Take It Back
I spent part of the morning talking with a good friend of mine in a wide-ranging conversation that spanned the Beatles, an excellent YouTube channel by Rick Beato, and the decline and fall of pop culture.
I was reminded that my cousin had somehow convinced my father into letting him take me to the Beatle’s concert at the Sam Houston Colliseum in the mid-1960s. I was a small child at the time, but it was my first concert experience and it made an impression, though I had no concept of the historic nature of the experience until years later.
Concerts, like all cultural events at the time, were a very different experience. The band wore matching suits and the audience dressed up for the occasion. For the most part, folks sat calmly in their seats, with the exception of a few teenie-boppers crowding the stage. The volume was well within the human hearing range and the band more or less stood on their spike marks and didn’t destroy a single instrument, nor did anyone throw anything at them. By comparison to contemporary gang bangs, it was positively civilized.
The intervening 60 years have seen the popular culture decline nearly to the point of utter collapse. The quality of art, music, theatre, and film is nearly an oxymoron at this point. Drama is little more than costumed performers reciting political talking points in different settings and contexts.
Music has become monotonous repetitions of refrains with no life to it that I can detect. I haven’t seen a feature film produced in the last seven years, but if Nerdrotic, Doomcock and The Drinker are any guide, I haven’t missed anything. As for art and sculpture, they dove into the Abyss decades ago.
In the conversation this morning, I noted how the Beatles had risen to fame on the backs of standard pop ballads, with two verses, two choruses, a bridge and final chorus. However, as the band evolved, they experimented with modal changes, complex arrangements and orchestrations, sound loops, layered channels, and atypical structures.
This led to an entire era in pop music with non-standard structure - unusual chord progressions, interesting timing, and complex orchestrations. The Who created rock operas; Pink Floyd created albums with no breaks between songs; bands like Yes, the Moody Blues and Iron Butterfly created long-format compositions. Bob Dylan and Cat Stevens wrote epic ballads lasting 15 to 20 minutes.
I can’t think of a single “artist” since the turn of the century that has produced anything resembling “Desolation Row,” or “Foreigner Suite”. Certainly nothing on the scale of “Tommy” or “Quadrophenia”. Even the relentless pop offerings of Elton John seem positively operatic when compared to Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, or their ilk.
Heck, I’d sooner limit myself to Cyndi Lauper’s catalog, than subject myself to Cardi B, Myke Towers, or Dua Lipa.
I suspect there is a direct relationship between the decline in pop culture and the crashing IQs of the average human. The intricate mathematical constructs of fine art and music challenge the mind to consider new vistas and interpret layered subtleties. The processed pablum that passes for art now requires no thought at all, and is designed to slide past any cognitive functions of any kind. It’s flavorless texture with zero nutritional content and no challenges for the palette.
Raising my children at the turn of the century was an intellectual minefield. Trying to do it now is inconceivable. The only part of the mind stimulated by the current milieu is a person’s emotional hind-brain. There is nothing for the mind to chew on, so its teeth have withered and vanished. The contemporary culture is little more than sucking slime through a straw - paper of course - and even that is becoming a challenge beyond the ken of modern 20-somethings.
It’s tempting to lay the blame for this decay at the feet of the Boomers and Xers - I stand on the cusp with a foot in each. But when I look at the artistic output of the Beathniks and the Hippies, I see far more complexity and depth in our output. If I can lay a finger of blame on anything, it would be the crass commercialism and unabated democratization of art.
We have allowed our culture to become disposable products, used for a time and discarded for the next version - a supposed upgrade, but actually just re-wrapped leftovers. We stopped demanding innovation and originality, and settled for vending machine art with no eternal value or layered meaning. Venus de Milo became Marilyn Monroe, who gave way to Farah Fawcett, who was replaced with whatever eye candy was on sale that day.
Pablum.
If a vibrant culture is a matter of standing on the shoulders of giants, then we find ourselves now teetering on the shoulders of dwarves. The only question that should occupy our social discourse is whether we can redeem what we have lost.
Instead, we find ourselves endlessly arguing over inconsequential pronouns and sweating over the definition of a woman. The sickness of self-inflicted harm has been institutionalized and glorified, with the concomitant lucrative revenue streams. Our youth are consumed with eternal gratification, rather than pondering the depths of existence and the music of the spheres.
Is there hope? I can not answer that question. The older I get, the more I despair of reviving a Great Society. Instead, I watch our world sink into the muck of irrelevancy, without a thought toward posterity. Our world has become eight slices of blueberry pie set in front of a table of ravenous trolls all out to grab as much as possible, not thinking that learning to make the pie would ensure an endless supply for everyone.
I apologize for the rather downbeat mediation on this October Wednesday. I suppose it stands as an alarm bell to act soon or lose the opportunity to retrieve our society from the jaws of decay.
The only way forward I can see is to cut off consumption of corporate slime. These lifeless golems feed on profits and have no consideration for long term non-monetisable benefits. They mindlessly crank out whatever will bring the greatest financial reward, and could care less about elevating the human spirit and condition.
To end on a positive note, we can easily fight commercialization and being treated like crops to be harvested. We saw the power of targeting (pun intended) specific brands, now extend that effort to every major corporation. Make a conscious effort to eliminate megacorps from our lives. Seek out Mom and Pop shops and local producers. Use our purchases to support individuals first, then sole proprietors, co-ops and local partnerships next.
The real sacrifice comes for parents of school-aged children. Get them out of corporate schools. You could buy one of those old Great Books series published by Britannica and have your children read and discuss them, and their education would be lightyears beyond the zoos that are school today. Hardest of all, get all screens away from them - no games, shows, or socmed. Make the home a sanctuary of sanity - and of course, lead by example.
I am not saying you must adopt a monastic lifestyle, though by comparison it would be close. We must, however, acknowledge that we are under full assault. They are replacing our culture with saccharin look-alikes that are both toxic and have none of the nutritional value of the real thing.
It’s not easy. The cancer has metastasized into the remotest corners of our lives, but with a little effort and some sacrifice, great things can be achieved. The key to success is as simple and close to hand as our wallets.
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