<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">one doesn't have to be a right-winger to say these things. one can even be a professor, even a left wing professor, and say the same or worse about academia. But I don't agree with Doug's interpretation of the/any meaning of the lyrics (excerpted below). Liberty is not just a right wing slogan. Moreover, to condemn someone for 'spouting out' that liberty is 'just equality in school', i.e., someone with authority, someone learned, who is dismissing the hopes and dreams of the less learned and less cynical, in relation to this concept -- liberty -- is to condemn pretension, hypocrisy, reactionary impulse, among other things. It is the kind of condemnation someone can make before buying into the/any system. Hence, being 'younger' now, means being more idealistic and less comprised. (I could be wrong, of course, in my interpretation, but the idea that there is something 'obviously' reactionary in this song is too far out, over the top, for me to grasp.) Dylan, in this song, is 'using ideas' as his 'map'. Ideas matter, not what professors say about them -- unless they too have some ideas that anybody should care about. 'Ideas' in the university, for Dylan, amount to the same thing as 'beauty' in the museum -- a form of containment and death -- where 'infinity goes up on trial' and where old people -- even an 'old folks home' (in the college) -- gather. This stuff is reactionary? You must be joking. <DIV><DIV>Louis</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">A self-ordained professor's tongue</SPAN></FONT><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">Too serious to fool</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">Spouted out that liberty</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">Is just equality in school</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">"Equality," I spoke the word</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">As if a wedding vow.</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">Ah, but I was so much older then,</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" face="Courier" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">I'm younger than that now.</SPAN></FONT></DIV> <DIV><BR><DIV><DIV>On May 28, 2006, at 11:25 AM, Doug Henwood wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">On May 28, 2006, at 2:08 PM, andie nachgeborenen wrote:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">In my right-wing days, we thought that</DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Dylan's "My Back</DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Pages" was a great conservative song</DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><<A href="http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/">http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/</A></DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">backpages.html>:</DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Of course it is really more of an anti-political song</DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">I'm always amazed and amused by how Dylan fans - including my father-in-law - don't want to admit to the right-wing content of the song. The way he spits out "equality in school" is not apolitical - it's from someone who hates the very idea. "Liberty" is a very right-wing word. The contempt for professors and abstractions is right out of American right-wing populism.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">National Review isn't entirely wrong about this. There's a deep streak of American individualism in rock and roll, and it's not just Ted Nugent. I love the Kinks (does anyone listen to them anymore?), but their politics are often pretty right wing. The anti-disco moment of punk was full of racism and homophobia. Not in every case, for sure, but it's there.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Doug</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">___________________________________</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk">http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk</A></DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR></DIV></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>