Fascist Music

[Sam Pawlett]

Being a musician does not put one in a privileged position viv-a-vis the
analysis of music. Being a capitalist does not put one in a privileged position
for analyzing                capitalism. The technical expertise of Ron Jeremy
or Annie Sprinkle does not put them   in a privileged position vis-a-vis the
analysis of human sexuality.Art as social-historical phenomenon is more
complicated than the technical skills needed to practice it.Art is a totality of
social relations so the technical skills needed to produce it are only one part
of the totality.Analysis only from a musicians point of view would be
one-sided.  You need not be a musician to perceive the "spiritual" qualities of
a piece of music.Musicians may not be the most sensitive and sophisticated
listeners.  Their is a question whether music can be representational at all,
let alone represent fascist ideology. Your criteria of loudness etc. can be
applied to almost any form or piece of music. The music of the punks e.g. The
Sex Pistols, The Exploited had all the criteria you listed but were,in their own
way,  expressing antifascist and anti-capitalist sentiments.The loudness etc. of
these bands was deliberate. It was ment to express anger at the bourgeoisie and
the present social order.Louis Armstrong played so loud the recording engineers
had to put him at the back of the room. Was Louis' music fascist? Mahalia
Jackson sang so loud she did'nt need a microphone. Her music was folk music and
was maximally concerned with "spiritual" matters. The "spiritual" side of her
music, as much as I can gather, is not lost on its listener. The opposite of
loudness is silence, so silence would be the way musicians would express
themselves in a democratic utopia.From a purely political standpoint,
ear-splitting, satanic heavy metal music might be a better way of combating the
Jerry Falwells than Cages 4'13.I much prefer Wozzeck, but in my own experience,
Sepultura makes better boss repellent and thus furthers the class struggle on
the shop floor better. As Arnold Hauser said of Baudelaire " his romantic
satanism transforms this sinfulness itself into a source of lust:love is not
only inteinsically evil, its highest pleasure consists  precisely in the
consciousness of doing evil...It is,of course, above all the expression of
revolt against bourgeois society and the morality based on the bourgeois family.
The prostitute is the deracinee and the outlaw, the rebel who revolts not only
against the institutional form of love, but against its "natural" spiritual
form. She destroys not only the moral and social organization of the feeling,
she destroys the basis for the feeling itself. She is cold in the midst of the
storms of passion, she is and remains the superior spectator of the lust she
awakens, she feels lonely and apathetic when others are enraptured and
intoxicated-she is, in brief, the artist's female double. From this community of
feeling and destiny arises the understanding which the artists of decadence show
her. They know how they prostitute themselves, how they surrender their most
sacred feelings, and how cheaply they sell their secrets."
The Social History of Art Vol. 4, p189.
Moreover, the word "spiritual" is worse than those mushy words like
"empowerment" or "ethical investing" that appeals to cheap sentimentalists like
the board of the Ford Foundation.
Sam Pawlett.
Daniel wrote:


> Well, Doug, as a classical musician I can only think of popular music as, by
> definition, "folkish." That is to say, a natural expression and
> manifestation of the innate and uncultivated musicality of human beings,
> only minimally concerned with aesthetic or spiritual matters.
>
> The reason that all the superficial trappings of power, such as loudness,
> monumentality, etc., are associated with fascism is precisely because they
> are used by fascism as basic tools of control, indoctrination,
> disempowerment, repression. I didn't see the post of the other day in which
> you spoke about "sublimity", and so I don't know what you were referring to
> specifically. It is certainly true that both loudness and the monumental can
> otherwise contribute to an expression of the sublime. But, as employed by
> the fascist, they have nothing to do with the sublime. They have instead to
> do with loudness and the monumental, which pose as excuses for themselves -
> an absurdity, of course, but one which is essential to the fascist cause
> that acknowledges only that might makes right.
>
> Now, you asked what is specifically fascist about these elements. I once
> participated in a discussion of what is fascism with a "Marxist." That
> discussion lasted for several years - easy enough considering that it was my
> father. I was defending Bertram Gross' viewpoint on fascism in America,
> against the more orthodox view that would like to reserve the term for
> Hitler and Franco, and a few select others. One of the most important things
> I learned from that discussion was that two intelligent people don't
> necessarily agree about what fascism may and may not be.
>
> Does the term have an objective meaning? Up to a point, I wouldn't deny that
> it has. Yet, it's important, I think, not to put TOO fine a point on it.
> What is the value of owning a word, as if that were possible? I called these
> musical elements fascist because fascism is associated with them as a
> carpenter is associated with a hammer. No black and white distinction was
> intended here. Should I be boring and point out that communism also was fond
> of the loud and the monumental? I needn't be so restrictive. Regarding that
> other element - exploitation of the "folkish" - even socialism in America
> induced a kind of glorification of folk art. Think only of Copland's
> Appalachian Spring. "'Tis a blessing to be simple. . ."
>
> On the other hand, one has to know when a mere toying with folkishness turns
> deadly, as in Orf's Carmina Burana. The Copland is not fascist. The Orf is.
> How can such a distinction be made? I could retreat to a position of
> expertise, and say that as a musician it has been my life long fate (and
> duty) to listen for the spiritual content in musical sound. After a time,
> certain things become rather clear and unmistakable. But I would rather put
> the matter more on the level of common sense. Add up enough of the
> ingredients of fascism, and one may actually arrive at fascism. This has
> practical implications in the political sphere. Who knows but that even a
> communist clique can make the transition in this way: we will have to
> conclude as much if China, for example, were to expand the private sector to
> such a degree that the ruling party elite begin to represent only a class of
> owners, and do so with the kind of "iron boot" that we associate with
> fascism? (Pace, Henry: I realize that I have no informed judgment on the
> actual course of change in China, which is why your posts have been so
> interesting and enlightening to me. I use the example of China only in an
> abstract way, in order to make a point.)
>
> Alec, you asked: "But by your criteria, why isn't John Adams' music fascist,
> because it's
> not loud enough?  What about serialism: couldn't one argue it's a structural
> "iron boot"?"
>
> I don't know enough of Adams' music. Do you think it is fascist? The little
> bit I've heard of "Nixon in China" certainly seems to invite the label, but
> I find it especially easy to say that since I found the music to be
> intensely annoying and bereft of grace and beauty. In a curious way, all
> minimalism in art may be as fascist as the monumentalism I was referring to
> in my post. We would then be talking about the place of conjunction of yin
> and yang: the place of transformation into opposites. I've only really
> listened to Adams' Violin Concerto, which I don't think is minimalist, nor
> fascist. But, I am probably wrong. For there is no doubt that it is through
> and through American. Here again, I am probably confused by matters of
> personal taste. I quite liked the Violin Concerto, and so wouldn't like to
> think of it as fascist. What would that say about me? I have to be
> "brutally" honest when it comes to recognizing fascism in all its secret
> little hiding places.
>
> As for your question on serial music, Alec, I'm not sure if you are implying
> your own answer. For my part, the answer is an emphatic negative. No, serial
> music (12-tone music) is not in any way an expression of the fascist craving
> for "order" - especially, arbitrarily imposed order as the product of the
> individual will and its need to dominate. There is nothing in the least bit
> arbitrary about serial music.
>
> As it happens, I am a composer of serial music, and so I carry a heavy brief
> for its place in our tradition. Serial music is a natural unfolding of that
> tradition, and as such a reflection of the evolution of the human spirit. As
> our consciousness expands, we perceive ever more dimensions in this
> universe. The composer is no less a researcher into these many dimensions,
> than the physicist who opens our eyes to the multiple realms of time/space
> and a hundred other invisible dimensions besides.
>
> The many harmonic dimensions of polyphonic music have been only gradually
> and painstakingly perceived by successive generations of composers. Serial
> music is nothing new in this respect. For this reason, it should come as no
> surprise that serial music can express the permanent transcendence of the
> human being - or, just as easily, the subjugation of all that is in us
> yearning to breathe free. For the former, we have Schoenberg, for the
> latter, say, Stockhausen. In any case, serialism is a technical term. It
> pertains to matters of technique. Technique can be put to any purpose. Of
> course, fascism, per se, will never use serialism on purpose. Hardly anybody
> can understand it. It would be very counterproductive. But, far be it from
> me to give musical advice to the fascists.
>
> Daniel