a writer writing at home or an artist painting in his workshop. The music industry requires funding and an institutional organization to mass produce and deseminate it. So I guess there is some notion of hijack involved. But frankly they and the musicians are providing what the consumer wants. I am dismayed when I hear the shock jocks with their filthy mouths on radio. Unfortunately they get the ratings.

Let me complete my thoughts on this bifurcated sense of citizen and art aficianado. One's primary responsibility is to be a citenzen. There is nothing worse than idolizing art above social responsibility. Somewhere in lit net I've talked about how despite Ezra Pound's poetic ability, it was right and justified to try him for treason. And it is right for his reputation to be forever stained for being a racist and anti-semite. Another example is how irresponsible Norman Mailer was in getting Jack Abbott released from jail. Jack Abbot was a murderer and apparently wrote a good enough novel to get Mailer and other celebrities to get him out of jail. Within a few weeks of being paroled, Abbott killed someone else. Here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Henry_Abbott you can read about it in Wiki:

In 1977 he read that author Norman Mailer was writing about convicted killer Gary Gilmore. Abbott wrote to Mailer and offered to write about his time behind bars and the conditions he was experiencing. Mailer agreed and helped to publish In the Belly of the Beast, a book on life in the prison system consisting of Abbott's letters to Mailer.

Mailer supported Abbott's attempts to gain parole. Abbott also gained the support of such celebrities as Christopher Walken and Susan Sarandon. Sarandon's son, Jack Henry Robbins, is named after Abbott. Abbott was released on parole in June 1980. He went to New York City and was the toast of the literary scene for a short while.

On the morning of July 18, just six weeks after getting out of prison, Jack Abbott went to a small cafe called the Binibon in Manhattan. He clashed with 22-year-old Richard Adan, son-in-law of the restaurant's owner, over Adan's telling him the restroom was for staff only. The short-tempered Abbott stabbed Adan in the chest, killing him. The very next day, unaware of Abbott's crime, the New York Times ran a positive review of The Belly of the Beast.

After some time on the run, Abbott was arrested and charged with murdering Richard Adan. At his trial in January 1982, he was convicted of manslaughter and given fifteen years to life.

Apart from the advance fee of $12,500, Abbott did not receive any profits from The Belly of the Beast, as Richard Adan's widow successfully sued him for $7.5 million in damages, which meant she received all the money from the book's sales.

There was a tragic irony to the murder, not lost on the community of aspiring writers and actors in New York. While Abbott was an accomplished writer, Adan was both an actor and a playwright, whose talent was just beginning to be recognized: shortly before his murder his first play had been accepted for production by the La Mama theatre company.

Norman Mailer was criticised for his role in getting Jack Abbott released and was accused of being so blinded by Abbott's evident writing talent that he did not take into account Abbott's propensity for violence. In a 1992 interview in The Buffalo News, Mailer said that his involvement with Abbott was "another episode in my life in which I can find nothing to cheer about or nothing to take pride in."

Nothing to take pride in is not enough. It goes to his everlasting shame. The bottom line is we are citizens first, and, after soceity has settled out morality and laws, we can step back and we can appreciate the art that was produced. It may take a generation or a few generations, but so what. it's not like we don't have enough art to enrich our lives.

jon1jt

01-02-2007, 06:49 PM

Yikes! This statement scares me!:alien: Music influencing youth? Yikes, ban Elvis Presley! Ban the Beatles! (Remind me about how much acid the Beatles took?) Art influences people period. At all different times in history, something has been illegal that society has condemned (hmm..like various religions, or even the right to vote, er, slavery, too, etc.). You can't just make a blanket statement like that. Think of all the books that have been banned- don't want to influence the youth, huh? Hmm...

i commented on this remark in a previous thread and i'll say again, the last i checked the Elvis kids weren't buying guns and doing drugs and degrading women. they were good kids, unlike many kids in the hood who listen to hip hop.

again, using the word culture in the same breath as hip hop is vulgar.

kilted exile

01-02-2007, 06:51 PM

2. does a cultural divide exist and what, if anything, should be done about it?

Answering only Q2 as I doubt I will be able to answer the others without straying into forbidden subject matter.

Yes a cultural divide exists. This is due to the differing environments within countries that people live - as personal examples: my growing up in inner city Glasgow leads to cultural differences with people who grew up in the Highlands & Islands; or my growing up in the blue half of Glasgow leads to cultural differences with those from the Green & White half of the city. - these are examples from just a small country, it seems obvious to me that a country the size of the US would have cultural divides also. To some demographics songs such as N.W.A's F### da Police are things they can relate to, the vast majority will of course have no intention of going and shooting a cop but they will be able to empathise with the feeling that they are being treated in a certain way based solely on their skin colour. Then of course there are some people in other demographics that may be better able to relate to some bubblegum pop song.

The trickier question is whether or not there should be a cultural divide. For which my answer is Yes & No. There is no problem with cultural differences in general, however I do have issues with the socio-economic divide which results in cultural differences.

dramasnot6

01-02-2007, 07:13 PM

Yikes! This statement scares me!:alien: Music influencing youth? Yikes, ban Elvis Presley! Ban the Beatles! (Remind me about how much acid the Beatles took?) Art influences people period. At all different times in history, something has been illegal that society has condemned (hmm..like various religions, or even the right to vote, er, slavery, too, etc.). You can't just make a blanket statement like that. Think of all the books that have been banned- don't want to influence the youth, huh? Hmm...

That statement was specifically reffering to hip hop genoveva.

genoveva

01-02-2007, 07:24 PM

again, using the word culture in the same breath as hip hop is vulgar.

Well, that is your personal opinion which tells me that you think the culture that rap comes out of is vulgar. It would be a good thing if more people could be a little more open minded to cultures different from their own. Just because I don't prefer a different culture than my own doesn't mean I have to negate it.

genoveva

01-02-2007, 07:26 PM

i commented on this remark in a previous thread and i'll say again, the last i checked the Elvis kids weren't buying guns and doing drugs and degrading women.

Who knows? You are generalizing with this statement. They certainly were dancing more, thinking more lusty thoughts, and paying more attention to the pelvis area!:lol:

jon1jt

01-02-2007, 07:33 PM

Well, that is your personal opinion which tells me that you think the culture that rap comes out of is vulgar. It would be a good thing if more people could be a little more open minded to cultures different from their own. Just because I don't prefer a different culture than my own doesn't mean I have to negate it.

you assume i have had no association with that such "culture."

jon1jt

01-02-2007, 07:35 PM

Thanks for expounding on my point St Lukes. I think we pretty much agree here. Perhaps I can summarize it as follows. As citizen I have a right and obligation to speak out against things that I feel harm society; as art lover I can appreciate art even if has detrimental effects on society. Those two parts of me can occur at the same time and separately.

So I guess there is some notion of hijack involved. But frankly they and the musicians are providing what the consumer wants. I am dismayed when I hear the shock jocks with their filthy mouths on radio. Unfortunately they get the ratings.

give them garbage, they will eat garbage. give them substance, they will read plato and aristotle. but such takes time and energy, and immense commitment. i'll come back to this below. it's the same reason politics is laden with advisors and "think tanks" and pilot groups, because they want to just tailor their message to what's socially acceptable, never considering the fact that the feedback they're compiling is tainted. people nowadays "expect" politicians to lie because if they were serious they wouldn't be able to hack the policy changes necessary to improve the world.

the people controlling communications have a responsibility to be, as you say, "citizens" first. but we know that civic duty comes with teaching kids virtues from the moment they're brought into the world. how can parents be instilling mechanisms when they themselves are enamored by the music, caught in the thicket of "being cultured." ugh.

barnes and noble won't shelf Rimbaud's poetry or say, Dickins, simply because the big recording labels pay a ton of money for shelf space. for books we get LL Cool J's new one (i saw it shelved there!) right at the counter, in my face. and the argument is not so simple to say that publishing companies CAN also pay to have Rimbaud's poetry in my face. there's no demand because demand is borne out of inculturation, from assigning the Norton Anthology of hip hop for a college course to having Diddy as a guest on Booknotes or NPR, with the result of intellectualizing the unintellectualizable. even ghideon has made references to looking behind the music for causalities, as if these depths of destruction were the product of children "oppressed." and it's just not the case. the fact of the matter is that many so-called rappers who grew up in the inner city had parents who received Section 8 (a state-program that pays most of rent to working poor, unemployed, or elderly). the rents they're charging in the inner city are the same as what it costs to live in the suburbs. i knew a black man whose son was living with his mother and involved with drugs. the man worked two jobs to send his son to a private school, and i watched the man - with tears in his eyes - lay a beating into his son because the kid was getting into serious trouble at school and jeopardizing his enrollment. he told of inner city parents who had NO interest in improving their gutter life. in fact, many have the money to move out but stay put. that's why the black community is fragmenting, as i also said in another post, because a small percentage "get it."

the fundamental problem is we have a quasi-free market system bent on profit, so no major publisher or politician or radio network will take the initial "hit" in ratings if it inducted a new format that eliminated the jargon and stepped outside the politicized framework, promoting round table talks about the classics and inspiring culture with the heroes and legends of Homer and Virgil, the virtues of Plutarch and Augustine, the spirit of Hegel and Kant, the humility of Socrates and Montaigne.

violence begets violence; low-brow "culture" begets lower-brow culture; and ignorance, alas, basks in the soupy cauldron of a system slouching towards gomorrah.

dramasnot6

01-02-2007, 07:46 PM

give them garbage, they will eat garbage. give them substance, they will read plato and aristotle. it's the same reason politics is laden with advisors and "think tanks" and pilot groups, because they want to just tailor their message to what's socially acceptable, never considering the fact that the feedback they're compiling is tainted. people nowadays "expect" politicians to lie because if they were serious they wouldn't be able to hack the policy changes necessary to improve the world.

the people controlling communications have a responsibility to, as you say, be "citizens" first. but we know that civic duty comes with teaching kids such virtues from the moment they're brought into the world. how can parents be instilling mechanisms when they're enamored by the music, the "culture." ugh.

.

I completely agree. People in my school follow whatever is shown to them. When hip hop is shown they dont consider the complexity or context of its messages and themes, they just absorb the content and label it as "cool" , letting it negatively influence their behaviour and beliefs. Those in the music industry have to be more considerate with what they are brainwashing kids with. Youth can not help being youth and being easily influenced as a whole, its a vulnerable, insecure age where if something is popular and portrayed posititively, they will most likely be attracted to it. Heck, the same works with many adults still later on. But youth are particulary sensitive and need to be intorduced to more mature issues with a more moral approach. Showing them content involving acts that in real life are harmful and illegal as positive, gives them the sense that its ok for them to do it.

jon1jt

01-02-2007, 08:01 PM

I completely agree. People in my school follow whatever is shown to them. When hip hop is shown they dont consider the complexity or context of its messages and themes, they just absorb the content and label it as "cool" , letting it negatively influence their behaviour and beliefs. Those in the music industry have to be more considerate with what they are brainwashing kids with. Youth can not help being youth and being easily influenced as a whole, its a vulnerable, insecure age where if something is popular and portrayed posititively, they will most likely be attracted to it. Heck, the same works with many adults still later on. But youth are particulary sensitive and need to be intorduced to more mature issues with a more moral approach. Showing them content involving acts that in real life are harmful and illegal as positive, gives them the sense that its ok for them to do it.

i completely agree, Dramas, great point. plato has a wonderful piece in his Republic about the 'divided self' and uses the analogy of a chariot and driver, and points to the horses as the unwieldy part of the self, the driver holds the reins and so bridles the horse, when necessary. this is relevant to this discussion because it makes clear that only through the lamp of reason can we "know thyself." and knowing thyself is understanding those divisions within ourselves and using reason as a force against the drudgery of an ignorant life.

jgx

01-02-2007, 08:16 PM

i commented on this remark in a previous thread and i'll say again, the last i checked the Elvis kids weren't buying guns and doing drugs and degrading women. they were good kids, unlike many kids in the hood who listen to hip hop.

again, using the word culture in the same breath as hip hop is vulgar.

Jon. In several previous posts I have asked you direct questions which you have chosen not to answer. I will repeat them.

My assumption is you have not answered them because you can't. I may very well be wrong in that assumption but only time will tell.

Do you believe that calling certain young people "good kids" and then implying that the other kids are, at the very least, less good if not "bad". Do you actually feel comfortable making such a judgment on people who, I assume, you have had almost no contact with?

I wrote a post a few days ago(I got some real positive responses from it, by the way) about the violence involved in turning humans into "an other." I wrote about how that fundamental invalidation of a person or groups' humanity serves no valuable purpose whatsoever and is only done by someone who is themselve deeply alienated. I can not come up with any rational explaination as to why someone would deliberately and repeatedly treat other people or communities in a manner that does not move anything forward. Can you?

And since it seems to have no rational foundation I can only assume that it has a very irrational foundation or cause. I want you to deal with this issue directly jon1. No more "oh I ghideon am just some relativistic liberal who does not want to end violence and just thinks all black acts of crime are just fine". Do not misrepresent me anymore.

I want you to own your assertions. In particular I want you to defend your statement that there are "good" kids and other kids and I want to remind you that you could have written something that would only have judged their actions. I do believe you are bright enough to do so if you wanted to. Clearly you see no reason to make such a distinction between who a person is and what they do. I would like to know why?

I also want you to know in absolutely no uncertain terms that I and others have shown remarkable restraint in our replies. I want you to know without a chance of ambiguity or confusion that when you talk about these kids who just listen to "smut" and who are judged as less then those "good" kids you are talking about people I live with, am very good friends with have stood up for and will stand up for them if the need ever arises.

Nobody has shown as much contempt for whites, for suburbuan communities, for women, for Christians, for Jews, for anybody as you repeatedly show towards the primarily black (in the US) hip-hop community. And understand as well that this contempt, hostility you express is targeted at men and women, many of whom are between the ages of 12-16. Answer me if you believe that calling youth "bad" and calling their music(which, for whatever reasons) they love "smut"...do you think that is the role an adult should occupy when relating to young people.

You may believe that you are deeply concerned about the violence consuming this society and you may even believe that you have a good understanding of 'high' art....Bach, Dante, Milton, Monet....

But whatever understanding you may have has apparently not touched your heart. Far from reflecting back to others how the 'high arts' move people towards a deeper and more refined consciousness your writings show that there are those who despite their readings the sublime has fallen on deaf ears.

I have asked you direct questions. I expect clear and direct responses. Or the silence will, as they say, speak volumes.

You once asked me if I was going to leave the arena? No Jon. I would rather this not be an arena, if truth be told. That is not the first metaphor I would use but it was the one you used. But if you want this to be an arena then I am still here.

dramasnot6

01-02-2007, 08:27 PM

I wrote a post a few days ago(I got some real positive responses from it, by the way) about the violence involved in turning humans into "an other." I wrote about how that fundamental invalidation of a person or groups' humanity serves no valuable purpose whatsoever and is only done by someone who is themselve deeply alienated. I can not come up with any rational explaination as to why someone would deliberately and repeatedly treat other people or communities in a manner that does not move anything forward. Can you?
Every culture has its faults and vulgarities. I dont remember any assumptions or accusations made about a particular culture being wholly "bad". Hip hop has become popular and created by peoplle of many different cultures, it seems more like youre the one not being "progressive" by making it like only a specific culture produces and can relate to it.

I want you to own your assertions. In particular I want you to defend your statement that there are "good" kids and other kids and I want to remind you that you could have written something that would only have judged their actions. I do believe you are bright enough to do so if you wanted to. Clearly you see no reason to make such a distinction between who a person is and what they do. I would like to know why?

I also want you to know in absolutely no uncertain terms that I and others have shown remarkable restraint in our replies. I want you to know without a chance of ambiguity or confusion that when you talk about these kids who just listen to "smut" and who are judged as less then those "good" kids you are talking about people I live with, am very good friends with have stood up for and will stand up for them if the need ever arises.

Nobody has shown as much contempt for whites, for suburbuan communities, for women, for Christians, for Jews, for anybody as you repeatedly show towards the primarily black (in the US) hip-hop community. And understand as well that this contempt, hostility you express is targeted at men and women, many of whom are between the ages of 12-16. Answer me if you believe that calling youth "bad" and calling their music(which, for whatever reasons) they love "smut"...do you think that is the role an adult should occupy when relating to young people.

I live in Australia. There is one out of the 600 kids at my school that is of African descent, or as you say "black". I know about 400 kids who enjoy hip hop and its themes. Why do you keep associating criticism of hip hop to a specific community? Why cant YOU accept the diversity of taste out there and jsut because something has certain origins doesnt mean it has to be limited to that audience?

dramasnot6

01-02-2007, 08:30 PM

I have asked you direct questions. I expect clear and direct responses. Or the silence will, as they say, speak volumes.

See below:

Your response to my :
[Last edited by jgx : Today at 03:48 PM. Reason: major revision /QUOTE]
why did you delete so much of your reply to my post ghideon? you were seemed so passionate and confident in your thorough argument over my points....tis a shame.

Was:
Ya know this thing about passion is a double edged thing. On the one hand passion is full of life and thrust and vibrant dyanamic movements.

Or the one that gets in the way of reason and thought and knowing that there is another person is passion because it is so absolute and intense it is like such a force that it can be both rewarding and damaging....and sometimes both.

In many schools of Buddhism the goal is to leave passion behind...but in the sense that passion always does indicate deep strong attachment and that can inhibit flexiblity..

used to do a lot of yoga....like downward dog or scorpion asana
Do you call that a "direct answer"?

jon1jt

01-02-2007, 08:32 PM

Jon. In several previous posts I have asked you direct questions which you have chosen not to answer. I will repeat them.

My assumption is you have not answered them because you can't. I may very well be wrong in that assumption but only time will tell.

D

I wrote a post a few days ago(I got some real positive responses from it, by the way) about the violence involved in turning humans into "an other." I o you believe that calling certain young people "good kids" and then implying that the other kids are, at the very least, less good if not "bad". Do you actually feel comfortable making such a judgment on people who, I assume, you have had almost no contact with?wrote about how that fundamental invalidation of a person or groups' humanity serves no valuable purpose whatsoever and is only done by someone who is themselve deeply alienated. I can not come up with any rational explaination as to why someone would deliberately and repeatedly treat other people or communities in a manner that does not move anything forward. Can you?

And since it seems to have no rational foundation I can only assume that it has a very irrational foundation or cause. I want you to deal with this issue directly jon1. No more "oh I ghideon am just some relativistic liberal who does not want to end violence and just thinks all black acts of crime are just fine". Do not misrepresent me anymore.

I want you to own your assertions. In particular I want you to defend your statement that there are "good" kids and other kids and I want to remind you that you could have written something that would only have judged their actions. I do believe you are bright enough to do so if you wanted to. Clearly you see no reason to make such a distinction between who a person is and what they do. I would like to know why?

I also want you to know in absolutely no uncertain terms that I and others have shown remarkable restraint in our replies. I want you to know without a chance of ambiguity or confusion that when you talk about these kids who just listen to "smut" and who are judged as less then those "good" kids you are talking about people I live with, am very good friends with have stood up for and will stand up for them if the need ever arises.

Nobody has shown as much contempt for whites, for suburbuan communities, for women, for Christians, for Jews, for anybody as you repeatedly show towards the primarily black (in the US) hip-hop community. And understand as well that this contempt, hostility you express is targeted at men and women, many of whom are between the ages of 12-16. Answer me if you believe that calling youth "bad" and calling their music(which, for whatever reasons) they love "smut"...do you think that is the role an adult should occupy when relating to young people.

You may believe that you are deeply concerned about the violence consuming this society and you may even believe that you have a good understanding of 'high' art....Bach, Dante, Milton, Monet....

But whatever understanding you may have has apparently not touched your heart. Far from reflecting back to others how the 'high arts' move people towards a deeper and more refined consciousness your writings show that there are those who despite their readings the sublime has fallen on deaf ears.

I have asked you direct questions. I expect clear and direct responses. Or the silence will, as they say, speak volumes.

You once asked me if I was going to leave the arena? No Jon. I would rather this not be an arena, if truth be told. That is not the first metaphor I would use but it was the one you used. But if you want this to be an arena then I am still here.

And by the way, as far as I can tell I have not left the realm of logic or reason behind in some raging diatribe...you remember....ad homenem(sp?). No. This is different.

i would never evade a fellow interlocutor's questions. :lol: if i have done so i did not mean to, but such is no excuse, i'll get on it right away. i'll answer just this one for the moment.

ghideon:
do you believe that calling certain young people "good kids" and then implying that the other kids are, at the very least, less good if not "bad". Do you actually feel comfortable making such a judgment on people who, I assume, you have had almost no contact with?

jon1jt
i am making a generational comparison and so feel quite comfortable (and confident) with that choice of words. in this case i don't mean "all," but certainly more than the number of inner city - and kids from the suburbs.

again, i don't know why proximity necessarily means having greater insight. it's just not true. isn't that to stereotype based on some ephemeral life experience standard? and by the way, i'm making a judgment on people with whom i have had longstanding contact or else i would never have come to the judgments i have. again, you don't know me and i don't know you.

jgx

01-02-2007, 08:44 PM

Every culture has its faults and vulgarities. I dont remember any assumptions or accusations made about a particular culture being wholly "bad". Hip hop has become popular and created by peoplle of many different cultures, it seems more like youre the one not being "progressive" by making it like only a specific culture produces and can relate to it.

No? You think that those folks back in the 50s were the "good" kids? You really do not think there is a pretty clear implication behind that? But that is ok with you?

And sure hip-hop has become quite popular (at least we agree on that) and in fact international. But I would suggest you read, or re-read the article at wikipedia that discusses the origin of hip-hop culture, music, art, poetry...

I have never said that only one community can relate to it. In fact I was the first one to remind people that the white youth in the burbs buy tons of the music.

But, as jon wrote once, lets get real. Are you actually asserting that when somebody calls hip-hop smut and makes up lyrics about "hoes, guns, pappa in prison or whatever the specific words were in jon's pseudo lyrics" you actually want me to believe that, as far as here in the US (where, I remind you, rap and hip-hop were born) here in the US any song that focuses on those themes is going to be almost always in relation to poor communities of color. Why? Oh lets see? That is where the music came from? That is still the community where most of the American rap hip-hoppers originated from? And those are the objective, real conditons of who....oh yea....poor communities of color.

Now you will probably say I sound like a broken record but for only one reason. There seems to be an absolute inability to accept a fact.

Oh...finally....your reply really is besides the point. My concern is the facile objectification of communities. You know, the post that you told me you appreciated. I would really appreciate something else, remembering what I wrote.

You do understand that those 600 peers of yours are "bad" kids listening to "smut" who care about nothing but guns, violence and bla bla bla. Or have you forgotten what jon has been writing.

And geez, this "smut" that has no worth except as an object of scorn by those who compasionate folks who want a better world...that smut is now international...and is able to reach out to a diversity of tastes. Must be some real quality smut hmmmm?

I live in Australia. There is one out of the 600 kids at my school that is of African descent, or as you say "black". I know about 400 kids who enjoy hip hop and its themes. Why do you keep associating criticism of hip hop to a specific community? Why cant YOU accept the diversity of taste out there and jsut because something has certain origins doesnt mean it cant be limited to that audience?[/QUOTE]

SheykAbdullah

01-02-2007, 08:50 PM

the fundamental problem is we have a quasi-free market system bent on profit, so no major publisher or politician or radio network will take the initial "hit" in ratings if it inducted a new format that eliminated the jargon and stepped outside the politicized framework, promoting round table talks about the classics and inspiring culture with the heroes and legends of Homer and Virgil, the virtues of Plutarch and Augustine, the spirit of Hegel and Kant, the humility of Socrates and Montaigne.

violence begets violence; low-brow "culture" begets lower-brow culture; and ignorance, alas, basks in the soupy cauldron of a system slouching towards gomorrah.

In the hope to restrict the length of my posts I am going to only quote a chunk here, and quote specifics when needed.

The problem I think here, Jon, is that you don't like the choices people make, but what would you do about it? Take away that choice? You've already spoken of censoring music you find inappropriate, but I say freedom cannot survive in a bottle.

You cannot force culture, of any form, down somebody's throat. People are a lot like mules, you need to do a lot of persuading to get them somewhere, but if you yank on the reigns and force their head somewhere odds are they will just dig their heels into the ground and refuse to move. Forcing a round-table discussion of Plato instead of hip-hop will result in an obstinance to read even a page. Things must be done slowly if anything is to improve and must be done in such a way that the people who are being educated, who need it, are actually taught and taught in a way that takes into account their world outlook and beliefs. The reason they listen to rap instead of reading Aristotle is because they feel rap is more relevant to their lives than classical philosophy.

This concern about gemorrah is very prevelant today, in fact it is part of what is causing such strife in our world. Muslim extemists are attacking our civilization with the intent of saving us from our moral bankruptness and spreading the 'Dar Assalaam' so that everyone should know the glory of Islam. Christian missionaries did the same thing all over the world and in some places they brought education, but in many others they established what were nearly slave labor camps under the cover of missions, all to ensure the natives became good, moral Christians. To demand some kind of moral purity is to repeat the mistakes of the past, and that seems to be what you are demanding we do. The American Indians were once viewed as violent irrepresible savages enamoured of rape and torture (and it must be admitted in all fairness they viewed torture a little differently than we do) and so they were hearded into mission schools where they were prohibited from speaking their native languages. As a result many Ameri-Indian languages face extinction, and as a result those not fortunate enough to go to a reservation school where mowed down with machine guns often while bearing a flag of truce such as at Sand Creek in '64 and Wounded Knee in 1890.

jgx

01-02-2007, 09:16 PM

i'm making a judgment on people with whom i have had longstanding contact or else i would never have come to the judgments i have. again, you don't know me and i don't know you.

And there we have it. You may think that you countered my assertion that you actively and repeatedly dehumanize others and now you have basically admitted it.

You pronounce "judgments on people". That is what you do and repeatedly do and feel fine doing.

I do not. That is of deep importance to me. I am a Jew and what was the core of the Holocaust ideology a judgment on the Jews. Anytime anybody judges anybody for anything I feel threatened and I also believe I am observing an act of deep invalidation. This is not a game to me. The first definition of good in the Merriam Webster I have is "of favorable character".

I have no reason to attack the character of kids who hate hip-hop or kids who listened to The Beach Boys or adults who danced to Lawrence Welk. I would never judge the character of kids who watch Goth Satanic music.

jon and dramas....it comes down to this. Do you actually want to have your thinking be applicable to reality? If so then how are we going to get out of the mess we are in. Oh, that's right, calling criminals people of "bad character" has done wonders in ending crime. Those hollier then thou types who go around saying prostitutes are full of sin...oh yea...they do wonders. No. Don't get close to those folks and don't show that you actually are deeply concerned about their wellbeing and please do not make the mistake of reminding them that regardless of what music they may listen to that does not define who they are. No. What you want is a youth obsequious and piety to all things you consider worthy.

You want to stand in the long line of those who throughout history believed themselves to be in some position in which they could judge others. And we are not talking about dealing with actions, causes, effects....which is what anybody actually dedicated to ending violence would spend most of their time concerned with. No. We are talking about telling a huge number of youth that what they listen to "is smut" that despite what they might belive they do not have "a culture" and that because they listen to this music their character can be judged as "bad".

I take my hat off to you.

jgx

01-02-2007, 09:21 PM

Yea jon...I do not know you and you do not know me. But I know what music you like and I know what books/authors/philosophers you admire.

Seems to me I have plenty of information from which to judge you.

No?

stlukesguild

01-02-2007, 10:38 PM

SheykAbdullah- I am not sure that most of the artists mentioned were really produced by Communism; Stravinsky was born in 1882 and thus was 35 when the revolution occurred in 1917 and he permenantly left Russia in 1914, becoming a US citizen in 1939. He is buried in venice. Prokofiev was born in 1891 and left Russia in May of 1917 and didn't return until 1934, when he was 43. I would say Soviet music was not much of an influence on him. In 1948 he was arrested for espionage by the Soviet government, who disliked his music, and was not released until Stalin's death. Shostakovich was denounced by the party for most of his life as having an undesirable style of music. Khachaturian was also declaimed by the government as being 'anti-popular' and was required to publicly apologize for his music. Myaskovsky was also born in 1881 and so probably had a lot of pre-Communist influence. Pasternak's Dr Zhivago was not allowed to be published in the USSR and the gov't forced Pasternak to refuse the Nobel prize awarded for it. In fact, a famous Bill maudlin cartoon that won a Pulitzer showed Pasternak in a Gulag prison camp with the caption "I won a nobel prize for literature...what's your crime?" after he was threatened with an execution for the novel. From 1925 to 1940 Akhmatova was prohibited from publishing poetry in the USSR and was suspected of being dead when she finally published a collection in 1940. In 1946 her son was imprisoned in the Gulag and she was forced to write doxologies to Stalin to secure his release. Mayakovsky was tolerated and supported by the government, but only because he was their syncophant. Tsvetaeva lived abroad most of her life and when she finally returned to the USSR all of her friends who came with her were imprisoned, she was refused the right to publish and killed herself. If she lived since she lived abroad she probably would have been arrested. Mandelstam was arrested on several occasions and labeled a public enemy. He died in a Gulag of an unspecified illness, which means he may have been executed on the orders of a camp warden or the OSO special boards responsible for administering 'justice' inside the camps. Kandinsky was in his fifties when the Revolution ocurred and could no longer paint in the USSR when the government forbade all forms of abstract art in 1922. Malevich was already 39 when the revolution happened in 1917 and after the gov't attacked abstract art most of his works were destroyed or confiscated. He died in poverty, forgotten by his own people. Tatlin was a good Communist, but his Monument to the Third International, his masterpiece and the reason he is known to the world, was too prohibitively expensive to build.

Certainly I would not deny the difficulties suffered by many artists under Soviet communism. My point, however, was that great art continued to be made. Artists are incredibly adaptive. The notion that any restraints to freedom will spell the immediate doom of creativity and art is simply not supported by history. Goya survived and produced in Spain in spite of the debauched aristocracy, the Napoleonic Wars, and the inquisition. Milton produced his greatest poetic masterpiece after being denounced, imprisoned, and disgraced and only set free because his blindness was seen as divine retribution enough. Max Beckmann produced his greatest paintings, the grand triptychs, in a small apartment in occupied Holland where he was trapped for the entire duration of WWII. Emil Nolde was branded a "degenerate artist" by the Nazis in spite of his having joined the party. He produced what may be his greatest body of work while under strict prohibition from painting (under penalty of death): the so-called "unpainted paintings". These small scaled watercolor works could be quickly hidden and did not involve the tell-tale smells of oil paints. The examples of artists thriving under real adversity... and not merely a few limitations to the concepts of "absolute artistic freedom" are endless. On the contrary... what has the absolute freedom of our present culture given us? Do we imagine Damian Hirst as the artistic genius of our time? Who are our great serious composers? Does hip hop offer much of the aesthetic worth of the best jazz had to offer?

stlukesguild

01-02-2007, 10:53 PM

SheykAbdullah- I would certainly say that there is a 'hip-hop' culture in this country

genoveva- Yes, Yes! Hip-hop is definately part of a distinct culture

SLG- Certainly hip-hop is part of a culture... but is it seriously a culture worthy of examination... and dare I say it... reverence? It is intriguing that we can quickly dismiss the cultures of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russian, but we are afraid to take this same stance with the "culture of hip hop". I almost sense a certain Western guilt... a feeling that as an atonement for what we acknowledge as years of dismissing and abusing cultures outside of the Western mainstream, we cannot bring ourself to dismiss even the most extreme examples of "cultures" outside of our own. Personally I have a problem with accepting and respecting any culture that glorifies gang rapes, drive-by-shootings, gangs, cop killings, drug dealing, and an utter lack of respect for women. While I would not stop "artists" from producing such art I have no problem with the notion that as a society we have the right to limit the access of such works to the mass media. But then I'm not an idealist. I don't believe that in the instance that extreme profanity, explicit sexuality, misogynistic ranting, racist sloganeering, and glorification of violence for its own sake is removed from public airwaves that it will spell the doom of western civilization.

stlukesguild

01-02-2007, 11:06 PM

Once lyrics go from innocent listening to influencing youth, you have gone too far. If something is promoting illegal and actitivites agknowledged to be immoral by a society, it should be also be treated to be immoral.

Yikes! This statement scares me! Music influencing youth? Yikes, ban Elvis Presley! Ban the Beatles! (Remind me about how much acid the Beatles took?) Art influences people period. At all different times in history, something has been illegal that society has condemned (hmm..like various religions, or even the right to vote, er, slavery, too, etc.). You can't just make a blanket statement like that. Think of all the books that have been banned- don't want to influence the youth, huh? Hmm...

The problem I find with many of the defences offered in favor of absolute artistic freedom is that they utilize hysteria and exaggeration. To censor the use of certain profane language (which I cannot use here because it is understood there are minors who may be reading what I have to say... does anyone sense a certain irony?) in hip-hop or any music is immediately equated with banning Elvis or The Beatles or Shakespeare or the Bible. The reality is that Elvis and the Beatles did create under certain limitations. They most certainly could not utilize certain words, they could not be explicit in their references to sex or drugs... and if they were they would not have been surprised to find the work banned from airplay. Perhaps... just a thought... the limitations to what they could say forced them to be more subtle... more creative. I certainly feel this is true of all the doubtle-entendre found in old blues and jazz music. B!^@*! H@! F@^k! Mother F#^ker! Gee! The artistic brilliance! It's poetry.:sick:

genoveva

01-02-2007, 11:07 PM

Here is a really interesting link to articles and interviews regarding the history of hip-hop, spirituality and hip-hop, etc. Well worth checking out:

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/42/story_4222_1.html

On another note, Queen Latifah "the First Lady of Hip-Hop", who is an "award-winning musician, actress, and entertainer" has just put out a lovely picture book titled Queen of the Scene illustrated by Frank Morrison. This is a wonderful children's book which empowers young girls to believe in themselves.

stlukesguild

01-02-2007, 11:54 PM

...here in the US any song that focuses on those themes is going to be almost always in relation to poor communities of color. Why? Oh lets see? That is where the music came from? That is still the community where most of the American rap hip-hoppers originated from? And those are the objective, real conditons of who....oh yea....poor communities of color...

I know that this was a discussion between jon and jgx, but I just felt the need to interject. As I admitted to before, I will accept the notion that rap or hip-hop is ART. The question as to how good or bad it is is largely up in the air... although I should admit that I have long believed that 90% of all art is mediocre at best. Aesthetically, I find that most of it is probably no better or worse than most popular music (and I won't even get into contemporary classical or fine art music:confused:). On the other hand... I would ask you just how comfortable you would be with the notion of the the great entertainment industry promoting extremist white supremacist neo-nazi thrasher music. Or what about music that promotes the "white trash" culture of incest, child abuse, wife beatings, gay bashing, alcoholism and crystal meth as expressive of the poor white culture. Why haven't we seen more of this? Is it truly because it is so aesthetically poor? Or is it (more than likely) that the industry fears the very real (and deserved) backlash that such promotion of hatred, ignorance, and negative stereotypes would engender. As such, might I suggest that there is a certain paradox... or hypocracy in the industry that is willing to promote the worst examples of poor black culture as indicative and expressive of that culture. If I were black (and I am not, but I have had more than my fair share of experience with the communities in question having taught in poor and predominantly black urban schools for nearly 9 years) I would find the fact that the extreme examples of hip hop... (those which wallow in profanity, and glorification of violence and gang rape and murder and degradation of women) were seen as acceptable "entertainment" worthy of promotion on public airwaves and discussion in college lit courses because they represent the poor black community to be the greatest insult of all.

SheykAbdullah

01-03-2007, 01:13 AM

Certainly I would not deny the difficulties suffered by many artists under Soviet communism. My point, however, was that great art continued to be made. Artists are incredibly adaptive. The notion that any restraints to freedom will spell the immediate doom of creativity and art is simply not supported by history. Goya survived and produced in Spain in spite of the debauched aristocracy, the Napoleonic Wars, and the inquisition. Milton produced his greatest poetic masterpiece after being denounced, imprisoned, and disgraced and only set free because his blindness was seen as divine retribution enough. Max Beckmann produced his greatest paintings, the grand triptychs, in a small apartment in occupied Holland where he was trapped for the entire duration of WWII. Emil Nolde was branded a "degenerate artist" by the Nazis in spite of his having joined the party. He produced what may be his greatest body of work while under strict prohibition from painting (under penalty of death): the so-called "unpainted paintings". These small scaled watercolor works could be quickly hidden and did not involve the tell-tale smells of oil paints. The examples of artists thriving under real adversity... and not merely a few limitations to the concepts of "absolute artistic freedom" are endless. On the contrary... what has the absolute freedom of our present culture given us? Do we imagine Damian Hirst as the artistic genius of our time? Who are our great serious composers? Does hip hop offer much of the aesthetic worth of the best jazz had to offer?

So your argument is that censorship is ok because they great art will survive anyway?

Now, I know this is an impossible question to answer, but I would ask how much greater could the art of those people who suffered under Soviet tyranny have been if they had been allowed to explore it freely and engage in an interchange of ideas with people of similiar mind? Those artists didn't survive because of Communism, they survived DESPITE Communism. How much more poetry could Tsevaeteva produced if her conditions after returning to Russia had not driven her to suicide? How many more works and writers could Pasternak have produced and influenced if he had been allowed freedom? How many more paintings could Malevich have made? How many more ideas could Kandinsky have generated if he were ALLOWED to put brush to canvas? Sure the art may have made it somewhere, but the potential of those artists was wrecked under Soveit domination. I can assure you none of those artists in the Gulags were producing anything more than the occasional note of a hammer banging on a lifeless slab of rock in a forced construction project.

If that is not enough to convince that censorship is not just bad but evil, then look at the number of people you named who were already well into their artistic lives when Communism fell. Half of your examples were either already producing art in 1917 or produced their art while living outside of Russia until the late twenties and early thirties. Those people didn't learn their techniques from the Soviets, rather they learned their greatness inside free states where they could explore their own creativity.

Those examples you gave as artists under the Nazis were the same thing. Max Beckman gace us a triptych in those years. If there was no Third Reich and no state art how much more could we have gotten? You may be able to say great art survives tyrannies, but not that it thrives.

Now we can look at what free society has produced. Cubism, Modernism, Post-Impressionism, the more recent forms of Jazz such as Bossa Nova and Avant-Garde (partly created during segregation, but there was no artistic censorship that late for Jazz artists at least). Almost every form of modern and post-modern art AFTER Impressionism has been created in a free society, and all those created in the USSR and Nazi Germany relied on those movements for inspiration. That is a pretty strong argument against censorship I would say.

SheykAbdullah

01-03-2007, 01:22 AM

SLG- Certainly hip-hop is part of a culture... but is it seriously a culture worthy of examination... and dare I say it... reverence? It is intriguing that we can quickly dismiss the cultures of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russian, but we are afraid to take this same stance with the "culture of hip hop". I almost sense a certain Western guilt... a feeling that as an atonement for what we acknowledge as years of dismissing and abusing cultures outside of the Western mainstream, we cannot bring ourself to dismiss even the most extreme examples of "cultures" outside of our own. Personally I have a problem with accepting and respecting any culture that glorifies gang rapes, drive-by-shootings, gangs, cop killings, drug dealing, and an utter lack of respect for women. While I would not stop "artists" from producing such art I have no problem with the notion that as a society we have the right to limit the access of such works to the mass media. But then I'm not an idealist. I don't believe that in the instance that extreme profanity, explicit sexuality, misogynistic ranting, racist sloganeering, and glorification of violence for its own sake is removed from public airwaves that it will spell the doom of western civilization.

It is a culture worth examining because it is only by understanding it that we can eliminate those parts that are undesirable, and for the record I have never said anything even close to recomending the dismissal of the cultures of the USSR and Nazi Germany. In fact, I believe my arguments prove I DON'T do that. They don't need to be dismissed and shouldn't be dismissed, that was the crux of my argument against censorship from the beginning. Every trend in humanity must be understood by someone if we are ever going to be able to reconcile not only what we are but what we should do.

There is no Western guilt in my arguments. I have not once brought up race or anything like that. You can check if you'd like. I've only ever said rap must be understood, misogyny and all, in order to bring into line those parts of it that are at a vagrancy with modern society. That, I don't believe in a definition of art and censorship is wrong. Those have been my only points in this entire discussion.

jon1jt

01-03-2007, 02:16 AM

You do understand that those 600 peers of yours are "bad" kids listening to "smut" who care about nothing but guns, violence and bla bla bla. Or have you forgotten what jon has been writing.

wooooo, hold on my brother, hold it---my general claim is that hip hop has an infectious power in its ability to impress upon the pool of listeners with a predisposition to "care about nothing but guns," violence and abusing women. i do know the smut creates indelible images of women objectified as sex tools of male dominance, defined by hip hoppers adorned with their dog chains. i've already mentioned the glorification of drug dealers, drinking, smoking weed (what about that song that goes, "got cars, (female voice responds, "Mmm Hmmm", got smoke, (mmm, hmmm), got drinks (Mmm Hmm))--- who are we kidding?? you want to intellectualize smut. c'mon) and what does snoop dog stand for? every one of his old videos rapping with a mouth full of smoke (with his hand low and his furtive backward glances). smut is a contagion that seduces our lowest nature. i've also discussed the music's negative affect on learning, and those 600 are succeptible to all influences, yes.

jon1jt

01-03-2007, 02:38 AM

In the hope to restrict the length of my posts I am going to only quote a chunk here, and quote specifics when needed.

The problem I think here, Jon, is that you don't like the choices people make, but what would you do about it? Take away that choice? You've already spoken of censoring music you find inappropriate, but I say freedom cannot survive in a bottle.

You cannot force culture, of any form, down somebody's throat. People are a lot like mules, you need to do a lot of persuading to get them somewhere, but if you yank on the reigns and force their head somewhere odds are they will just dig their heels into the ground and refuse to move. Forcing a round-table discussion of Plato instead of hip-hop will result in an obstinance to read even a page. Things must be done slowly if anything is to improve and must be done in such a way that the people who are being educated, who need it, are actually taught and taught in a way that takes into account their world outlook and beliefs. The reason they listen to rap instead of reading Aristotle is because they feel rap is more relevant to their lives than classical philosophy.

This concern about gemorrah is very prevelant today, in fact it is part of what is causing such strife in our world. Muslim extemists are attacking our civilization with the intent of saving us from our moral bankruptness and spreading the 'Dar Assalaam' so that everyone should know the glory of Islam. Christian missionaries did the same thing all over the world and in some places they brought education, but in many others they established what were nearly slave labor camps under the cover of missions, all to ensure the natives became good, moral Christians. To demand some kind of moral purity is to repeat the mistakes of the past, and that seems to be what you are demanding we do.

[QUOTE=SheykAbdullah;309699]The American Indians were once viewed as violent irrepresible savages enamoured of rape and torture (and it must be admitted in all fairness they viewed torture a little differently than we do) and so they were hearded into mission schools where they were prohibited from speaking their native languages. As a result many Ameri-Indian languages face extinction, and as a result those not fortunate enough to go to a reservation school where mowed down with machine guns often while bearing a flag of truce such as at Sand Creek in '64 and Wounded Knee in 1890.

let me start with this last comment first. look, i'm not a purist, you have it all wrong. in the case of the history you site, the violence waged against the indians was out of pure, selfish greed. and in the end, one of the great "white" heroes, ol' George Custer was handed his head by Crazy Horse and his men on that spot known as Little Big Horn. i haven't even gotten into a discussion of solutions yet, but you seem to keep bringing up the worst forms of violence in history, from fascism to stalin's soviet union. to take away hip hop from infantile minds would, as you say, create civil unrest. so i wouldn't start that way. i'm not interested in destroying the world. hip hop is already doing that.

Adudaewen

01-03-2007, 06:51 AM

This is a very tricky situation that our society has painted itself into a corner with. To censor or not to censor. On the one hand, while rap is not my cup of tea, I do appreciate the skill that it takes and respect the fact that many people, including my friends, enjoy it.
To me, what is most disturbing about the "hip-hop culture" (and don't kid yourself that there isn't one) is that it seems to purposedly push itself away from whatever society it is in. Demonstrated in the mis-spelling of words and the slang associated with. It seems also to glorify social taboos like sex, drugs, and violence against both women and authority figures. The heros being the pimp or the playa, and the villian being the white American society. That is perhaps the number one reason I choose not to listen to any rap, because just the sound has a negative affect on me. To me, I hear the sonic booming of someone's stereo next to me, and I associate it with disrespect.
Whether that was the intention or not, that is with rap music says to me. And most heavy metal rock, to be fair.
Feeling of unity and of community is something that is getting harder to put your thumb on anymore in America. We have divided ourselves completely, by demanding special privileges for every sob story we hear. How can we feel united when one cannot do anything with out stomping on the rights of someone else. I cannot say a prayer in a public place for fear of being sued by an atheist who says that is a violation of their rights. The real culture clash comes from a self segregated society who cannot take responsibility for anything.
I think what we need the most in our country is to understand that rights come with responsibilities. Not a popular ideology in this no-black-no-white-only-grey-if-its-right-for-me society we're living in. I am of the belief that everything I do directly affects all those around me. So if I am a responsible person, I will censor MYSELF to make sure that I do will negatively affect my community. Americans often forget that step and simply push and push the envelope until there is a backlash. Blatant narcissism if you ask me. And a very adolescent mind set, to keep pushing just to see how far you can go.
Another aspect of this is apathy and empathy. I feel that rap music causes apathy in our youth. When we glorify the law breakers, the deviants, the pot heads, the pimps, the drug dealers, the playa, doesn't that breed apathy??? And why is it that black youth cannot related to white youth? Because it is never expected of them. Just like kids reading the newspaper. Its not expected of them, so why would they do it? They are so easily distracted with the blackberrys and the ipods and the bling and what have you that they dont' have any more room to care about what really matters, let alone have the desire to pick up a book. And its not just the inner city, its everywhere.

jon1jt

01-03-2007, 07:24 AM

To me, what is most disturbing about the "hip-hop culture" (and don't kid yourself that there isn't one) is that it seems to purposedly push itself away from whatever society it is in.

let me say again, to designate the term "culture" to hip hop is to give it a sense of refinement that it can never have, will never have, because culture consists in people who saw in the community something larger than themselves, and had the statesmanship to produce the Great Pyramid, the Parthenon, the Acropolis, the Coliseum, the great cities of Constantanople and Florence (i'd like to include St. Petersburg but i'll get labeled a communist, so). the leadership of Pericles, Gandhi, George Washington, Lincoln, mattered because they caused a sea change in the way people understood themselves in the broader scheme of things. community mattered.

with hip hop, i hear noise, i smell decay, i feel nothing. that's not culture.

dramasnot6

01-03-2007, 07:35 AM

Another aspect of this is apathy and empathy. I feel that rap music causes apathy in our youth. When we glorify the law breakers, the deviants, the pot heads, the pimps, the drug dealers, the playa, doesn't that breed apathy??? And why is it that black youth cannot related to white youth? Because it is never expected of them. Just like kids reading the newspaper. Its not expected of them, so why would they do it? They are so easily distracted with the blackberrys and the ipods and the bling and what have you that they dont' have any more room to care about what really matters, let alone have the desire to pick up a book. And its not just the inner city, its everywhere.
I very much agree Adud! :thumbs_up Hip hop promotes all kinds of negative stereotypes that prevent people from seeing themselves and others as just human beings, not images or roles set by the media.

jon, you were telling me about inculturalization limiting our freedom? I think this is a good example of it. We are limited by the our societal expectations and stereotypes. As the media so often bombards us with them, and very much the same with hip hop, we feel obliged to follow them and limit our understanding of others, thus causing apathy.

Adudaewen

01-03-2007, 07:39 AM

"cul·ture noun, verb, -tured, -tur·ing.

5. the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group: the youth culture; the drug culture" The Random House Unabridged Dictionary 2006

"The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought.
These patterns, traits, and products considered as the expression of a particular period, class, community, or population: Edwardian culture; Japanese culture; the culture of poverty." The American Heritage Dictionary. 2000

This is the culture that I am referring to where as you are referring to culture as:

"1. the quality in a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, etc.
2. that which is excellent in the arts, manners, etc.
3. a particular form or stage of civilization, as that of a certain nation or period: Greek culture.
4. development or improvement of the mind by education or training." The Random House Unabridged Dictionary 2006

Two different uses for the same word, both correct. :) :thumbs_up

jon1jt

01-03-2007, 07:44 AM

Adudaewen

01-03-2007, 07:55 AM

I don't profess to be an expert on hip hop culture at all. However, bearing that in mind, I'll try to answer you as best I can. The behaviors could be anything from the gangsta walk, to the slang they use (Ebonics) to the clothes they wear (baggy clothes, bling, gold teeth, etc). Their beliefs could be how they feel they are oppressed by "white America". I have heard that theme more than once. Defiance of all authority, rebuking anything linked to white society, all of these can be beliefs.

dramasnot6

01-03-2007, 07:58 AM

the way i see it,there are several levels to how one can analyze what is being presented in "hip hop culture".
1) The direct messages and themes discussed in the actual music
2) The context and intentions of those who produce and perform the music
3) Those who listen to the music and how it influences them

jgx

01-03-2007, 08:08 AM

wooooo, hold on my brother, hold it---my general claim is that hip hop has an infectious power

Yes. I agree that this music has an "infectious power". What is interesting in that context is that infectious has two meanings: the first is to cause an infection (i.e. disease) but the other is the capacity to impact the "infectee" with emotions.

A closer examination of how these two aspects of this power relate to each other would be productive.

If we simply stated that hip-hop has power then there would probably be no argument.

Infectious specifies the nature of this power. One thought I just had is that often there is a strong response when any form of power is being used to impact others in a visible way. The responses to hip-hop are due to many factors, one is the content of the music and another, I conjecture, is a common response to any instance when young power are subject to a strong influence that does not seem to be within the control of parents, schools, counselors.

(I am thinking out loud here so I preface these remarks by saying that they are not being presented in completed form)...there can be instances when a community closely connected to young people feels resentment not purely because of the content of a poweful force impacting their children but simply because their children are being impacting by others.

One challenge in the effort to improve the envrionment young people grow up in is to make a distinction between a clear, strong criticism of the content of hip-hop and to lay out just why it deserves such rebuke, to point out that the criticism is about the content and not the form or even the power of music since nobody would argue that the simple fact that music has strong influential power is a reason to oppose it; and to have a developed strategy that articulates the most important actions that could be taken in order to decrease the amount of harmful environmental factors--in this case popular lyrics in hip-hop--in the young people's environment.

As I write this other thoughts are coming to mind. One is, is it possible to write anything that powerfully depicts actions such as rape, murder, prostitution, drug abuse and not have such writing not be infectious to listeners, particularly young ones.

We all agree that the violence described in the music is a real difficulty. But is it possible that the very anger, frustration, hostility, fear that many feel is just a healthy response to not only the music itself but to the depiction of acts that are an affront to ones sense of health and community. Is it possible that the strong emotions involved are, in part, due to a general difficulty human beings have when seeing, hearing, knowing about horrible behaviors.

One line of inquiry that has not been developed is the importance of the male identity in this society and its relationship to the music. I am a man and one of the feelings I have when listening to the music is shame. It is the shame of knowing that the problem is not, in itself, the depiction of violence since I would not want to prevent young people from having to confront the ills of the world they are growin up in. No. The problem that the songs glorify male violence done to men and to a much much greater degree male violence done to women. The music is part of the profound conditioning going on that teaches young males to think of women as objects of lust and not much more, to think of physical violence as a legitimate action in getting what one wants and to even create a context in which acts of violence are understood to be affirmations of just how much of a man somebody is.

My final conjecture is that we have not spent much time giving attention to the "text" of the songs...we have not given the songs a textual reading. Now they are not books or litearature, granted. But part of the challenge in dealing with this, and many other issues, is that the very nature of the issue makes it difficult to deal with it objectively. I can think of no issue of greater importance then the raising of young people and anytime that issue is on the table for discussion (never mind discussions concerning race and poverty) there is going to be heat.

Perhaps we all deserve to pat ourselves on the back since, at the very least, nobody here has treated this problem as if it were simply "a handfull of dust"
If nothing else, it seems folks care.

SheykAbdullah

01-03-2007, 10:32 AM

let me start with this last comment first. look, i'm not a purist, you have it all wrong. in the case of the history you site, the violence waged against the indians was out of pure, selfish greed. and in the end, one of the great "white" heroes, ol' George Custer was handed his head by Crazy Horse and his men on that spot known as Little Big Horn. i haven't even gotten into a discussion of solutions yet, but you seem to keep bringing up the worst forms of violence in history, from fascism to stalin's soviet union. to take away hip hop from infantile minds would, as you say, create civil unrest. so i wouldn't start that way. i'm not interested in destroying the world. hip hop is already doing that.

I would argue whether all the violence waged against the Indians was pure, selfish greed. Some of it was just genuine hatred (I would certainly say that of Chivington and his Bloody/Bloodless Third Cavalry in Colorado) and some of it was just trying to save their souls. However, you are right, a lot of it was just selfish greed, but that greed was justified by saying the Indians rapining murderous savages that will tamohawk any women they find alive and their svagery was used as jstification for their extermination. You have suggested things for me to read, I would suggest you read Sherman's dispatches to his various commands and Washington and many of his highest ranking officer's opinions who said things like 'the only way to have peace on the plain is to kill everyone of the Indian savages, who will not listen to reason for their ignorance of civilization.'

I reviewed your posts and I will admit that you have not suggested censorship outright, but you have strongly implied it. If I assumed something that wasn't there I am sorry, but the words you have used seem to me to be all but an acknowledgment of the righteousness of that path.

The reason I am citing the worst violence in history as arguments against censorship is because censorship and the refusal to acknowledge to validity of another person's beliefs are what caused the tyranny of those regimes. Sure, there are dictatorships like Primo de Rivera's in Spain which could be called peaceful even though they muzzled the populace, but they are far fewer than the atrocious ones. With the restriction of rights comes a usurpation of individual safety, securty and inevitably prosperity.

SheykAbdullah

01-03-2007, 10:36 AM

let me say again, to designate the term "culture" to hip hop is to give it a sense of refinement that it can never have, will never have, because culture consists in people who saw in the community something larger than themselves, and had the statesmanship to produce the Great Pyramid, the Parthenon, the Acropolis, the Coliseum, the great cities of Constantanople and Florence (i'd like to include St. Petersburg but i'll get labeled a communist, so). the leadership of Pericles, Gandhi, George Washington, Lincoln, mattered because they caused a sea change in the way people understood themselves in the broader scheme of things. community mattered.

with hip hop, i hear noise, i smell decay, i feel nothing. that's not culture.

Culture is a set of ideological tools employed by a group of people. There is no value definition on culture. Everyone, and everything, either has a culture or a place IN culture, every human conception is within CULTURE.

SheykAbdullah

01-03-2007, 10:41 AM

"This is the culture that I am referring to where as you are referring to culture as:

"1. the quality in a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, etc.
2. that which is excellent in the arts, manners, etc.
3. a particular form or stage of civilization, as that of a certain nation or period: Greek culture.
4. development or improvement of the mind by education or training." The Random House Unabridged Dictionary 2006

Couldn't I say that the greatest rapper alive (whomever that may be) excels in the art and manners of rap? Couldn't hip-hop be a particular stage of the counter-culture and mainstream culture of the US? As for development of the mind, I imagine rappers don't start off by rapping however well they do at the peak of their prowess.

jgx

01-03-2007, 11:52 AM

with hip hop, i hear noise, i smell decay, i feel nothing. that's not culture.

Jon1: If you feel nothing then what is the big deal. Are you worried that the other people who are listening to the same music also feel nothing.

If I were to place you in some town, city, park where all around you was nothing but noise and the smell of decay you might say "I feel nothing" but in that case either you have become so desensitized to the world in a pysychological attempt at protection or you actually are feeling a very deep emotion that leaves one with a sense of hollowness, despair, alienation...I am not you so I can not describe your inner experience but I am simply reflecting back to you your own words. How can you explain feeling nothing in relationship to noise(and I assume it is loud noise since hip-hop is usually loud and in-your-face) and the smell of decay. It would actually be quite a feat to feel "nothing" under those conditions.

I also want to say that your response to the music could help you understand some of what may be behind it. I do not find it suprising that it is noise and decay...hip-hop is certainly not roses and a violin sonata...it does not aspire to that. The decay you smell is a very telling response to songs about violence, rape, drug use, crime....what kind of sense impression would you expect from this music.

I grew up in Harlem, NYC and as in many parts of NY there were bags and bags of garbage stacked five feet high a few yards from the front steps to the apartment building's entrance. You would smell the the coffee grinds, rotted fruits, spoiled milk as you came home and when you left.

Now, having lived on the West Coast for 15 years I miss NYC. And when I smell the coffee grinds, and the spoiled milk and the rot...when I happen to smell that very familiar scent of decay it brings me back to the bleak, loud, angry, passionate, black/cuban/irish/puerto-rican/jewish neighborhood I will always think of as home.

I grew up surrounded by decay...buildings with boarded up windows, stories of babies being bitten by rats, our superintendent was either gone or drunk when he was around, the walls of the buildings lobby were a wonderful marble covered up, although not completely, with graffiti, the elevator had an old wooden handle inside that long ago was used to hold the door open by some dressed in white pants and black shirt operator, now there was piss in the corner from the assorted dogs of my neighbors.

I, personally, could never and would never want to live in the suburbs. I love city life because of the rot and the decay and because of what the human spirit does to transcend that...the old men sitting on milk crates playing dominoes as they smoked fat tan cigars and talked in spanish about the Yankees and The Mets, the tired, fat, mothers that would sit on the front steps of their buildings so they could keep their eyes on their kids who were running around playing stick ball or kick the can or some game that they were the only ones who knew the rules. God I loved that block. God I miss it.

I sincerely hope you enjoy where you live and I would love to hear about what you enjoy about it. It is way out of my experience.

Perhaps hearing a bit of where I come from and what associations I have with the decay and noise you felt helps you think of what this music could mean to people very different from yourself and, in some other important sense, very much the same.

jgx
aka
ghideon;)

genoveva

01-03-2007, 05:52 PM

with hip hop, i hear noise, i smell decay, i feel nothing. that's not culture.

Probably because it is not your culture. If it were, you'd probably feel something.

jgx

01-03-2007, 05:56 PM

Probably because it is not your culture. If it were, you'd probably feel something.

Genoveva:

First, how can anybody actually smell decay, hear noise and feel nothing all at the same time?

As far as the lack of feeling being caused by it not being jon's culture. I basically agree but on the other hand there are tons of people who listen to hip hop who are not part of the "culture".

I sent you two messages that you never replied to. That's ok. I am just asking if you got them?;)

genoveva

01-03-2007, 06:10 PM

genoveva

01-03-2007, 06:16 PM

As far as the lack of feeling being caused by it not being jon's culture. I basically agree but on the other hand there are tons of people who listen to hip hop who are not part of the "culture".

I sent you two messages that you never replied to. That's ok. I am just asking if you got them?;)

Yes, tons of people listen to hip-hop who are not part of that "culture", but those people probably at least can respect hip-hop unlike jonlit1's responses toward it. I am not Indian, but I love Indian food. I'm not Cajun either, and gumbo is not my favorite dish, but I don't bash Cajun cooking. I can respect different cultures even if they're not my own and even though I may not prefer some traditions or believe others' beliefs.

P.S. I rarely notice if I ever have PM's. I'll check.

jgx

01-03-2007, 06:22 PM

Yes, tons of people listen to hip-hop who are not part of that "culture", but those people probably at least can respect hip-hop unlike jonlit1's responses toward it. I am not Indian, but I love Indian food. I'm not Cajun either, and gumbo is not my favorite dish, but I don't bash Cajun cooking. I can respect different cultures even if they're not my own and even though I may not prefer some traditions or believe others' beliefs.

P.S. I rarely notice if I ever have PM's. I'll check.

But that is the point I was driving at when I wrote to you. The issue is not the culture one is a member of vs the cultures that one is not a member of. The real issue is the ability to communicate respect to those people and communities you do not belong to.

That is why I wrote what I wrote.
The implication that a reader is left with after your first post about respecting cultures is that if you are not a member of one then you will not be able to respect. That might not be what you meant but it is what you wrote.

and if you find my messages...I am no longer ghideon...I am jgx...and that is where you can find the info to respond with. My message was about RC...the org that wrote the pamphlet about internalized racism that you posted a while ago. I worked in that movement for about a decade and I thought there could be some stuff we could discuss about it.

stlukesguild

01-04-2007, 01:51 AM

So your argument is that censorship is ok because they great art will survive anyway?

Now, I know this is an impossible question to answer, but I would ask how much greater could the art of those people who suffered under Soviet tyranny have been if they had been allowed to explore it freely and engage in an interchange of ideas with people of similiar mind?

Again... what we are arguing here are abstractions. Certainly, in theory I am all for the notion of artistic freedom. However... I don't think this negates the right of society and their representatives in government from placing certain limitations upon this absolute freedom. In our society I may not create a work of art that harms others. I cannot go to the extreme concept of murder as art. I am also limited as to where certain forms of art can or cannot be exhibitted. I don't have the right to scrawl anti-Bush sloganeering on the steps of the Lincoln memorial (an act I personally witnessed during my last visit to DC:flare:). I cannot exhibit works of an extreme sexual or violent nature in certain public forums. I cannot use profanity at this very forum. I don't fear that certain reasonable limitations to artistic freedom spell the end of American democracy. I have no problem with banning American Nazis from marching through Jewish neighborhoods in Illinois, or preventing religious fanatics from mocking and taunting at the funerals of American soldiers. I have no problem with allowing rap musicians to be as lewd, obscene, degrading, and violent as they wish. At the same time, I seriously have a problem with the notion that we must allow such "art" free access to public airwaves.

As for the question of "what if"? with regard to the Soviet (or other oppressed) artists... this is indeed an impossibility to answer. Art is created by individual artists who have unique experiences. Everything they experience (good or bad) goes into who they are and what they do. Greater freedom might certainly have led to greater innovations by Shostakovich or Tsvetaeva. Certainly it would have led to longer lives in some circumstances. But might we not also suppose (just as much of a fruitless supposition) that Milton might never have written Paradise Lost had the political climate not turned against him (By the way... Peter Ackroyd's Milton in America offers a fascinating fictional imagining of just such an event) or that Bach might never had been as productive and profoundly expressive had he gained the same level of fame as afforded to Telemann or Handel?. I have often pondered over the manner in which Modern artists, in contrast to earlier masters, so often burn out young... produce works of great innovation and promise in their youth... and then go on churning out repetitive dreck for the remainder of their career (the Andy Warhol/Tom Wesselman/Robert Rauschenberg Syndrome). I have almost come to believe that it is too often at least partially the result of excessive success too young. Even if this is not the truth of the matter I might add that you still suppose that the American system is somehow devoid of limitations to the artist. Certainly a composer or artist in Communist Russia/Nazi Germany/Cromwellian England/16th century Spain (etc...) who did not live up to the expectations of the goverment or the goverment appointed ministers of art may have found him or her-selves as outsiders... unable to find employment... censored... perhaps even threatened or imprisoned. But what is the reality for an artist who does not live up to the demands of the market in the US? Hown many poets in the US actually live off their art alone (even considering those already accepted to the college curriculum)? How many classical composers, excepting those who write for TV and Hollywood, can live off their art alone? How many artists in every form and genre are largely ignored? How many of these eventually give up? Do we assume that fame comes only to the worthy? Certainly the careers of Vermeer, Frans Hals, Franz Kafka, John Keats, William Blake, Franz Schubert, and endless others would seem to contradict this. Certainly, the reality we currently have for artists may be one of the best that has ever existed... but then I'm not going to take the "Candidean" position that it is "the best of all possible worlds".

jon1jt

01-04-2007, 02:18 AM

Probably because it is not your culture. If it were, you'd probably feel something.

"your culture" - that's an interesting way of putting it. so is your definition of culture that of a theme park where one must purchase a ticket to go on all the rides ? you're right, if hip hop was my culture i'd probably feel the rush from all that mary-u-wanna.

jon1jt

01-04-2007, 02:41 AM

I would argue whether all the violence waged against the Indians was pure, selfish greed. Some of it was just genuine hatred (I would certainly say that of Chivington and his Bloody/Bloodless Third Cavalry in Colorado) and some of it was just trying to save their souls. However, you are right, a lot of it was just selfish greed, but that greed was justified by saying the Indians rapining murderous savages that will tamohawk any women they find alive and their svagery was used as jstification for their extermination. You have suggested things for me to read, I would suggest you read Sherman's dispatches to his various commands and Washington and many of his highest ranking officer's opinions who said things like 'the only way to have peace on the plain is to kill everyone of the Indian savages, who will not listen to reason for their ignorance of civilization.'

I reviewed your posts and I will admit that you have not suggested censorship outright, but you have strongly implied it. If I assumed something that wasn't there I am sorry, but the words you have used seem to me to be all but an acknowledgment of the righteousness of that path.

The reason I am citing the worst violence in history as arguments against censorship is because censorship and the refusal to acknowledge to validity of another person's beliefs are what caused the tyranny of those regimes. Sure, there are dictatorships like Primo de Rivera's in Spain which could be called peaceful even though they muzzled the populace, but they are far fewer than the atrocious ones. With the restriction of rights comes a usurpation of individual safety, securty and inevitably prosperity.

i appreciate the recommended reading. is it a book or government archives?

citing the worst violence is, in itself, insufficient for denying a policy - even if that policy contained aspects of censorship - as such would be directed at hip hop's "effects."

i don't see any one complaining - beyond some eye rolling - about having to remove your shoes at US airports while being checked in. remember the guy with his shoe wired with a battery pack and plastic explosives that he fortunately was unable to set off? pilots carry guns now and the nut cases with messianic visions to destroy the evildoers (US/Britain) have been put on notice that we're not going to make it easy for them.

with the restriction of rights more often comes an increase in personal liberties, public safety and inevitably prosperity. feeling safe includes being able to spend one's hard earned money on an air ticket and fly to a place without the concern of another hi-jacking. it also includes the right for that person to step off the plane and later go to a cafe to spend time with one's parents without having to worry whether a suicide bomber will show and blow it up.

jon1jt

01-04-2007, 03:02 AM

Jon1: If you feel nothing then what is the big deal. Are you worried that the other people who are listening to the same music also feel nothing.

If I were to place you in some town, city, park where all around you was nothing but noise and the smell of decay you might say "I feel nothing" but in that case either you have become so desensitized to the world in a pysychological attempt at protection or you actually are feeling a very deep emotion that leaves one with a sense of hollowness, despair, alienation...I am not you so I can not describe your inner experience but I am simply reflecting back to you your own words. How can you explain feeling nothing in relationship to noise(and I assume it is loud noise since hip-hop is usually loud and in-your-face) and the smell of decay. It would actually be quite a feat to feel "nothing" under those conditions.

I also want to say that your response to the music could help you understand some of what may be behind it. I do not find it suprising that it is noise and decay...hip-hop is certainly not roses and a violin sonata...it does not aspire to that. The decay you smell is a very telling response to songs about violence, rape, drug use, crime....what kind of sense impression would you expect from this music.

I grew up in Harlem, NYC and as in many parts of NY there were bags and bags of garbage stacked five feet high a few yards from the front steps to the apartment building's entrance. You would smell the the coffee grinds, rotted fruits, spoiled milk as you came home and when you left.

Now, having lived on the West Coast for 15 years I miss NYC. And when I smell the coffee grinds, and the spoiled milk and the rot...when I happen to smell that very familiar scent of decay it brings me back to the bleak, loud, angry, passionate, black/cuban/irish/puerto-rican/jewish neighborhood I will always think of as home.

I grew up surrounded by decay...buildings with boarded up windows, stories of babies being bitten by rats, our superintendent was either gone or drunk when he was around, the walls of the buildings lobby were a wonderful marble covered up, although not completely, with graffiti, the elevator had an old wooden handle inside that long ago was used to hold the door open by some dressed in white pants and black shirt operator, now there was piss in the corner from the assorted dogs of my neighbors.

I, personally, could never and would never want to live in the suburbs. I love city life because of the rot and the decay and because of what the human spirit does to transcend that...the old men sitting on milk crates playing dominoes as they smoked fat tan cigars and talked in spanish about the Yankees and The Mets, the tired, fat, mothers that would sit on the front steps of their buildings so they could keep their eyes on their kids who were running around playing stick ball or kick the can or some game that they were the only ones who knew the rules. God I loved that block. God I miss it.

I sincerely hope you enjoy where you live and I would love to hear about what you enjoy about it. It is way out of my experience.

you sound like an incumbent politician who feels that his challenger is incapable of leadership because he is an "outsider" of the community he intends to govern. you lived in harlem, so perhaps you've heard of, maybe even visited, the great City of Newark, NJ, a hodgepodge of races and nationalities; citizens, who, in the recent mayoral election, rejected that 'outsider' claim waged by members of the old vanguard against challenger Cory Booker, a black ivy educated man, who happened to grow up in the New Jersey suburbs. today, he's the mayor of Newark.

you didn't mention playing tic-tac-toe on the dirt floor of a rat-infested basement or stealing shopping carts for the wheels to build go-carts; or opening fire hydrants on baking hot summer afternoons and cutting out the tops and bottoms of tin cans to press up against the mouth of gushing fire hydrants to spread the wealth (of water) on all the barefoot children standing along the sides waiting in their dirty shorts admiring the cool mist that made rainbows you could touch, but all disappears when the fire department comes to turn it off, and what the scene looks like to the kid walking away, the steam coming from the pavement, a grim reminder life of the city. you don't mention unscrewing mom's mop to use for a game of stick ball with the grimy tennis ball you and your pals eagerly fished out of the local sewer with a coat hanger; or how children jumped on the rear ledge of trucks at red lights to go for a ride to see how far they could go "without getting caught." you didn't mention the telephone wires adorned with ragged sneakers (usu. canvas Converse All-Stars) tied together by the laces, hanging there for months and months to let you know that so-and-so was there; or the cockroaches pouring out of the walls on humid nights or clumps of pigeon dung along sad sidewalks welcoming the neighborhood; or the thrill of playing Tops (no, not the store); or the block parties, the folks who set up the tables of food against graffiti'd walls - and stereo speakers showering world sounds to folks dancing under old buzzy streetlamps till the break of dawn.

nay, i wouldn't know about any of that.

SheykAbdullah

01-04-2007, 09:07 AM

Again... what we are arguing here are abstractions. Certainly, in theory I am all for the notion of artistic freedom. However... I don't think this negates the right of society and their representatives in government from placing certain limitations upon this absolute freedom. In our society I may not create a work of art that harms others. I cannot go to the extreme concept of murder as art. I am also limited as to where certain forms of art can or cannot be exhibitted. I don't have the right to scrawl anti-Bush sloganeering on the steps of the Lincoln memorial (an act I personally witnessed during my last visit to DC:flare:). I cannot exhibit works of an extreme sexual or violent nature in certain public forums. I cannot use profanity at this very forum. I don't fear that certain reasonable limitations to artistic freedom spell the end of American democracy. I have no problem with banning American Nazis from marching through Jewish neighborhoods in Illinois, or preventing religious fanatics from mocking and taunting at the funerals of American soldiers. I have no problem with allowing rap musicians to be as lewd, obscene, degrading, and violent as they wish. At the same time, I seriously have a problem with the notion that we must allow such "art" free access to public airwaves.

In the US we have certain limits to freedom of speech, yes, however, they are not prohibitions of that free speech. I may not be able to swear on TV, but I can swear somewhere else. I can't scrawl on the Lincoln memorial, but I can somewhere else. You can't create murder as art, yes, that's true, because it's a crime that is popular accepted to be so.

As for Nazis marching through a Jewish neighborhood, the Supreme Court has said its ok and I agree with them. One censorship in one are is allowed because of the common law system we use in the US it becomes easier and easier to apply that censorship progressively to other systems across the board. The fact is that you cannot ban on thing without ultimately banning something else until the entire process will get out of control, or your ban will fail miserably by popular disregard and you'll wind up with a loosing fight on your hands like prohibition which engendered more social problems than it solved. As far as the public airwaves point, the FCC does ban certain songs from being broadcast due to content and swearing is, as everywhere else, not allowed.

As for the question of "what if"? with regard to the Soviet (or other oppressed) artists... this is indeed an impossibility to answer. Art is created by individual artists who have unique experiences. Everything they experience (good or bad) goes into who they are and what they do. Greater freedom might certainly have led to greater innovations by Shostakovich or Tsvetaeva. Certainly it would have led to longer lives in some circumstances. But might we not also suppose (just as much of a fruitless supposition) that Milton might never have written Paradise Lost had the political climate not turned against him (By the way... Peter Ackroyd's Milton in America offers a fascinating fictional imagining of just such an event) or that Bach might never had been as productive and profoundly expressive had he gained the same level of fame as afforded to Telemann or Handel?. I have often pondered over the manner in which Modern artists, in contrast to earlier masters, so often burn out young... produce works of great innovation and promise in their youth... and then go on churning out repetitive dreck for the remainder of their career (the Andy Warhol/Tom Wesselman/Robert Rauschenberg Syndrome). I have almost come to believe that it is too often at least partially the result of excessive success too young. Even if this is not the truth of the matter I might add that you still suppose that the American system is somehow devoid of limitations to the artist. Certainly a composer or artist in Communist Russia/Nazi Germany/Cromwellian England/16th century Spain (etc...) who did not live up to the expectations of the goverment or the goverment appointed ministers of art may have found him or her-selves as outsiders... unable to find employment... censored... perhaps even threatened or imprisoned. But what is the reality for an artist who does not live up to the demands of the market in the US? Hown many poets in the US actually live off their art alone (even considering those already accepted to the college curriculum)? How many classical composers, excepting those who write for TV and Hollywood, can live off their art alone? How many artists in every form and genre are largely ignored? How many of these eventually give up? Do we assume that fame comes only to the worthy? Certainly the careers of Vermeer, Frans Hals, Franz Kafka, John Keats, William Blake, Franz Schubert, and endless others would seem to contradict this. Certainly, the reality we currently have for artists may be one of the best that has ever existed... but then I'm not going to take the "Candidean" position that it is "the best of all possible worlds".

It may not be the best of all possible worlds, but my point is that censorship will not make it better, only worse. When you can outlaw one thing for being vulgar you can outlaw another.

SheykAbdullah

01-04-2007, 09:20 AM

i appreciate the recommended reading. is it a book or government archives?

citing the worst violence is, in itself, insufficient for denying a policy - even if that policy contained aspects of censorship - as such would be directed at hip hop's "effects."

i don't see any one complaining - beyond some eye rolling - about having to remove your shoes at US airports while being checked in. remember the guy with his shoe wired with a battery pack and plastic explosives that he fortunately was unable to set off? pilots carry guns now and the nut cases with messianic visions to destroy the evildoers (US/Britain) have been put on notice that we're not going to make it easy for them.

with the restriction of rights more often comes an increase in personal liberties, public safety and inevitably prosperity. feeling safe includes being able to spend one's hard earned money on an air ticket and fly to a place without the concern of another hi-jacking. it also includes the right for that person to step off the plane and later go to a cafe to spend time with one's parents without having to worry whether a suicide bomber will show and blow it up.

The best book I have found on the subject was a Time-Life series. The series I have was published in the seventies I believe. It is called 'The Old West' and has maybe fifteen volumes. The volumes on 'The Indians' and 'The Soldiers' has the information referenced. It is probably the best series I have read on the subject in that it is not as biased toward the US soldier/settler as earlier books and not so biased toward the Indian as later books.

I complain about having to remove my shoes at airports. I find it ridiculous. If I am wearing converse sneakers and they set off the alarm why do I neet to take them off? It's stupid, and don't get me started on this liquid restriction, but that is another topic. Lighters as well. All I want to do is smoke and I can't even get a light, not that there is anywhere to smoke on the other side of security anymore, which I am sure they did just so people wouldn't be so angry about not having lighters, because that wasn't so just a couple of years ago. Both the lighters and the smoking, but I forgot. I should thank the government for saving me from myself and my own stupidity.

I would reference you to a Benjamin Franklin quote that says "They who would give up liberty for security will get neither." It's true. The sacrifice of rights NEVER creates increased personal liberty (which are based on rights), nor prosperity, nor safety. Name one situation where that was the case, and even if you can I can name a hundred to each where the opposite ocurred, in fact that very thing has been the lesson of the last century.

I cited the worst violence because aside from Primo de Rivera and maybe Cromwell (I don't really know anything about the Cromwellian dictatorship) I can't really think of a time when there was an actually benevolent dictatorship. I guess Cincinatus' in the Early Roman Republic, but there is a long gap between the two. Do you know of any other benevolent dictatorships?

kilted exile

01-04-2007, 12:01 PM

"your culture" - that's an interesting way of putting it. so is your definition of culture that of a theme park where one must purchase a ticket to go on all the rides ? you're right, if hip hop was my culture i'd probably feel the rush from all that mary-u-wanna.

y'know if your concern is cultures promoting the use of mary-jane they are a lot of other "cultures" you should look at too - why focus specifically on Hip Hop in this case?

jon1jt

01-04-2007, 01:41 PM

The best book I have found on the subject was a Time-Life series. The series I have was published in the seventies I believe. It is called 'The Old West' and has maybe fifteen volumes. The volumes on 'The Indians' and 'The Soldiers' has the information referenced. It is probably the best series I have read on the subject in that it is not as biased toward the US soldier/settler as earlier books and not so biased toward the Indian as later books.

I complain about having to remove my shoes at airports. I find it ridiculous. If I am wearing converse sneakers and they set off the alarm why do I neet to take them off? It's stupid, and don't get me started on this liquid restriction, but that is another topic. Lighters as well. All I want to do is smoke and I can't even get a light, not that there is anywhere to smoke on the other side of security anymore, which I am sure they did just so people wouldn't be so angry about not having lighters, because that wasn't so just a couple of years ago. Both the lighters and the smoking, but I forgot. I should thank the government for saving me from myself and my own stupidity.

I would reference you to a Benjamin Franklin quote that says "They who would give up liberty for security will get neither." It's true. The sacrifice of rights NEVER creates increased personal liberty (which are based on rights), nor prosperity, nor safety. Name one situation where that was the case, and even if you can I can name a hundred to each where the opposite ocurred, in fact that very thing has been the lesson of the last century.

I cited the worst violence because aside from Primo de Rivera and maybe Cromwell (I don't really know anything about the Cromwellian dictatorship) I can't really think of a time when there was an actually benevolent dictatorship. I guess Cincinatus' in the Early Roman Republic, but there is a long gap between the two. Do you know of any other benevolent dictatorships?

regarding your post to stluke, you said this may not be the best possible government but at least you can swear. is that an expression of that inviolable free speech you and others here will die protecting?

"Let the people think they govern and they will be governed." William Penn

you seem to keep suggesting that we live in a democracy. America is run by an aristocracy at every level of government, which uses corruption and political expediency to ensure its longevity. personal liberties? :lol: what personal liberties, this idle chatter free speech? or that you want to carry a lighter to smoke in the airport, you call that an expression of personal liberty? :lol:

a benevolent dictator: that would be Solon of Greece (he was appointed i think by aristocrats - hardly democratic).

answer:

"let the people think they govern and they will be governed." William Penn

democracy is a merely a hypothetical construct used to describe that which is NOT the ruling few. the "right" to vote in itself is hardly a pure expression of democracy. it's trickery to imbue the democratic illusion. mention censorship to people like you and they sneer because, like Penn said, they think they govern. volumes exist describe democracy, but America is hardly a penultimate example. until people escape the trappings of this hypothetical construct, they will deny the inconceivable fact that they are merely creatures of an aristocratic order, fighting among themselves, defending hip hop vulgarity as 'inviolable right' when the big labels that created them laugh all the way to the bank, and whatever sense of community and freedom that does exist dissolves into the ether far above the rooftops of banks and SUVs.

jgx

01-04-2007, 01:47 PM

you sound like an incumbent politician

As far as me sounding like an incumbent politician, thank you. I didn't even know I had won an election. Er...may you possibly tell me how or why I was elected in the first place?

nay, i wouldn't know about any of that

There was very little written in all of your previous posts that would suggest a person who cared deeply about, admired, understood the community we have both now written about. I wrote a short description of some of the urban life I grew up around. In reaction you wrote about urban life as well.

I do not think you would have done so first. You wrote in response. And you wrote about real people doing real things in a real place. You had not written from that perspective at all until now. And given that fact and given the very words and perspective and arguments you have made repeatedly throughout this and other threads.....smut, gutter, I think maybe I made some errors in judgment or some erroneous assumptions about what you have seen, heard...but I had a lot of reasons to have been mistaken.

The tone of
nay, i wouldn't know about any of that is one of defensivness. If that is the case then why? What is it you are actually asserting here that seems of such importance? What is it about your relationship to this urban culture/community that you are trying to get across? I ask this honestly. What was the sting that you felt?

ps
I meant it when I said I would love to hear about living in the burbs. I would love to hear about it cause I really no next to nada about it and also because I believe that a better understanding of the suburb experience would be quite helpful in this discussion. But ofcourse it is your call.

jgx

01-04-2007, 01:48 PM

"your culture" - that's an interesting way of putting it. so is your definition of culture that of a theme park where one must purchase a ticket to go on all the rides ? you're right, if hip hop was my culture i'd probably feel the rush from all that mary-u-wanna.

I actually am on your side here. And I wrote a reply to her post that is above.

stlukesguild

01-04-2007, 03:40 PM

There is no value definition on culture.

Finally! Yes! And, thank you to the other poster who provided us with the most excellent definition of culture. There should not be any value definiton on culture. One culture should not be seen as better than another. They all just are.

I'm sorry but that's just BS and I don't think anyone here truly believes it to be true. SheykAbdullah has repeatedly argued (with good reason) against the culture of oppression that existed in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. I would have no problem with rejecting the "culture" of the Khmer Rouge, that of Mao's China, or of the Taliban. By the same token I see no reason to respect a culture that embraces violence, drive by shootings, gang rapes, and denegration of women. The notion that all cultures are the same is absurd. Such thinking is what keeps us from offering due rejection of acts of hatred and violence simply because... "Oh well. That's thier culture." Certainly, not every individual is responsible for the crimes committed in the names of the Nazis, the Communists, the Taliban, or the inner-city gangs. However, I have no problem with personally rejecting that art which glorifies the worst aspects of those cultures. I would be more than repulsed by most Nazi propaganda just as I am by certain forms of rap. While I would not stop the artist from creating such art freely, I do not feel that as a society we in any way owe such art access to a public forum and our applause.

stlukesguild

01-04-2007, 03:59 PM

As for Nazis marching through a Jewish neighborhood, the Supreme Court has said its ok and I agree with them. One censorship in one are is allowed because of the common law system we use in the US it becomes easier and easier to apply that censorship progressively to other systems across the board. The fact is that you cannot ban on thing without ultimately banning something else until the entire process will get out of control, or your ban will fail miserably by popular disregard and you'll wind up with a loosing fight on your hands like prohibition which engendered more social problems than it solved. As far as the public airwaves point, the FCC does ban certain songs from being broadcast due to content and swearing is, as everywhere else, not allowed.

We both agree that stopping the artist from creating anything he or she wishes... short of breaking the law... is undesired. Our opinions diverge upon the notion of restricting expressions of certain extreme forms from a free public access. I fully support denying the Nazis the right to march through Jewish neighborhoods... or KKK rallys to be held in black neighborhoods. You suggest that you fear such limitations cannot be applied without snowballing into a complete loss of every freedom we know. I'm not so idealistic... or fatalistic. I see no difference between a law which denies me the "right" to scrawl grafitti on private property, or government buildings, or one which penalizes the use of profanity on public airwaves and one which restricts the purchase of violent or explicit materials by minors, bans the public promotion of "art" which glorifies criminal activities, or denies religious fanatics the right to mock and sloganeer at funerals of American servicemen killed in Iraq.

genoveva

01-04-2007, 04:13 PM

"cul·ture noun, verb, -tured, -tur·ing.

5. the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group: the youth culture; the drug culture" The Random House Unabridged Dictionary 2006

"The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought.
These patterns, traits, and products considered as the expression of a particular period, class, community, or population: Edwardian culture; Japanese culture; the culture of poverty." The American Heritage Dictionary. 2000

I would really like to remind people about this definition.

No, culture is not like an amusement park ticket entrance as jonlit1 so sarcastically alludes to. There are some things we like about our culture, and some things that we don't. There are some things we like about other cultures, and some things we don't. It is a good idea to reflect upon this. Reflect upon the things we like or don't like about our culture and others.

Hip-hop is music, and music is art. Hip-hop is also part of a culture.

jgx

01-04-2007, 05:23 PM

There is no value definition on culture. One culture should not be seen as better than another. They all just are.

I'm sorry but that's just BS and I don't think anyone here truly believes it to be true.... "Oh well. That's thier culture....While I would not stop the artist from creating such art freely, I do not feel that as a society we in any way owe such art access to a public forum and our applause.

Are we discussing "culture"?

Or components "of" a "culture"?

Ken Wilber's [/I]work]

Or are there instances in which an aspect "of" a culture is of such harm or is seen as so against ones ethics that it no longer is "part" but has become the "essence"?

Stating that no culture should be seen as better. This is a defense of "culture" as worthy of respect as form but it does not thus demand respect vis a vi content.

Culture Zeo hates and expresses nothing but contempt, and images of violence targeting Culture Qui. Now the Zeo culture is "culture" and thus must be treated with respect( if one accepts the above stated position). However, the Zeo's are clearly displaying absolute contempt for the concept that all cultures deserve respect.

So what would be the proper response. Do we step in against the Zeo's because their culture is full of hate. Or do we not step in because although there is hate we can not communicate a moral judgment upon a culture? hmmmm?

I read a book called [B]Violence: A National Epidemic standing up in a bookstore in an hour. It blew me away. There is a lot I could write about it and perhaps I will. The autho (A Phd and Md) looked at violence the way a doctor would look at a very harmful and contagious disesase.

When dealing with a possibly contagious disease there are three levels of intervention...the first is responding to the very first indication, manifestation of the disease as quickly and as powerfully as one can so that it can be stopped before any further harm is done.

The second stage is after harm has been done to see why and how the disease is spreading and to intervene quickly and forcefully to prevent any further infections and to also respond to those already infected :sick: :bawling:

The last stage is when the disease has already become an epidmeic and then one is in the last stage of the crisis and resources are going to have to be divided between dealing with the huge amount of infected people vs dealing with the more fundamental issues going on.:flare: :sick: :bawling:

In relation to violence this culture basically devotes 80-90% of its resources to the 3rd stage. If we look at hip-hop music in this context then we already are dealing with an art form full of hatred, violence, drugs, crime...then it seems to me we are already at the 2nd stage if not the 3rd.

The content would simply not exist if there were not other more basic dysfunctions to the social being that had not been resolved.

Hate, rage, rape, crime filled beats do not grow from fertile, well cared for, well nourished ground. And even if there were a few neglected fields the ill plants would not spread if there was not plenty of other un-well factors in the social being as a whole.

If you have sewage leaking into water utilities and if you have a serious lack of adequate hot water and if you have no soap for people to use then one need not be suprised if a disease, which in many many other situations would not even bred, becomes, at the very least, a serious health crisis if not an epidemic. And if and when it does kill millions the fault actually ought to be given to those who knew early on what could happen if the problem became this bad and rather then stop it early on they either ignored it or even contributed to the creation and continuation of conditions necessary to have an epidemic.

SheykAbdullah

01-04-2007, 06:01 PM

We both agree that stopping the artist from creating anything he or she wishes... short of breaking the law... is undesired. Our opinions diverge upon the notion of restricting expressions of certain extreme forms from a free public access. I fully support denying the Nazis the right to march through Jewish neighborhoods... or KKK rallys to be held in black neighborhoods. You suggest that you fear such limitations cannot be applied without snowballing into a complete loss of every freedom we know. I'm not so idealistic... or fatalistic. I see no difference between a law which denies me the "right" to scrawl grafitti on private property, or government buildings, or one which penalizes the use of profanity on public airwaves and one which restricts the purchase of violent or explicit materials by minors, bans the public promotion of "art" which glorifies criminal activities, or denies religious fanatics the right to mock and sloganeer at funerals of American servicemen killed in Iraq.

I am going to respond to both chunks in one shot. There is no value definition to culture because 'culture' is nothing more than a set of ideological tools. Culture is not some high-falutin' term that embraces quality, if you have a set of beliefs, a language, a technology, anything associated with cognition you have a 'culture.' Now there are aspects of certain cultures that may be negative, but saying there is no value definition to culture is not making any claim about relativism or any such thing. Culture is simply not something that is about good vs bad, it's just something people have, like a hammer, which is also a part of culture as it is a tool created by man.

As far as the idealaistic/parnaoia of Nazi rights snowballing into greater government control it's neither idealistic, nor paranoid but entirely possible. In our form of law, which is common law, we rely greatly on precedent, especially the Supreme Court, when making legal decisions. Before a judge issues an opinion he scours the books for things to justify that opinion and then issues his verdict, explaning what sources he used to come to that conclusion. If we outlawed the rights of one group to do something ideological that single decision could be a applied across the board. That decision would be especially pernacious if decreed by the Supreme Court wher it would be binding on all judges and judges may be forced to extent it to unfore-seen situations where even the judge himself may feel badly doing it but has no choice because the precedent is there. Often judges rule againt their personal feelings because precedent forces their hand. Any precedent restricting speech is a negative one. As far as protesters at military funerals, I find nothing more desicable, but they normally cannot protest at the funeral itself because the cemetary/church is considered private property and thus the demonstrators can legally be thrown off without infringing anybody's rights to free speech. Now that's not to say they can't stand outside the gates and yell, and that is unfortunate, but it bears more relation to the lack of human sympathy and decency on the part of the protestors than on anyone else. After all, I think it is pretty well recognized that harassing the dead is about as cowardly as one can get.

In any case, there are various reasons why freedom of speech is restricted in the mediums you mentioned. In the first place, inciting others to commit a crime IS covered under the first ammendment except under three conditions, which are immenence to the action (are your words going to start a riot RIGHT NOW), whether the intent is to encite action immediately and whether the words are actually likely to incite a crime by themselves (this was explored in brandenburv v Ohio).

Rap doesn't actually TELL anyone directly to commit, normally, and one can't really say very easily that it is likely to cause it right here and now, immediately after listening to it.

As for grafitti, you can't scrawl graffiti on private or public property because you don't own it. If you did you could do scrawl whatever you wanted on it (it may violate a local, municipal code, but you could always sue for first amendment rights. You might even win, has happened before).

Minors are restricted in what they can purchase because it has been upheld in the Supreme Court that they have fewer rights than a citizen of majority, which is why their backpacks can be searched in schools, why they cannot sign certain forms, etc.

As for swearing on the public airwaves, legally the government owns the airwaves and holds them in trust for the people because there is a limited amount of bandwidth to go around. Because of that limit the airwaves are considered to be a kind of goernment-controlled natural monopoly, run and distrubited by the FCC (in order to get broadcasting rights for anything from a radio station to cell-phone channels companies go to a regular auction held by the federal government and bid for space, and that space isn't cheap. Actually the politics involved in cell-phone companies bidding is fairly interesting. There is a lot of closed door dealings going on). According to that legal interpretation gives the FCC the right to restrict certain content from being broadcast because the airwaves are considered the government's property. It is also the reason non-cable TV stations HAVE to broadcast the news and other programs of public interest.

Cable stations, however, have considerably less restriction. In fact, the FCC has almost no control over them and only basic obscenity rules apply.
That's why say IFC or Sundance can show some basic nudity during the day and why characters on various cable shows can swear. Cable does not broadcast through the air and thus does not have to conform to public airwaves standards.

I would point out that if you got on a loud speaker in your neighborhood and started swearing in an organized, licensed event you can't be arrested no matter what words you use or how you say them or how many you use in conjunction with one another.

jgx

01-04-2007, 07:18 PM

jon1jt

01-04-2007, 10:31 PM

genoveva

01-04-2007, 10:31 PM

If we look at hip-hop music in this context then we already are dealing with an art form full of hatred, violence, drugs, crime...

This is a generalization of all hip-hop, though. Not all hip-hop songs include hatred, violence, drugs, or crime. Heck, I just listened to a young boy perform a hip-hop song and it was quite positive! Cool for him for stretching his musical talents.

genoveva

01-04-2007, 10:34 PM

Stating that no culture should be seen as better. This is a defense of "culture" as worthy of respect as form but it does not thus demand respect vis a vi content.

Can you explain what you mean by this statement?

jon1jt

01-04-2007, 10:42 PM

I would really like to remind people about this definition.

No, culture is not like an amusement park ticket entrance as jonlit1 so sarcastically alludes to. There are some things we like about our culture, and some things that we don't. There are some things we like about other cultures, and some things we don't. It is a good idea to reflect upon this. Reflect upon the things we like or don't like about our culture and others.

Hip-hop is music, and music is art. Hip-hop is also part of a culture.

i wasn't being sarcastic, i am just trying to get to the bottom of this association between hip hop and culture, and reading your posts i'm thoroughly confused.

we have a duty as artists and members of the human race to express ourselves and to do it in a way that we respect the dignity of others. that's my threshold for what is art and what is not. there are ways to push boundaries while maintaining the integrity of others in a created piece, whether through the invocation of poetry, lyrics, or form of non-verbal speech.

the only thing that ties the white kid from the suburbs to the black kid from the ghetto is the purchase of the same CD. do people who buy the same clothes, or follow the same football team, are they members of a culture too?

jgx

01-04-2007, 11:49 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by jgx
If we look at hip-hop music in this context then we already are dealing with an art form full of hatred, violence, drugs, crime...

This is a generalization of all hip-hop, though. Not all hip-hop songs include hatred, violence, drugs, or crime. Heck, I just listened to a young boy perform a hip-hop song and it was quite positive! Cool for him for stretching his musical talents.

Yes it is. Yes. I know. omg. I am the last person in this forum universe that does not know that hip-hop is much more then violence, drugs and crime and I have said that so often that I am honestly worn out. Have you been reading my posts from way back in the discussion about internalized racism.

What I am trying to get across in my most recent posts is that to the extent that hip-hop music and culture does express those aspects of society...and I would still feel rather confident (although I will surely stand corrected if that is the case) that there is still in 2006 a community of hip-hop...perhaps a sub group of hip-hop in which the violence etc is dominant.

And if that is the case then all I am trying to point out is that this is symptomatic of much more tragic and fundamental problems...that give rise to the need to write about killings and such in the first place.

You do confuse me. On the one hand you seem quite decisive in terms of certain violent aspects of the culture but then when I try and discuss them...in an effort to put them in a broader context...you reply that there is much more to it. I know that but certainly there is enough confusion about the violence that my efforts at contextualizing is appropriate, in fact, I would say...quite necessary.

I have been advocating for, backing, supporting the very young people you are talking about throughout this thread and others.

genoveva

01-04-2007, 11:55 PM

the only thing that ties the white kid from the suburbs to the black kid from the ghetto is the purchase of the same CD. do people who buy the same clothes, or follow the same football team, are they members of a culture too?

What is important to realize here is that the hip-hop music made on that CD is probably made by the black kid from the ghetto. I have heard that hip-hop's biggest audience are white males. Anyhow, hip-hop derives out of black culture. Similarly, we can look at food. Tortillas, enchiladas and flan come out of the Hispanic culture. That doesn't mean that non-Hispanics don't like that type of food, or eat it. But, this type of food is characteristic of a certain type of culture- the Hispanic culture. Again, hip-hop is characteristic of Black culture.

Each culture usually has specific, characteristic clothing too. For example, sari's are characteristic of what Indian women wear. Specific sports too can be characteristic of a particular culture. For example, baseball! American culture, right? America's favorite pastime. Or, if you're from Texas, definately football is a big part of their culture. Dare I say that ice hockey is a big part of the culture in New Jersey? The sport bacchi (spelling?) is characteristic of Italian culture.

genoveva

01-05-2007, 12:03 AM

we have a duty as artists and members of the human race to express ourselves and to do it in a way that we respect the dignity of others. that's my threshold for what is art and what is not.

Okay. I disagree. I have not yet come up with a definition of what is art and what isn't, but I don't think artists need to respect the dignity of others in their creations. Sometimes you just got to expose what is. Now, I don't think people should get physically hurt by an artist, but I don't think artists should go out of their way to make sure they don't hurt anyone's feelings.

genoveva

01-05-2007, 12:12 AM

Have you been reading my posts from way back in the discussion about internalized racism.

I have been trying to read most, but to be honest, I find the extremely lengthy posts hard to read in their entirety. It is helpful for me when people respond to the point. Some of the posts are really wordy in my opinion, and get off topic. This is just my opinion. I am very interested in this topic especially because I am currently taking an Arts, Community, and Culture class in graduate school. But, I am also supposed to be finishing up a final paper due Tuesday, so to be frank, I don't have time to read everything. Sorry!:blush:

jgx

01-05-2007, 12:15 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by jgx
Stating that no culture should be seen as better. This is a defense of "culture" as worthy of respect as form but it does not thus demand respect vis a vi content.

Can you explain what you mean by this statement?

Sure. I read the definition of culture posted a little while ago and one thing that struck me is that culture is essentially an inevitable expression, effect, result, of a community, of a group of human beings who work together, live together, create together...I don't want to get into a definition of community now but it would be quite difficult to have a community that does not have a culture.

Now if that is the case then any and all cultures can be seen as the expression of something deeply human and if that is the case then culture...as such...deserves the respect that any innate human characteristic has.

I am a Jew but I would not say that the problem with the Nazi culture was that it was a culture...there was a different culture in Germany before Hitler...the problem was the nature of the culture...the problem was the specific substance, content, artistic, political, cinematic, substance of the culture.

This is a vital distinction because nobody will accept the absolute invalidation of culture in the same way that nobody would accept criticism for walking or breathing or talking or even a whole host of human activities that do not, in themselves, represent anything harmful at all and in fact are necessary and can be not only used for benefit but for great and noble causes.

Now this is coming from left field here but so what. I guess I am a leftist to an extent so I don't have a problem with that part of the ball park.

Been reading about Ed Gein and his crimes. He, for those who do not know, was the inspiration for the Norman Bates character in Psycho and trust me when I say that in this case the truth was far far far more violent, mad, absurd, deranged then the fiction.

Now for those who do not really want to hear the specs of Gein's crimes I will not get into them...but what is important in terms of this discussion is that his particular violent acts (he did some very very hard to believe things to dead women's bodies)that what he did made complete sense within the logic that was Gein's mind. They did not make just a little sense. They were the absolute logical extensions of his complex freezing, broken, torn up universe of thoughts and feelings. Now I would never in any way say or do anything (at least on an aware level) that could make his acts happen again, be seen as good things to do when one feels certain ways...what he did must be dealt with from the fundamental position of...how to make sure it never happens again or happens almost never again.

So I offer no defense of the actual actions Gein's took. However, as behavior done in a deranged attempt at resolution of intense, intense, so intense as to be buried in his unawareness...they deserve that degree of understanding.
:idea:
Perhaps that is what I have been trying to say all along. That if we want to understand....anything at all...from the rape of a young person to the poetry of Frost then we owe it to ourselves and to our community to treat the object of our attention with respect...because to approach anything from a position of absolute invalidation--prior,before,before, one acutally has understood it...

This is why the worst acts are the ones so difficult to address. Because the very nature of the act creates such an intense fight/flight response by almost anybody trying to approach it that they remain for far far too long mysterious and profoundly misunderstood.

there
that felt good to say
sincerely
jgx
aka
ghideon

I think I will add another quote to my signature...the one that goes "nothing human is ever foreign..." or something like that...got to look it up...or feel free to let me know what I am alluding to.

genoveva

01-05-2007, 12:23 AM

Here's a neat quote from Curtis W. Davis who co-wrote with Yahedi Menuhin The Music of Man: Exploring the Miracle of Music and its Influence Throughout the Ages

"Animals make noises which say 'I am here,' and 'I am me.' With these sounds they attract mates, terrify enemies, lead flocks and freeze prey in their tracks; they warn their fellows of danger and comfort each other in distress. The voice is one of the most basic tools of self-preservation."

This is very reflective of hip-hop in my opinion, and so many other musical genres- if not all!

jon1jt

01-05-2007, 12:23 AM

...that there is still in 2006 a community of hip-hop...perhaps a sub group of hip-hop in which the violence etc is dominant.

And if that is the case then all I am trying to point out is that this is symptomatic of much more tragic and fundamental problems...that give rise to the need to write about killings and such in the first place.

I have been advocating for, backing, supporting the very young people you are talking about throughout this thread and others.

jgx and me may be comrades after all! this use of "community" and "hip hop" are better choice of words than culture. thank you!

on my way home in the car i was inspired to turn to SMUT-FM and 'give it a fair hairing.' well, this is what i heard, paraphrased - a song by Ludicrous, et al:

"yeah yeah yeah lick you from your head to your toes...licking your dome, in the back of a car...back of a classroom..."

it's much more vulgar than that - if i find the lyrics i'll post them, but you get the idea. now you tell me how do listeners of those lyrics qualify as a culture?

jon1jt

01-05-2007, 12:35 AM

Okay. I disagree. I have not yet come up with a definition of what is art and what isn't, but I don't think artists need to respect the dignity of others in their creations. Sometimes you just got to expose what is. Now, I don't think people should get physically hurt by an artist, but I don't think artists should go out of their way to make sure they don't hurt anyone's feelings.

i'm not saying a quality in oneself willed - but one that springs from the depths of the self by virtue of an empathetic cord that ties us to others, to human dignity therein. isn't this the starting point of a very notion of "human rights" is all about? people must first be seen as human beings. isn't this what the black community fought for during the civil rights era? what thousands of slaves - Denmark Vesey, etc - throughout the south who rebelled against the chains that bound them to fields like goats? the black community - there is culture fought for.

listen, hip hop wouldn't survive if the black performers wanted to sing about dandelions waving in a field or water or history. the promoters would drop them, period. you know it, i know, everybody knows it. please, let's stop playing dumb.

genoveva

01-05-2007, 12:36 AM

Nick Page puts it well when he says:

"For me, the music we like is the music we have an emotional bond to. This music helps to define who we are and what cultures we have an emotional bond to. I tell people that the reason some people hate the music of J.S. Bach is not because they don't like the music itself- What they hate are the people who like Bach. They have no emotional connection to the culture of Bach. The same can be said of ones' like or dislike of country music, rap, or any other kind of music."

genoveva

01-05-2007, 12:38 AM

listen, hip hop wouldn't survive if the black performers wanted to sing about dandelions waving in a field or water or history. the promoters would drop them, period. you know it, i know, everybody knows it. please, let's stop playing dumb.

Well, are you sure there aren't hip-hop songs about these topics? That would take some research. I do know however, that there indeed are hip-hop songs about history. Black history.

jon1jt

01-05-2007, 12:41 AM

I have been trying to read most, but to be honest, I find the extremely lengthy posts hard to read in their entirety. It is helpful for me when people respond to the point. Some of the posts are really wordy in my opinion, and get off topic. This is just my opinion. I am very interested in this topic especially because I am currently taking an Arts, Community, and Culture class in graduate school. But, I am also supposed to be finishing up a final paper due Tuesday, so to be frank, I don't have time to read everything. Sorry!:blush:

you see, hip hop is even invading the graduate level, intelligent folks sitting around having a touchy-feely chat about 'rap as cultural phenomena' when they should be reading Milton or Cervantes. just don't dare call hip hop smut in class or you're sure to get a 'B'.

jon1jt

01-05-2007, 12:47 AM

Well, are you sure there aren't hip-hop songs about these topics? That would take some research. I do know however, that there indeed are hip-hop songs about history. Black history.

then it's not hip hop, see the difference? your friend jgx is trying to parse content from form, but that's like making a distinction between the heart and lungs. they are interlocking functions each existing for and with the other.

genoveva

01-05-2007, 12:56 AM

Nick Page continues:

"As part of this emotional connection to culture, we usually create hierarchies. We become elitist. No one has a monopoly on elitism. It is natural human nature to believe that the music of your own culture is better than the music of other cultures. The danger, of course, is that we don't live in a world of one culture. We are all multicultural because all our cultures have become interdependent. The other danger of elitism regards who gets funded and who doesn't- the culture of the wealthy and/or well educated tend to get a bigger piece of the funding pie."

Food for thought.

genoveva

01-05-2007, 01:06 AM

then it's not hip hop, see the difference?

Since we have established a definition for culture, and are brainstorming one for art, might as well clarify one for hip-hop. Let's try Wikipedia:

Hip hop music, also known as rap music, is a style of music which came into existence in the United States during the mid-1970s, and became a large part of modern pop culture during the 1980s. It consists of two main components: rapping (MCing) and DJing (production and scratching). Along with hip hop dance (notably breakdancing) and urban inspired art, or notably graffiti, these compose the four elements of hip hop, a cultural movement that was initiated by inner-city youth, mostly African Americans[1] in New York City, in the early 1970s.

Typically, hip hop music consists of rhythmic lyrics making use of techniques like assonance, alliteration, and rhyme. The rapper is accompanied by an instrumental track, usually referred to as a "beat," performed by a DJ, created by a producer, or one or more instrumentalists. This beat is often created using a sample of the percussion break of another song: usually funk and soul recordings are utilized. In addition to the beat, other sounds are often sampled, synthesized, or performed. Sometimes a track can be instrumental, as a showcase of the skills of the DJ or producer.

Hip hop began in The Bronx, a borough in New York City, when DJs began isolating the percussion break from funk and disco songs. The early role of the MC was to introduce the DJ and the music and to keep the audience excited. MCs began by speaking between songs, giving exhortations to dance, greetings to audience members, jokes and anecdotes. Eventually this practice became more stylized and became known as rapping. By 1979, hip hop had become a commercially popular music genre and began to enter the American mainstream. In the 1990s, a form of hip hop called gangsta rap became a major part of American music, causing significant controversy over lyrics which were perceived as promoting violence, terrorism,[2] promiscuity, drug use and misogyny. Nevertheless, by the beginning of the 2000s, hip hop was a staple of popular music charts and was being performed in many styles across the world.

jon1jt

01-05-2007, 01:28 AM

What is important to realize here is that the hip-hop music made on that CD is probably made by the black kid from the ghetto. I have heard that hip-hop's biggest audience are white males. Anyhow, hip-hop derives out of black culture. Similarly, we can look at food. Tortillas, enchiladas and flan come out of the Hispanic culture. That doesn't mean that non-Hispanics don't like that type of food, or eat it. But, this type of food is characteristic of a certain type of culture- the Hispanic culture. Again, hip-hop is characteristic of Black culture.

Each culture usually has specific, characteristic clothing too. For example, sari's are characteristic of what Indian women wear. Specific sports too can be characteristic of a particular culture. For example, baseball! American culture, right? America's favorite pastime. Or, if you're from Texas, definately football is a big part of their culture. Dare I say that ice hockey is a big part of the culture in New Jersey? The sport bacchi (spelling?) is characteristic of Italian culture.

oh yeah, but what color do you think the vast majority of record executives are? (hint: not black)

jon1jt

01-05-2007, 01:34 AM

Since we have established a definition for culture, and are brainstorming one for art, might as well clarify one for hip-hop. Let's try Wikipedia:

Hip hop music, also known as rap music, is a style of music which came into existence in the United States during the mid-1970s, and became a large part of modern pop culture during the 1980s. It consists of two main components: rapping (MCing) and DJing (production and scratching). Along with hip hop dance (notably breakdancing) and urban inspired art, or notably graffiti, these compose the four elements of hip hop, a cultural movement that was initiated by inner-city youth, mostly African Americans[1] in New York City, in the early 1970s.

Typically, hip hop music consists of rhythmic lyrics making use of techniques like assonance, alliteration, and rhyme. The rapper is accompanied by an instrumental track, usually referred to as a "beat," performed by a DJ, created by a producer, or one or more instrumentalists. This beat is often created using a sample of the percussion break of another song: usually funk and soul recordings are utilized. In addition to the beat, other sounds are often sampled, synthesized, or performed. Sometimes a track can be instrumental, as a showcase of the skills of the DJ or producer.

Hip hop began in The Bronx, a borough in New York City, when DJs began isolating the percussion break from funk and disco songs. The early role of the MC was to introduce the DJ and the music and to keep the audience excited. MCs began by speaking between songs, giving exhortations to dance, greetings to audience members, jokes and anecdotes. Eventually this practice became more stylized and became known as rapping. By 1979, hip hop had become a commercially popular music genre and began to enter the American mainstream. In the 1990s, a form of hip hop called gangsta rap became a major part of American music, causing significant controversy over lyrics which were perceived as promoting violence, terrorism,[2] promiscuity, drug use and misogyny. Nevertheless, by the beginning of the 2000s, hip hop was a staple of popular music charts and was being performed in many styles across the world.

first of all i don't use wikipedia because of its unabashed political correct contents and pandering. ugh. the webster's collegiate dictionary doesn't stock a definition for 'hip hop' --- the dictionary's producers may be trying to tell the world something with that one.

dramasnot6

01-05-2007, 01:36 AM

you see, hip hop is even invading the graduate level, intelligent folks sitting around having a touchy-feely chat about 'rap as cultural phenomena' when they should be reading Milton or Cervantes. just don't dare call hip hop smut in class or you're sure to get a 'B'.

I agree with you here Jon. Forms of entertainment primarily using crude content are interesting to study in that we wonder what the appeal is.Most Hip hop exemplifies some of the crudest and darkest sides of human nature. if one is interested in understanding specific, more crude aspects of the human condition ,the marketing and appeal of hip hop would be an appropriate area to look at. But for intellectual purposes i think we can all consider directly studying the content of most hip hop rather innapropriate and even insulting. The lyrics of hip hop offer no complexity or sophistication in the least, quite the opposite in fact. They are bluntly crude and offensive.

Id also like to point out, since a lot of people are considering some arguments against hip hop as an art to be offensive to specific cultures, that most of the content of hip hop is considered crude by any culture's standards. In fact, it may be considered racist to attribute the content of hip hop as a cultural value to any type of culture. Every culture out there has it's indiscretions and faults, but it is stereoptypical to assume every member, or even the majority of members, of that culture enjoy or promote these faults and crudities. I happen to know many african americans who dont enjoy hip hop and take offense to it. Race is not an issue for me here. It is purely and simply the content of hip hop that i am offended by. No matter who produces it, listen to it, or any other promotion of it, i will still be offended by those sexist and crude lyrics. Not because of my cultural context , but because of my morals and humanity.

jon1jt

01-05-2007, 02:38 AM

I agree with you here Jon. Forms of entertainment primarily using crude content are interesting to study in that we wonder what the appeal is.Most Hip hop exemplifies some of the crudest and darkest sides of human nature. if one is interested in understanding specific, more crude aspects of the human condition ,the marketing and appeal of hip hop would be an appropriate area to look at. But for intellectual purposes i think we can all consider directly studying the content of most hip hop rather innapropriate and even insulting. The lyrics of hip hop offer no complexity or sophistication in the least, quite the opposite in fact. They are bluntly crude and offensive.

Id also like to point out, since a lot of people are considering some arguments against hip hop as an art to be offensive to specific cultures, that most of the content of hip hop is considered crude by any culture's standards. In fact, it may be considered racist to attribute the content of hip hop as a cultural value to any type of culture. Every culture out there has it's indiscretions and faults, but it is stereoptypical to assume every member, or even the majority of members, of that culture enjoy or promote these faults and crudities. I happen to know many african americans who dont enjoy hip hop and take offense to it. Race is not an issue for me here. It is purely and simply the content of hip hop that i am offended by. No matter who produces it, listen to it, or any other promotion of it, i will still be offended by those sexist and crude lyrics. Not because of my cultural context , but because of my morals and humanity.

exactly, well said dramas. one's morals and humanity first, then base entertainment "needs." hip hop's crudity cuts across cultures; the music appeals first to punks and next to those who happen to like the catchy beat and after a few listens they're on to the next song. it's the first group that concerns me, the members of the first tier, the real hoods: the gun packing, drug selling/using no-good thugs. the rest of them are somewhere between - they just act and dress like a thug, but steer clear of the drugs and weapons. they're just misguided and most will snap out of the hip hop spell in a few years when they realize most of their class is going on to a real college. the rest reek havoc on others and themselves. some wind up in jail, many go uneducated quitting school and having kids by the time they're 20. this same group is on welfare and many comprise single mothers with fathers in prison, who make sharp objects to shank fellow prisoners with. for many, prison is a revolving door, and they listen to hip hop on the way in and the way out.

i hate to say it, this latter class, by and large, consists of hip hop-listening bums that do more harm than good. hip hop doesn't help them; it just fuels their vengeance and affirms their own disdain for women and authority.

genoveva

01-05-2007, 04:34 AM

oh yeah, but what color do you think the vast majority of record executives are? (hint: not black)

Of course, not surprisingly so. This just goes to illustrate what I have tried to explain regarding the hierarchy of power since the original thread of "internal racism".

genoveva

01-05-2007, 04:40 AM

it is stereoptypical to assume every member, or even the majority of members, of that culture enjoy or promote these faults and crudities.

It is purely and simply the content of hip hop that i am offended by. No matter who produces it, listen to it, or any other promotion of it, i will still be offended by those sexist and crude lyrics.

By saying this, you are stereotyping all of hip-hop. That it ridiculous. If it is only some type of hip-hop that offends you then you should clarify, but making such a general statement is close minded, to be polite. That would be like me saying I hate cops because some cops make bad choices and actually break the law.

dramasnot6

01-05-2007, 04:48 AM

By saying this, you are stereotyping all of hip-hop. That it ridiculous. If it is only some type of hip-hop that offends you then you should clarify, but making such a general statement is close minded, to be polite. That would be like me saying I hate cops because some cops make bad choices and actually break the law.

No, if you read the rest of my post you would notice i often said "most" hip hop______

Forms of entertainment primarily using crude content are interesting to study in that we wonder what the appeal is.Most Hip hop exemplifies some of the crudest and darkest sides of human nature. if one is interested in understanding specific, more crude aspects of the human condition ,the marketing and appeal of hip hop would be an appropriate area to look at. But for intellectual purposes i think we can all consider directly studying the content of most hip hop rather innapropriate and even insulting. The lyrics of hip hop offer no complexity or sophistication in the least, quite the opposite in fact. They are bluntly crude and offensive.

Id also like to point out, since a lot of people are considering some arguments against hip hop as an art to be offensive to specific cultures, that most of the content of hip hop is considered crude by any culture's standards. In fact, it may be considered racist to attribute the content of hip hop as a cultural value to any type of culture. Every culture out there has it's indiscretions and faults, but it is stereoptypical to assume every member, or even the majority of members, of that culture enjoy or promote these faults and crudities. I happen to know many african americans who dont enjoy hip hop and take offense to it. Race is not an issue for me here. It is purely and simply the content of hip hop that i am offended by. No matter who produces it, listen to it, or any other promotion of it, i will still be offended by those sexist and crude lyrics. Not because of my cultural context , but because of my morals and humanity.

stlukesguild

01-07-2007, 02:31 PM

ennison

01-07-2007, 03:15 PM

Of course it's mysogynistic and nasty. It intends to be. It's not art any more than burnt toast is the best cookery but if you're starving then I guess burnt toast could seem like manna.

jgx

01-07-2007, 04:23 PM

I see that this post has seemingly worn itself... thankfully, perhaps. Nevertheless... after going through the last couple dozen posts I was struck by this quote and thought I might respond:

genoveva- Nick Page puts it well when he says:

"For me, the music we like is the music we have an emotional bond to. This music helps to define who we are and what cultures we have an emotional bond to. I tell people that the reason some people hate the music of J.S. Bach is not because they don't like the music itself- What they hate are the people who like Bach. They have no emotional connection to the culture of Bach. The same can be said of ones' like or dislike of country music, rap, or any other kind of music."

I feel that I can't agree with Page in the very least. Speaking for myself, I do not find that I turn to art solely as a means of reinforcing my own beliefs, likes, dislikes, prejudices, etc... I turn to art to open myself up to the strongest minds from different cultures, times, places, etc... The "culture" that I was born into was certainly not that of J.S. Bach... nor even that of those who were Bach lovers. Neither was my culture that of Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk nor William Shakespeare nor J.S. Borges nor Michelangelo nor Picasso... yet I love all of their work. I can also appreciate James Brown, the Louvin Brothers, the films of Tim Burton, Johnny Cash, John Coletrane,Toni Morrison, Sean Scully, etc... If the art I love defines who I am then I must be quite schizophrenic. In other words, I am open to quality art from a vast array of cultures. There are undoubtedly many quality works I am unable to relate to (Chinese Opera, Mondrian, a lot of Stravinsky) but I don't see myself dismissing the products of any culture (in the larger sense) as a whole. The sort of violent, misogynistic rap music we have been discussing (beyond any questions of its negative impact on society and/or its appropriateness for unrestricted public consumption) simply does not strike me as even close to representing the best products of the culture it purports to represent any more than Briney Spears or Paris Hilton represent the best of white, middle-America.

Based on the above my question to stluke is: what was motivating the repeated use of "I". If, on the one hand, the intent was to limit the observations to clearly being "solely" your own and not reflective of others then...well that is a possiblity. The problem though, in that case, is that such an effort would seem to undercut the importance of your experience in terms of it being reflective of others.

It is also possible that the "I" is used to...it is a type of rhetorical device in which the repetition of "I" actually adds a force, an energy to the observations. This force, this sense of the statements ringing true can come from only two places:

either the individual believes that he is actually speaking "for others"...that his "I" statements are actually statements that many many others "could" make and thus his "I" is, in fact, claimed to be a "we"

or the "I" asserts that he is an authority on the issue and thus his "I" experience has a greater relationship to truth then other "I" experiences.

Which is it?

And in making the above remarks there is no implication that either use of the repeated "I" was a function of a conscious, aware decision on the part of the author. It may be. It may not have been. I do not know.

jon1jt

01-07-2007, 10:01 PM

dramasnot6

01-07-2007, 10:06 PM

i just heard a radio interview/acoustic performance with Buddy Guy, the famous bluesman. when asked what he thought of hip-hop, he answered, "Look, let's not kid ourselves, music is besides the point. hip hop consists of good looking people who fit the mold." he went on to say he performed at farm aid and how he got a call from performer John Mayer asking to participate in it. Buddy Guy told him on the phone that he ought to try to integrate some jazz/blues into his music -- that the reason young folks don't know jazz/blues is because it's not on the radio, unlike when Guy was growing up, he mentioned hearing it on several AM stations. "Not today," he finished.

you bring up a good point. Rap music seems more of a publicity stunt then art. The crudity of most rap is not intended to be beautiful or inspirational, it is intended to provide shock value and appeal to the sicker side of human nature in order to bring in popularity and money. That's marketing, not art.

jon1jt

01-07-2007, 10:16 PM

you bring up a good point. Rap music seems more of a publicity stunt then art. The crudity of most rap is not intended to be beautiful or inspirational, it is intended to provide shock value and appeal to the sicker side of human nature in order to bring in popularity and money. That's marketing, not art.

right on dramas! and how the hip-hop "culturists" on here don't recognize that "shock" is part of the marketing game of hip hop is beyond me. we have a civic duty to drive all forms of smut to the periphery, then allow it to drop off the face of the earth, where it belongs. instead these free-expression fanatics feel no obligation to speak out, and instead go along with studying it in college classrooms and anthologizing the trashy lyrics, when there are thousands of unpublished writers out there with something to say, but they get neither the space nor air time. joke.

stlukesguild

01-08-2007, 12:25 AM

Based on the above my question to stluke is: what was motivating the repeated use of "I". If, on the one hand, the intent was to limit the observations to clearly being "solely" your own and not reflective of others then...well that is a possiblity. The problem though, in that case, is that such an effort would seem to undercut the importance of your experience in terms of it being reflective of others.

SLG- And so we are reduced to disputing or deconstructing the the use of pronouns? What's next: "What is IS?" But then what post is not open to deconstruction. I might look, for example, to a post that questions another's "elitism" and note that there is a certain smugness (and perhaps an ironic sense of superiority or dare I say it..."elitism") to the very idea of questioning another's elitism with one's own (no doubt) superior ("elite") relativist, value-free world view.

Obviously I will admit that I was not speaking for all. For some, art certainly may be imagined as only having a worth if it reinforces their own values/beliefs/thoughts... if they can imagine it speaking to them/about them/ from their own "culture". Page's comments were put forth as an exemplary explanation of how or why we develop certain preferences in art. While it certainly is true that groups develop a group mentality where they like the same music, clothes, movies, etc... and may dislike the art that they imagine as representing the values of another culture... in no way does this seem to be the ideal for the thinking individual. Art is not produced by a culture or cultural forces but by individuals. It would seem no less absurd to judge art based upon entire groupings than it would the judge an entire culture based upon the actions of certain individuals.

jgx

01-08-2007, 02:43 AM

Based on the above my question to stluke is: what was motivating the repeated use of "I". If, on the one hand, the intent was to limit the observations to clearly being "solely" your own and not reflective of others then...well that is a possiblity. The problem though, in that case, is that such an effort would seem to undercut the importance of your experience in terms of it being reflective of others.

SLG- And so we are reduced to disputing or deconstructing the the use of pronouns? What's next: "What is IS?" But then what post is not open to deconstruction. I might look, for example, to a post that questions another's "elitism" and note that there is a certain smugness (and perhaps an ironic sense of superiority or dare I say it..."elitism") to the very idea of questioning another's elitism with one's own (no doubt) superior ("elite") relativist, value-free world view.

[QUOTE]Obviously I will admit that I was not speaking for all.

Honest question: If you were not "speaking for all" does that mean that your observations about art and its relation to culture is not entirely true?

How do we communicate respect to individuals and commuinities while, at the same time, thinking "critically" about them?

Humility is in such short supply these days. Rhetoric and heated opinions are everywhere. I think the world would be in better shape if those with the strongest opinons spent time asking questions rather then giving answers. I know less then I feel I know. When I am able and willing to pay close attention to my own rhetoric I feel embarassed and that is fine. It tells me that I am over-reaching and to scale back, move away from the Mt. top.

Just imagine a world where people expressed their opinions in a way that communicated deep respect to others. That would lead to actual changes being made in the culture as a function of respectful inteligent discussions. Or, at the very least, it would move cultures, people, closer as opposed to moving away.

I've spent too many hours engaged in talk that seems more concerned with ego, mine included, then with a deep engagement with the topic at hand. Are there other ways?

jon1jt

01-08-2007, 03:29 AM

Laindessiel

01-08-2007, 03:39 AM

Rap music seems more of a publicity stunt then art....It is intended to provide shock value and appeal to the sicker side of human nature in order to bring in popularity and money. That's marketing, not art.

instead these free-expression fanatics feel no obligation to speak out, and instead go along with studying it in college classrooms and anthologizing the trashy lyrics, when there are thousands of unpublished writers out there with something to say, but they get neither the space nor air time. joke.

Uh huh. My opinions.

jon1jt

01-08-2007, 03:49 AM

Uh huh. My opinions.

cool! so it looks like the numbers are finally starting to stack up against the hip hoppers in here! :p

to call people who listen to hip hop and emulate the music wearing thuggy clothes a "culture" is offensive. and i still would like to know if people who watch golf are a culture or those who buy cosmetics, are they a culture too?? :lol:

jon1jt

01-08-2007, 03:52 AM

[QUOTE=stlukesguild;313033]Based on the above my question to stluke is: what was motivating the repeated use of "I". If, on the one hand, the intent was to limit the observations to clearly being "solely" your own and not reflective of others then...well that is a possiblity. The problem though, in that case, is that such an effort would seem to undercut the importance of your experience in terms of it being reflective of others.

SLG- And so we are reduced to disputing or deconstructing the the use of pronouns? What's next: "What is IS?" But then what post is not open to deconstruction. I might look, for example, to a post that questions another's "elitism" and note that there is a certain smugness (and perhaps an ironic sense of superiority or dare I say it..."elitism") to the very idea of questioning another's elitism with one's own (no doubt) superior ("elite") relativist, value-free world view.

.

Honest question: If you were not "speaking for all" does that mean that your observations about art and its relation to culture is not entirely true?

How do we communicate respect to individuals and commuinities while, at the same time, thinking "critically" about them?

Humility is in such short supply these days. Rhetoric and heated opinions are everywhere. I think the world would be in better shape if those with the strongest opinons spent time asking questions rather then giving answers. I know less then I feel I know. When I am able and willing to pay close attention to my own rhetoric I feel embarassed and that is fine. It tells me that I am over-reaching and to scale back, move away from the Mt. top.

Just imagine a world where people expressed their opinions in a way that communicated deep respect to others. That would lead to actual changes being made in the culture as a function of respectful inteligent discussions. Or, at the very least, it would move cultures, people, closer as opposed to moving away.

I've spent too many hours engaged in talk that seems more concerned with ego, mine included, then with a deep engagement with the topic at hand. Are there other ways?

yeah, you answer questions through the Socratic method. you wanna try?

jgx

01-08-2007, 04:45 AM

[QUOTE=jgx;313076]

yeah, you answer questions through the Socratic method. you wanna try?

Sure. But first...can we learn some about each other so we can talk to each other and not at each other. I do not...my words do not reflect my ideals...how I communicate is not how I would like to communicate.

I want to talk openly, with respect shown to others and shown to me as well. I want to understand as well as be understood.

Would you share some personal facts about who you are, where you are, where you come from, what you do for a living, what your folks did...whatever...I am not asking to become you dearest of friends...but I certainly do not want to talk to someone about sensetive topics without learning more about them. I know somethings about you...male, currently lives in the suburbs, I know your thoughts and feelings about hip-hop culture, I know that you have written about urban life in some detail and so I gather that you know about it but I do not know more then that...I know you have friends who are white and have worked and have come up against affirmative action quotas that have resulted in them not getting a job...you have computer skills, writing skills, logic and communication skills, you currently live in the US...

What else do you think I could know that would put your thoughts, ideas, in a fuller context and making it more likely for me to understand them as you mean rather then through the distortion of my own specific eyeglasses.;)

jon1jt

01-08-2007, 07:12 AM

[QUOTE=jon1jt;313107]

Sure. But first...can we learn some about each other so we can talk to each other and not at each other. I do not...my words do not reflect my ideals...how I communicate is not how I would like to communicate.

I want to talk openly, with respect shown to others and shown to me as well. I want to understand as well as be understood.

Would you share some personal facts about who you are, where you are, where you come from, what you do for a living, what your folks did...whatever...I am not asking to become you dearest of friends...but I certainly do not want to talk to someone about sensetive topics without learning more about them. I know somethings about you...male, currently lives in the suburbs, I know your thoughts and feelings about hip-hop culture, I know that you have written about urban life in some detail and so I gather that you know about it but I do not know more then that...I know you have friends who are white and have worked and have come up against affirmative action quotas that have resulted in them not getting a job...you have computer skills, writing skills, logic and communication skills, you currently live in the US...

What else do you think I could know that would put your thoughts, ideas, in a fuller context and making it more likely for me to understand them as you mean rather then through the distortion of my own specific eyeglasses.;)

i have no problem divulging this information to you ghideon, but i just don't see the point of it. i mean, don't you think you won't be able to help yourself in psychologizing me; thinking, "Ahhh! so that's why he thinks that!" and so put me in a box, maybe use some developmental psych. theory or behavioral/sociological school to dig into my psyche and strip away whatever humanity i have?

dramasnot6

01-08-2007, 07:21 AM

Just imagine a world where people expressed their opinions in a way that communicated deep respect to others. That would lead to actual changes being made in the culture as a function of respectful inteligent discussions. Or, at the very least, it would move cultures, people, closer as opposed to moving away.

Ok, so the sexism and racism demonstrated in lots of hip hop music is supposed to promote these respectful, inteligent discussions and bring people closer together? From what i see, it only has negative effects on society. I encourage the idea of free speech but think it should be controlled, or at least not positively enforced by the media and society, if it presents such crude, offensive content that HARMS society and makes it MORE prejudice. Sure, i respect the existence of hip hop, but if we start considering it art we will be positively enforcing it and all the crude, offensive content it stands for. I tell the kids at my school that all the horrible messages sent through lots of the rap music they listen to offend me and are BAD things, but they justify themselves saying "everyone listens to it, it's everywhere. so then its ok". Something very wrong about that picture...

jgx

01-08-2007, 08:56 AM

I do think it is important for those who are teaching young people to treat them with as much respect as one can. I believe you to be a teacher who cares quite a bit about the students in her class and I do not make the following remarks with any other implication as regards you deliberately wanting to disrespect anybody.

I tell the kids at my school that all the horrible messages sent through lots of the rap music they listen to offend me and are BAD things, but they justify themselves saying "everyone listens to it, it's everywhere. so then its ok". Something very wrong about that picture...

OK. You want to get a message across but it does not seem to be working. You are not getting through to these young people on this issue.

Now I am not a teacher nor currently a student. As I have written before I am certainly not up against the daily pressures and challenges you face. I preface my following remarks with that because I do not want to come across as an authority as to the concrete struggles of those in the teaching field.

I do, though, believe I have some important comments to make as regards power dynamics, authority and how those play out in the classrooms. This comes chiefly from my experiences as a student, my experiences in life in terms of power and authority dynamics and my studies as regards language, psychology, education and power.

I can not think of one time in my personal life when I was "told that something that I watched, listened to, read, participated in was BAD" and that simply as a result of such a statement I changed my behavior. In fact, as I suspect happens to many, I often resent other people making moral judgments about music, literature...that I listen to or read.

Now ofcourse growing up my parents had to help me learn how to cross the street so that I did not get hit by cars when I was on my own. They taught me how to deal with dangerous objects like knives so that I could avoid injuring myself. I acknowledge that there is a role for authority in those and other instances.

In this case there is a disconnect because you are basically saying that there is an object--a great deal of hip-hop music--that hurts you(cuts you to be more graphic) and that you are concerned about the students and you do not want them to be hurt(cut) or add validation to something that is hurting (cutting) others.

Inorder to get that particular message across it seems to me that somehow the hurting aspect of the culture needs to be put in a context that the students can relate to or empathize with. Either they do not see you getting hurt by the music or they see it and do not think it matters or they know it is pissing people off and communicating disrespect to people and they do not see this as wrong since within their frame of mind there are people who deserve to be disrespected.

I do not know if the young boys in your class understand what sexism is? I assume not because I do not see how any male would have a totally positive opinion of music in which women are repeatedly and profoundly disrespected. So somehow sexism needs to be dealt with in a way that the young men can understand. This is the same for the young women who, if they understood the gender dynamics in the world around them, would also speak out about the violence against members of their same sex.

From what i see, it only has negative effects on society.

Yes, no debate. That is, I can not debate what you "see". I do not, however, think that this is an attitude in relation to hip-hop that will help reach your class.

If you would say "I think culture is vital. I think having a culture that has lasted for decades, evolved, developed art forms (graffiti styles) movement (break dancing and other styles) poetry (slams...)music (from the mid 70s tunes that created the hip-hop genre to a huge variety of variants on the essential dj/rap/heavy beat core."

If you can express your sincere respect for all things good in hip-hop and your sincere respect for all things gained by participating in a culture of dance, song, movement, then your perspective on the violence "in" the music will be, I would suspect, more understood and, in fact, more worthy of respect. I do not think it is within 1000 miles of accuracy to make absolute statements about the hip-hop culture as a whole...all aspects of it...all music...all of its effects and all of its history.

We are focused here on one part of a much broader whole. A part that demands a response. A part that both validates and is born from sexism. And a part that is of such importance that we owe it to ourselves and our community to do what we can to transform it, change it....

I believe such change is possible but I do not know if we (adults) are ready, willing, able to do what would need to be done inorder for the changes to happen. I do not know if there are enough adults who are able to actually communicate with young people in a way that actually leads to a deeper bond being built, increasing insights into their lives and the lives of others they may not know and the development of maturity that comes from that.

It seems trite to simply repeat the tired phrase that "it is more important to understand then to be understood" but that just seems to be it in a nutshell.

In summation, I do not offer my writing, my life as a living example of an adult who models everything I suggest is noble and necessary. I struggle and fail often just like the rest of us.

But I do believe that I have some clarity as to the man I want to strive to become and the importance of communicating true sincere respect to someone who you are trying to reach out to and help understand something they do not yet grasp. I wake up each day with that in mind. At days end, well somtimes its a 2 out of 10...sometimes a 6...and on the very good and too infrequent days an 8 or 9.

sincerely,
jgx
aka
ghideon

the meaning and grammaticality of something like "I didn't see nobody" is dependant on the context (or "sub-culture") in which it is used

The above is a direct quote from jon1 from a post in the philosophy forum (I assume that he would back it up as accurate in the "context" or "sub-culture" of hip hop). I never knew that jon and I agree on this point. Gosh. wink. :)

dramasnot6

01-08-2007, 09:29 AM

I do think it is important for those who are teaching young people to treat them with as much respect as one can. I believe you to be a teacher who cares quite a bit about the students in her class and I do not make the following remarks with any other implication as regards you deliberately wanting to disrespect anybody.

.

OK. You want to get a message across but it does not seem to be working. You are not getting through to these young people on this issue.

Now I am not a teacher nor currently a student. As I have written before I am certainly not up against the daily pressures and challenges you face. I preface my following remarks with that because I do not want to come across as an authority as to the concrete struggles of those in the teaching field.

I do, though, believe I have some important comments to make as regards power dynamics, authority and how those play out in the classrooms. This comes chiefly from my experiences as a student, my experiences in life in terms of power and authority dynamics and my studies as regards language, psychology, education and power.

I can not think of one time in my personal life when I was "told that something that I watched, listened to, read, participated in was BAD" and that simply as a result of such a statement I changed my behavior. In fact, as I suspect happens to many, I often resent other people making moral judgments about music, literature...that I listen to or read.

Now ofcourse growing up my parents had to help me learn how to cross the street so that I did not get hit by cars when I was on my own. They taught me how to deal with dangerous objects like knives so that I could avoid injuring myself. I acknowledge that there is a role for authority in those and other instances.

In this case there is a disconnect because you are basically saying that there is an object--a great deal of hip-hop music--that hurts you(cuts you to be more graphic) and that you are concerned about the students and you do not want them to be hurt(cut) or add validation to something that is hurting (cutting) others.

Inorder to get that particular message across it seems to me that somehow the hurting aspect of the culture needs to be put in a context that the students can relate to or empathize with. Either they do not see you getting hurt by the music or they see it and do not think it matters or they know it is pissing people off and communicating disrespect to people and they do not see this as wrong since within their frame of mind there are people who deserve to be disrespected.

I do not know if the young boys in your class understand what sexism is? I assume not because I do not see how any male would have a totally positive opinion of music in which women are repeatedly and profoundly disrespected. So somehow sexism needs to be dealt with in a way that the young men can understand. This is the same for the young women who, if they understood the gender dynamics in the world around them, would also speak out about the violence against members of their same sex.

Yes, no debate. That is, I can not debate what you "see". I do not, however, think that this is an attitude in relation to hip-hop that will help reach your class.

If you would say "I think culture is vital. I think having a culture that has lasted for decades, evolved, developed art forms (graffiti styles) movement (break dancing and other styles) poetry (slams...)music (from the mid 70s tunes that created the hip-hop genre to a huge variety of variants on the essential dj/rap/heavy beat core."

If you can express your sincere respect for all things good in hip-hop and your sincere respect for all things gained by participating in a culture of dance, song, movement, then your perspective on the violence "in" the music will be, I would suspect, more understood and, in fact, more worthy of respect. I do not think it is within 1000 miles of accuracy to make absolute statements about the hip-hop culture as a whole...all aspects of it...all music...all of its effects and all of its history.

We are focused here on one part of a much broader whole. A part that demands a response. A part that both validates and is born from sexism. And a part that is of such importance that we owe it to ourselves and our community to do what we can to transform it, change it....

I believe such change is possible but I do not know if we (adults) are ready, willing, able to do what would need to be done inorder for the changes to happen. I do not know if there are enough adults who are able to actually communicate with young people in a way that actually leads to a deeper bond being built, increasing insights into their lives and the lives of others they may not know and the development of maturity that comes from that.

It seems trite to simply repeat the tired phrase that "it is more important to understand then to be understood" but that just seems to be it in a nutshell.

In summation, I do not offer my writing, my life as a living example of an adult who models everything I suggest is noble and necessary. I struggle and fail often just like the rest of us.

But I do believe that I have some clarity as to the man I want to strive to become and the importance of communicating true sincere respect to someone who you are trying to reach out to and help understand something they do not yet grasp. I wake up each day with that in mind. At days end, well somtimes its a 2 out of 10...sometimes a 6...and on the very good and too infrequent days an 8 or 9.

sincerely,
jgx
aka
ghideon

The above is a direct quote from jon1 from a post in the philosophy forum (I assume that he would back it up as accurate in the "context" or "sub-culture" of hip hop). I never knew that jon and I agree on this point. Gosh. wink. :)

Ghideon, much appreciated for the advice as to discourage negative messages for me peers, but the point i was trying to make is that positive enforcement of rap content by labelling it as art is only exacerbating the issue for students and further preventing their moral understanding. I believe knowledge and true understanding of concepts like "sexism" and "racism" comes from your experiences with the issue, and if youth's main experience is that these harmful issues are ok, as shown in their music and media, how will they ever have an understanding of how bad these issues really are for society? We do not know until we learn. How are we to learn if we're constantly being brainwashed with false images of socially harmful things being "cool" or popular? How are we to live in a peaceful society if so many aspects of society, such as the media, are promoting acts that will only demoralize and corrupt us further?

Logos

01-08-2007, 09:54 AM

jgx

01-08-2007, 10:50 AM

Ghideon, much appreciated for the advice as to discourage negative messages for me peers,

Juliet, I did not mean it to be advice as regards "negavie messages for you and your peers"...that does not do justice to the point I was attempting to make.

Not communicating respect to students is far more then a "negative message". It is very real and harmful invalidation of them as autonomous, thinking, feeling individuals. It simply adds power to the societal view of young people as empty vessels that need to be filled by those who know.

I was not commenting to negative messages. I was attempting to point out, albeit not well enough, the fundamental errors in this nations ideas of how to best teach, inform, raise our young ones. This error is one of us having truth and us(adults) simply telling those kids truths and they simply have to accept the preordained truths or they are wrong, bad, confused, add,truants, apathetic...bla bla bla

All the while as we adults seem to trip all over ourselves, do violence to ourselves and to others, act tired, worn out, alienated, pissed off and yet we must know what they do not.

If what adults can impart to young people is facts...the periodic table of elements, the circumfrence of a circle then fine. But I do not see it as being effective nor decent to "teach" them morals, values...

I mean if you had a gutsy enough young boy or girl in class who stood up and said "hey, when I look at this world I do not see a great deal of beauty or love or peace. If you know so much about what is good and bad and right and wrong then why all this mess of people dying, getting shot, Iraq, poverty...huh"

What would you say? "Oh...do as I say not as I do"? If what you say is true, and I believe it is, that students (humans in fact) learn from experience then it seems to me the question is what kind of experience would most help them see, feel, touch, discuss, debate, question, criticize, engage, engage, engage with you and with the world around them in ways that will move them towards wider perspectives not narrower...

but the point i was trying to make is that positive enforcement of rap content by labelling it as art is only exacerbating the issue for students

Enough already with this darn label of "art" at this point I would sell the trailer and the horse that I do not have to just rid us of that rather White Tower academic dispute over a specific term, word...

Why don't we all come clean and deal with the core deal here...which is, yea I am sometimes a broken record, respect; which is the extent to which you are more concerned with what you feel and think then what your students are feeling and thinking and thus, by your own admission, not reaching them.

and further preventing their moral understanding.

I do not see a great deal of violent rapist music being called much of anything these days...other then...geez...I don't even know. In your corner is there some huge trend towards taking violent lyrics and placing them on some pedestal shared by Whitman or Van Gogh? Is that the battle that we are confronting. I do not think so.

As regards their moral understanding...what stands in the way is us. The world we give them. Which gets in the way more? Poverty, war, murder, rape, their own actual environments, their relations with their parents, their peers, the adults...abuse they are receiving at home by a parent?

In comparison to all those factors I do not see some huge wave (which does not really exist) of trying to call violent music "Aaahhhrrrtt" as worthy of all this debate.

knowledge and true understanding of concepts like "sexism" and "racism" comes from your experiences with the issue, and if youth's main experience is that these harmful issues are ok, as shown in their music and media, how will they ever have an understanding of how bad these issues really are for society?

If youth's "main experience" as regards the horrible mistreatment of people of color and of women is through these songs we are talking about then a)no problem whatsoever since it implies that the world is great but for some reason we have these violent songs that are corrupting our innocent youth b)we are in very serious trouble if the human beings in our care are being taught that their main relationship to the abuse of women and the abuse of blacks, hispanics, asians...is not their world or their block or their city or town...no it is these songs.

Perhaps this...perhaps the do know how horrible the violence is. I can not imagine a five or six or four or eight year old who is healthy actually walking around thinking, believing anything else. And just imagine that the adults around these people have not done a very good job of helping them make sense of this world of despair and rage and murder and suicide and drug abuse.

And then there are these songs. For crying out loud, at least the songs are not some la la all is well rest easy angel bs that would be so easily repudiated as insane. There is a time and a place for soft lulabies and there is a time and a place for other tunes.

We do not know until we learn.

We do not learn unless we know. We know and we learn. We learn and we know. We know less then we think. We know more then we think. The most important teachings can not be taught.

Which one is accurate?

how are we to learn if we're constantly being brainwashed with false images of socially harmful things being "cool" or popular? How are we to live in a peaceful society if so many aspects of society, such as the media, are promoting acts that will only demoralize and corrupt us further?

OK. Fact, we do not currently live in a peaceful society. Agreed?

Part of the problem is that the news media, the entertainment industry uses images and songs of violence to make huge amounts of money and in the process shows no regard for how these cultural enteties may be impacting their audience, in particular, young people.

That is certainly a part of a much broader crisis. But lets not go overboard here and start throwing amno at cultural representations that a teacher feels are simply understood as "cool" or "popular".

Unless we are all very careful about our motivations here we will rightly be understood as just replicas of prior adults who did not favor the next generations tastes of rebellion. Now if there is a case to be made for these songs in particular being a significantly different type of threat then that case needs to be made but I would suggest that one way to make it is by just doing a check to see how "you" would feel if you were in their shoes. Something important to you and enjoyed by you and the people around you is called bad, harmful by adults in authority.

If I was in your class and if I had the guts, which I did not have back in the days of my student years...I would ask you "what is going on here? what are you so darn angry and upset about huh?"

It is one thing to look at a situation and approach it from a place of deep care, reason and honesty. It is an entirely different situation to feel hostility, rage, fear, envy, despair, confusion about something and have those emotions be the core dynamic going on. Those feelings are ofcourse valid. Yes. But on the other hand how I feel about a bunch of songs has nothing to do with how I can best reach out and open minds. In fact, if I am not grounded, confident, in touch with my deep humanity and instead am all worked up then my rage, despair, confusion will speak much more loudly then the words.

If my anger and grief about violence has gotten in the way of my attempt at communication then that is my fault, only my fault and I own it. And I would also apologize if you feel disrespected as a caring inteligent human being. You do not deserve disrespect by me or anybody. I guess I have a tendency when writing to you to hold my tounge...you have told me in previous posts that I need not do so. And so this is a bit more raw.

sincerely
jgx

jon1jt

01-09-2007, 06:11 AM

Just thought I'd throw this link in here, I find this kinda funny. I don't know Ice-T's music but I've loved him as an actor in Law and Order.

Talk about 'clash of cultures'! I haven't watched it, just saw an ad on tv for it so looked it up on the VH1 site.

Ice-T's Rap School: (http://www.vh1.com/shows/dyn/ice_t_rap_school/series.jhtml) "Class is in session and Ice-T, the Original Gangsta, is gonna school ya."

"In "Ice-T's Rap School," Ice invades the hallowed halls of York Prep, an exclusive private school in Manhattan's tony upper west side. And in just six weeks, he'll try to transform a small class of 8th grade sucka MCs into big-time rappers.

Ice delivers some hardcore lessons in rhyming, scratching, and breakdancing. And after a roller-coaster journey of nail-biting auditions and pressure-packed recording sessions, the kids face the ultimate final exam: opening up for Public Enemy at BB Kings in New York.

Will Ice win over straight-laced students, skeptical parents, and distrusting faculty? Will he be able to turn these prepsters into true playas?"
.
.

ice-t is a likeable guy, an opportunist though he is. he wields a great deal of influence in the 'hip hop' world and hollywood too, so it seems right to make him the papa court jester for a show like this one. i would call the show a classic example of how big record labels are infiltrating every facet of society to placate resistant parents in an effort to sell more records. on one level, this plays on the stereotype of white-rich-kid-out-of-touch- with-the-'rest of the world' and hip hop being cool and fashionable. i can just imagine the millions of black hip viewers home chuckling at the white boys who are "trying" to rap. ugh, spare me.

big labels know there exists a large and still untapped segment of the population that wants absolutely nothing to do with hip hop. "skeptical parents" stand between the smut and their children. amen. that's a good thing. at least some parents are doing their job.

truly masterful is how this show utilizes a 'building bridges' theme to aim 8th grade white kids to a crescendo performance with, of all groups, one that, ironically, openly mocked white people and law enforcement with its music: Public Enemy -- the gods of old school gangsta rap. there's something in it for everyone except the kids whose fifteen minutes of fame will translate into more beknighted souls.

imagine pioneering a reality show that takes a couple black kids from the ghetto whose lives circulate around listening to hip hop and smoking pot and sending them to a boarding school for a term. or would that be racist?

jgx

01-09-2007, 04:29 PM

dramasnot6

01-09-2007, 09:33 PM

The link didnt work for me ghideon......

jgx

01-09-2007, 09:43 PM

The link didnt work for me ghideon......

You can google: The Boys of Baraka and click on the loki.com link...that is the company that produced the video and their homepage will take you to the specific site for this documentary.

jon1jt

01-09-2007, 11:01 PM

There is a wonderful,sad, uplifting documentary called The Boys Of Baraka. It came out, I believe, just last year and got considerable praise.

The film focuses on a group of about 15 young boys who are chosen to attend a small private boarding school in Africa for two years.

I highly recommend it simply as an excellent documentary but in particular for those who have participated in this thread.
[COLOR="RoyalBlue"].

http://lokifilms.com/about.html

not to take anything away from the value of this documentary, i'm sure it's insightful. i just find it very interesting how the documentary about 15 african boys is portrayed as sad and the Ice-T show with white boys learning rap is supposed to be funny.

not only do you defend hip hop smut that degrades women, but you also remain silent about glaring stereotypical portrayals of whites and blacks. but you're the same guy who'd be on the street protesting if a white show poked fun at black ghetto boys. you know it, i know it, everybody knows it.

jgx

01-10-2007, 12:39 AM

not to take anything away from the value of this documentary, i'm sure it's insightful. i just find it very interesting how the documentary about 15 african boys is portrayed as sad and the Ice-T show with white boys learning rap is supposed to be funny.

not only do you defend hip hop smut that degrades women, but you also remain silent about glaring stereotypical portrayals of whites and blacks. but you're the same guy who'd be on the street protesting if a white show poked fun at black ghetto boys. you know it, i know it, everybody knows it.

jon1 et al:

You know...I thought we were begining to actually reach a point of mutual respect. At least that is what I hoped would happen since our exchange of posts at the grammar forum. You wrote that you did not intend to write posts that insult me and that you apologize if you did. I really appreciated that. You also wrote about how you work at the university but come to this forum to get away from the snobbery that exists there.

For crying out loud jon, do you think you are communicating respect to me in the above post? Did you even bother to ask yourself about that? And do you think you are actually gettting away from the snobbish elitism by participating in this forum or bringing the snobbishness with you?

I appreciate reasoned critical thinking and questions. I do not appreciate attacks. How dare you write "you're the same guy who'd be on the street protesting if a white show poked fun at black ghetto boys. you know it, i know it, everybody knows it"

You are the one who wrote no...you do not want to take the gloves off and now you write blatant personal attacks. Do you know how many protests I have participated in in the last five years...maybe two and that might not be accurate...could be just one. I am not the man you think I am and I am getting quite fed up with your repeated unreasonable suggestions that you know me. "you know it, I know it, everybody knows it" what kind of a professor are you if you feel so free to use high school locker room rhetoric in a forum that is, I assume, supposed to be a place for inteligent, yes free spirited discussion. Free spirited is one thing...what you have done crosses the line and it does offend me.

I posted that link to a documentary because I found it to be an extraordinary work that reflected the complexity involved in confronting and attempting to solve the problems in the inner city. But did you bother to read about the movie? No. Did you even find out why I used the adjective "sad" as part of my description? No. You don't really know what I meant when I said sad do you?

I have clearly and repeatedly stated that the violence, the sexism, the validation of violence against women in gangstar hip-hop music needs to be dealt with as a significant and harmful element of the culture this nations youth live in. I have not once written anything that said lyrics that use rape as a positive act are worthy of respect. Do you really picture me saying "Hey...I have no problem with calling all women Bi..."

You know what jon, I actually want change to happen. I am so tired of all the violence and despair that is an everyday part of my life and the life of millions. I have written openly about the fact that I have done time, the fact that I have done violent acts, I have written about my life in NY, I have written about seeing my mother live on the streets, I have written about growing up in Harlem and spending my adult life in poverty and living very close to and with poor black men, women and young people. I have done quite a bit to put my thoughts and ideas in a human context so that people understand where they are coming from.

I have done this because I am convinced of this much, change comes from those willing to do what is necessary despite what they may have to face and feel in the process. It is my firm conviction that the best way to move youth away from the violence and sexism they dance to is to build a bridge...to figure out ways that we can dialouge with these young people and listen to what they say and care about what they say and what they feel and express our concern and express our respect and express that we are concerned about the music because we are concerned about their well being and their future.

If I want to call it "smut" or "vile" or "putrid" is not the issue for me. The only issue for me, I do not know what yours is, the concern for me is what will actually work and I just do not see how repeatedly insulting an important part of many young people's culture (vile or not) will do anything but construct walls between the very community and people we claim to care about.

What do you care about more jon...actually moving this world to a more just and peaceful and compassionate place or you being able to say whatever you feel like...with no real care or concern about the impact your words have.

There is so much about your posts that says yes to throwing caution to the wind...fine. In many cases that is brave and powerful. But to do so while proclaiming a concern for the condition of young people seems to be little more the anger and a selfish relationship to anger rather then true, humble dedication to showing love to those who you believe are worthy of hate.

Rather ironic that you feel fine in speaking arrogantly and in very patronizing langauge to those people who you then accuse of using violence in their words. Yea, you are not writing about bi*** or her a^^ and those that do need to hear us. But what type of a model or example are you setting by "smut" "smut" "smut" "hey,I won the argument...I won the argument...and everybody knows it".

I know what being called "bad" does to ones soul. It turns it into ice. I know what it is like to sit and sit in those cells....you go out of your mind. And I know what it feels like to be beaten, humiliated, peper sprayed, electric shocked while doing time for crimes which were not much more then sleeping in the wrong part of the street...being where I was not supposed to be...which has included the steps of a church. I am a man. I am an angry man. I have done acts that I deeply and profoundly regret and will take that grief and shame to my grave. But that is not just my blemish, my broken-ness but also my possiblity.

I know what these "hoods" feel (not completely, I am not black) but I know about rage and despair and a lack of hope...it is worse then no light at the end of the tunnel...cause there are people, and I am one, who live in the tunnel and when there is no light you find yourself not only with no future but blind, terrified and alone in your now. And those men are my men. I have lived with them, eaten with them, loved them. I think somebody has to and since I have had the struggles I have had then I have the possiblity of loving these human beings. And yes I believe they deserve love. I am not a pacifist but I am also not some red rev rad running around who thinks violence is just fine. To do extreme violence you have to be lost. I have been lost many times in my life and I acted from that place. There are so many young men and women lost and I suggest that the role of adults is first to find themselves and also help these young ones find themselves as well. Hell is in their songs because hell is in their heart and adding the fire of "it is nothing but smut" certainly does not help lower the temperature...in fact it only fuels more flames.

And yea, now, right now I am pissed...real pissed. But I don't have a problem owning up to it when that is what is called for. I do not dig pretense.:flare: