Murray on prole models

[Rob Schaap]

>Carrol B Cox wrote:
>
>>But doug's intro was only a bit less silly than
>>the column: "It wouldn't surprise me if a few leftists
>>agreed with some of this." Substitute ANY agent noun for
>>"leftists" & ANY belief for "this" and the proposition
>>remains true.
>
>Did you break your wrist mounting a high horse?
>
>Let me expand on my point, just for the hell of it. Murray is a
>notorious cultural reactionary, so his views about "coarseness" and
>"vulgarity" might be dismissed as the ravings characteristic of the
>breed. Many so-called leftists, however - and not just Adorno - hold
>not dissimilar views, as subsequent posts have revealed. When the
>widely disparaged Judith B. criticized neoconservative Marxists, she
>was roundly denounced. But hardly a day passes without her point
>being confirmed.

As an LBO-Talk-convicted left-conservative, I feel obliged to speak up on
my behalf on this one.  Now, you might reckon indignation like that
expressed against MacMuck et al constitutes a conservative-elitist
rejection of the proletarian and her ways (I'm not sure this is exactly
what you reckon, Doug - haven't quite got your position fixed yet - but
this is what I currently think you're saying), but it does no such thing.

Consider "Never Mind The Bollocks".  Vulgar, coarse ... and, well, bloody
gorgeous.  Consider now the aptly-named "Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle" - the
Pistols' second album.  Vulgar, coarse ... and, well, vacuously humdrum.
Whatever the difference between the two sets, it's not anything to do with
vulgarity or coarseness.  I think it's to do with the recognition, on the
part of corporate capital, of the potential of the new genre; corporate
capital's consequent ham-fisted take-over of the process; and mebbe a bit
of resentful response on the part of the Boyz.  The first album was sorta
like what laCapra calls 'popular culture', and the second was more what he
calls 'mass culture'.

This is, I submit, why the most oft-uttered sentence in  the English
language is, "not as good as their first album, though".

So, wog-burgers, Never Mind the Bollocks, street-soccer, buskers, grafitti
artists, and Jefferson Airplane are GOOD ...

And BigMacs, Rock'n'Roll Swindle, beach volleyball, The Three Tenors,
billboards, and Jefferson Starship are BAD!

Honestly, if everyone just listened to me, all this critique stuff would be
a lot simpler and we'd have the revo outa the way before you could say
'diffusional pataphysical re-narrativisation of the decentred subject
absolving itself before the simulacra of phallocentric differance."   Maybe
a little sooner ...

Cheers,
Rob.


>
>Before they shut it down, why not Napster a ditty called "Frank
>Sinatra" by Miss Kittin and The Hacker. Vulgarity can be so beautiful!
>
>Doug