Long Days, Long Months: 3 August

I chafe at the thoughts behind the previous diary entry. Why even conceptualize a strata of art in such a manner - made by women or men? Arab or First American? Thai or Russian? Hindu or Satanist? Granted, sometimes the artists define themselves as such; but we need not heed their self-contextualization.

Nonetheless, living in decidedly non-radical, and therefore non-feminist, times [and, to be fair, non-masculinist also], I appreciate the underdog's perspective, that which suggests sexual, or ethnic, or class imbalances in any sector of society are problems requiring serious intellectual inquiry and practical solutions. The political and social ideals of certain Punk-era artists grate the contemporary listener's ears, and I like most anything most humans consider grating! A sort of "affirmative action" in Rock was once seen as an important facet of a broader sociopolitical ideal the artists involved might willfully pine for, and work toward. Greil Marcus's notion that, after Punk, bands without members of both sexes will seem reactionary, suspicious; or the Black Rock Coalition's hopeful vision of African Americans achieving a status within Rock they hadn't had since Chuck Berry.... they seem like lofty ideals from eons ago. I might not care much for the agendas in question, but I care for their existence.

That said, in the realm of art, ideology is nothing more than... art! Policy and customs too: art! Therefore, those artists who don't involve themselves in such matters owe nothing to society, are not obliged to join any movement or fight any reactionary foe. (If you want a good example of where insistence upon such obligations gets you, see Clive James, who has more autobiographies than he does charming thoughts.) And yet in the political milieu of the top universities and the urban elite during the 1980's, more thought was expended upon Paul de Man's co-operatation with the Nazis who'd conquered his nation than the millions of others who did the same thing. Such is a curious elevation of philosophers, not wished for by the philosophers themselves.