Before I attempt to write the next segment of this serial book, let me just make a few comments and responses. First, I was very pleased to see LFC refer to Robert Heilbroner. I got to know Bob while I was teaching at Columbia and liked him enormously. I think because he wrote in a clear, mostly non-technical style, he was not taken as seriously as he ought to have been by his fellow economists. I have some nice memories and stories about Bob, but I will let those pass for the moment.
I have spent much of the morning thus far watching the launch of the penalty phase in the civil suit against the Trump organization. That followed a good many hours on C-SPAN last week watching the House tie itself up into knots. Since I am now, in the aftermath of my bout of Covid, significantly diminished in my ability to get about, I spend even more time than usual sitting in front of my computer or watching television in the kitchen while perched on my electric scooter. I vacillate between being convinced that the Republicans will be wiped out in the election next year and terrified that we shall see the end of such democracy as we have known it in the United States.
Here is an odd fact. For the entire month of September, Google tells me that the daily visits to this blog were between three times and seven times as numerous as usual. Suddenly, starting I believe yesterday, the number dropped from between 5000 and 10,000 to roughly 900. I have no idea what this means, but it seems obvious to me that it has nothing at all to do with the number of actual human beings who visit the blog each day.
Finally, am I the only one who had no idea who Taylor Swift was before all the fuss began?
45 comments:
I know who she is, but I have never knowingly listened to one of her songs.
To understand someone today not knowing who Taylor Swift is (or not having heard any of her songs), consider what it would have been like to be someone born in 1880 not knowing who The Beatles were.
It's not surprising that someone born in 1880 wouldn't have known who The Beatles were, but you'd almost certainly have to have been born in 1880 not to have known.
You've got a lot of catching up to do. Yesterday I grabbed some click-bait for a Rolling Stone 'article' ranking worst to best Swift's 237 (!) recorded songs. One peculiarity was that the gushing for #237 was nearly identical to that of #1. It was like Nietzsche's wisecrack about Wagner's prose: the content could be reduced to 'she's the best at everything; what she doesn't do isn't worth doing; how fortunate we are to be on earth at the same time Tay Tay flits about it."
I've heard, I think, only a bit of T. Swift, and that bit did not make any kind of impression. So, a question: is there anything musically interesting about her songs, or is what appeals to people the lyrics (which are sometimes autobiographical, I gather) and her persona, for lack of a better word? (And if there is something of musical interest, what is it?)
LFC:
As you perhaps recall, I'm an internet-type expert on Swift, as I've listened to one of her albums twice and wrote a blog spoof-questionaire on her. Her talent, charisma, and magic are lost on me; I can only give her the weakest compliment that I'd much rather listen to her than to Judith Butler. As I understand it, the short answers to your questions are: 1. Musical interest? Nothing. 2. Interest in the lyrics? She ain't no Irving Berlin, but she listens carefully to the contemporary vernacular diction and speech rhythms. She's noticed (a) the tendency to speak in short sentences or sentences fragments and (b) the pull towards monosyllabic words. Now, a feature of (b), taken up in written poetry or in lyrics, is a tendency (in English) NOT to dictate any particular rhythm, but rather to allow great latitude for the reader (in poetry) or singer (in lyrics) to place stresses at will (on this see for example, Derek Attridge's The Rhythms of English Poetry, p. 15). She can then align as she wishes short strings of monosyllables with proto-rhythmic motifs (that sound to me like the aural equivalents of Brownian motions, but whatever). She can also leaven the sections organized by motifs with kinds of breaks or quasi-caesuras of spoken lines, which introduce a kind of sassiness and directly solicit audience identification (say it along with her; repeat it to your friends or at your enemies). The sections (3 or so per song) can then be juxtaposed against other for variety, though correlatively without possibility of significant development, but thereby forming a 4-minute-or-so song (Multiply x 237). The employment of this compositional technique then resonates with the audience's TikTok sensibility favoring strings of strongly delimited 15-45 second Gestalts. 3. Appeal? As I put it in my blog piece, the persona is something like a a jaded 25-year-old woman and her vocabulary expressing thoughts and sentiments typical of 15-year-old girl. I take it that that appeals to her audience, from age 10 on, who are importantly formed in the emotionally and cognitively de-skilled world of social media and the internet. It might also have something to do with the fact are by their most basic features non-danceable. So much of popular music globally since disco has been closely tied to dance styles (house; EDM; South African gqom; etc.), and perhaps Tay Tay offers an e-equivalent of a rocking chair. P.S. Someone recently sent me something that quoted my blog description of her songs as sounding as if there were a war of synthesizers and drum-kits going on in the background. The quoter claimed that my characterization captured something of the disordered psyches of today's youngsters; so maybe that's part of a big-picture explanation.
Pet Rock.
John Rapko,
Thank you for the analysis. (I'll just leave it at that, for now at any rate.)
She respects unions, treats her staff well, registered 35,000 voters in one day, and seems to regularly own the Right - so there's that.
That is the best explanation I’ve read of the TS Juggernaut and it tells me why I find this music so curiously non-assimilable.
Non-assimilable ... *for now* anyways … [sfx: ominous music]
But should I find myself, one of these days, finally cognitively and emotionally de-skilled and suddenly tapping along to one of her songs on the radio, will I know that it’s cyanide pill time? Or will I (like Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers) simply take up my place among the “Swifties”?
Ms Swift was the subject of one of the lesser known Socratic dialogues: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/taylor-swift-a-socratic-dialogue
I think some commenters on this blog would do well to remember what old people have had to say about young people's music since, quite literally, the time of the ancient Greeks.
What makes this group of elders so sure that this time the youth's taste in music really is a harbinger of societal collapse when old people have been wrong about exactly that question since time immemorial?
Should Professor Kershnar be banned from teaching at college because of his negligent remarks concerning consensual sex with a minor? I believe he should be banned. Read about it in #5 of Marc Susselman's further comments at my website here:
http://michael.www2.50megs.com
As far as I can tell, there's nothing in what I or others said, assumed, or implied about Swift's music and its prominence to indicate we thought it signaled impending societal collapse. Such collapse in the coming decades will rather more likely be induced by some combination of unrelieved neoliberalism, resurgent fascism, ecocide and mass extinctions, insecticide, desertification, industrial pollution, rapid global warming, pandemics, and nuclear war. On the contrary, I think that some of young people's music (and dance) is the hope for the planet. The Jerusalema dance craze was for me the best and most hopeful cultural phenomenon during the pandemic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=613A9d6Doac&ab_channel=AdilsonMaiza. More recently there's this from Yalta (!) a few months ago, which might bring peace to that troubled region: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzSXbHsGpSA&list=PLOZOUMzy0XjxfkVMWg-VpIUp_MQfKS6P8&ab_channel=YaltaSummerJamHipHopFestival
I can't access the NYT because I'm not a subscriber.
However, no, I don't believe that anyone should be banned from teaching college because they advocate sex with minors.
What the age of consent should be seems to me to be a legitimate subject of discussion.
I myself don't have a definite opinion on exactly what the age of consent should be, but there's a lot of Victorian moralism on this topic and an open discussion of it is welcome.
Michael Llenos
I can't access your website but from what I know of the Kershnar case it's a complete and obvious violation of his academic freedom. (I believe that is Leiter's position on the matter btw also.)
As I understand it, Kershnar does not favor changing the law that criminalizes sex with minors. He raised some philosophical questions on a podcast that were in line btw with what he has written previously. The remarks went viral, and the president of the university where Kershnar was an award-winning teacher decided to relieve him of teaching duties on grounds of "security."
It's ridiculous and an obvious violation of Kershnar's First Amendment rights (because it's a state university) and his academic freedom. The university admin just capitulated to an electronic mob. Kershnar has filed a suit and I would be surprised if he doesn't prevail.
I don't know what M. Susselman's view is bc, as I said, I can't access your website (or at least haven't been able to in the past).
p.s. Kershnar did not "advocate sex with minors." He raised some philosophical questions about the subject. He wasn't punished by his university when he expressed his views in writing, but as soon as his remarks on the podcast went viral (via TikTok or Twitter (X), I forget which), he was punished. The university was just concerned about its supposed image and public relations. But of course it had to gin up another reason bc you can't relieve a tenured professor of teaching duties indefinitely for PR reasons.
ML -- Also this whole Kershnar thing is completely off topic. At least Taylor Swift was mentioned in the OP.
I'm a little startled (even as a 75 year old) at the overdone disdain for Taylor Swift. As to Kershnar, it would be good to get the facts right. He doesn't advocate sex with minors, he disapproves of it and approves of (pace details) laws against it. He was initiating a discussion about the moral grounds for disapproval. I imagine that such a discussion would involve what "willing" implicates, what *consent* means in various contexts, not to mention various empirical issues about harm. Working out the grounds for our moral disapproval might actually be interesting. We might be wrong, we might right, there might be real cultural variables, etc. Who knows until you ask. As it happens, not my field. So, what LFC said.
"Michael Llenos website link..."
ML - Just to be clear, I enter the url of your site but for some reason can't connect to it. These things happen, I guess. Cd be something on my end. No matter. (Apparently everyone else who might want to connect to it can do so.)
Using a phone or tablet, you press on the link with your finger. Using a laptop or desktop, you click on the link with a mouse button.
The only thing I have known about Taylor Swift was that ever since Kanye West made a scene during her MTV Video Music Awards acceptance speech in 2009 it has been just about impossible to live in the US and not hear at least some of her music, intentionally or not. You can't shop, you can't listen to a pop radio station while driving and not hear some Taylor Swift.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuNIsY6JdUw&t=113s
And until now I had been content to remain blissfully unaware of anything else about Taylor Swift.
Prof Wolff posted a comment during the media hysteria over a Chinese balloon that Biden ordered shot down, Feb 4, 2023.
https://robertpaulwolff.blogspot.com/2023/02/get-life.html
Recall that at the time establishment media outlets like the NY Times were only too happy to echo Biden admin officials in calling the balloon a Chinese "spy balloon," despite China's insistence that it was merely a civilian meteorological balloon that had been blown off course:
"WASHINGTON — The United States shot down a Chinese spy balloon on Saturday that had spent the last week traversing the country...."
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/04/us/politics/chinese-spy-balloon-shot-down.html
Remember how many front-page articles were published and how many news broadcast hours were spent on this story?
Has the Pentagon's late admission that there has been no evidence the balloon collected any intelligence information gotten anywhere near as much coverage?
Now, seven months later, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, tells "CBS News Sunday Morning" the balloon wasn't spying. "The intelligence community, their assessment – and it's a high-confidence assessment – [is] that there was no intelligence collection by that balloon," he said....
The balloon had been headed toward Hawaii, but the winds at 60,000 feet apparently took over. "Those winds are very high," Milley said. "The particular motor on that aircraft can't go against those winds at that altitude."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-bizarre-secret-behind-chinas-spy-balloon/
Finding reliable soccer streams sites can be tricky, but reddit soccer streams never disappoints.
ML
Well, it worked this time, from my phone.
No idea what 'overdone disdain for Taylor Swift' refers to. I've also asked quite of few 'young' people (ages 19-39) what they think of Swift's music. The great majority replied with a shrug of the shoulders. A few said "I hate it."--For a positive take from a philosopher, here's a piece by Crispin Sartwell. It turns out that it's absolutely wonderful for bonding with a teenage daughter: https://www.splicetoday.com/writing/taylor-swift-as-the-soundtrack-of-a-father-daughter-relationship
You may think that examination of the Taylor Swift phenomenon may be infra dig, and you may be right. But consider this: Taylor Swift, the NFL, the Daily Mail, legacy broadcast media, TikTok, Instagram, the NFL, Fox News, Monster Trucks, Spotify, et cetera, are all emanations of the culture industry … as is everyone’s acknowledged bete noir, Donald J. Trump!
And trying to figure out the Trump phenomenon by looking at electoral politics is like trying to figure out a car crash without looking 30 yards down the road (where the deer tracks and skid marks are).
I don’t WANT to listen to “Shake it Off” (in fact I had to recover by listening to Fela Kuti afterwards), I feel like I’m obliged to.
John Pillette--
My last word here on Swift: as my beloved late mentor Felipe Gutterriez said, one should know Swift's 'Shake It Off' just as a piece of the most basic 21st-century cultural literacy. While almost anything by Fela will quickly cleanse one's ears of Swift, personally I've found that this clip of Fela and his dancers live, starting around 4'18", will work to banish almost any negative thought: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si0_ufBUVuQ&ab_channel=zookat
I had never listened to Swift, but I just tried "Shake if off" in Youtube, labeled the
"official video" and by 1:15 I was bored and irritated.
She's not the new Mick Jagger or Aretha Franklin or still less Bob Dylan. If that shows my age, she's not the new Frank Sinatra or Billy Holliday either.
And here’s my last word on TS: the most interesting fact about her is where she chooses to spend her off hours. Not in some tacky SoCal “MTV Cribs” style bolt hole McMansion in Calabasas or some suchlike place. She lives in a big waterfront house in Watch Hill, R.I.! She probably even belongs to the Misquamicut Club.
So Swift’s natural milieu (where she came from and her resting place) is the suburban country club upper middle class—which, despite our current levels of Democratic self-delusion, skews very Republican. Neo-Rockefeller liberal-Republican perhaps, but Republican nevertheless. So her encouraging her fanbase to “register to vote” is probably a net negative for our side, because nearly all of those tween girls are going to end up voting just like their mothers.
Since neo-Rockefeller Republicans are close to extinct, at least at the natl level, where do those voters go? Probably not to any candidate who pledges to sign a federal (i.e. national) abortion-restriction bill.
Abortion is only "restricted" for the worthless no-counts who can't afford a way around it. If Muffy Fairborn gets knocked up during her first semester at Duke or Ole Miss, trust me when I say that her folks back East are going to find a way to fix the problem. I could be wrong, but I doubt that this or any other cultural issue is going to cause her folks (or Muffy herself, as soon as she graduates and becomes a PR girl in NYC, engaged to a nice boy who works on the bond desk at Credit Suisse) to reverse their multigenerational habits and vote Democrat.
Tweens can't vote of course but given that millennials trend left (esp. women) and women in the suburbs are in play, I like the odds. I believe TS owns several homes and its normal for folks with a nine or ten figure net worth to own homes (pl.) in the seven to eight figure range.
Some exclusive CCs won't take entertainers but why care?.
(Not sure why the shade on Calabasas. Malibu is on the ocean side of the mountains. Much of the area is protected and there are some killer properties.)
As for the music...why listen...I don't.
Golly, all the hating on our betters. Anyway, given how some states are writing there anti-abortion laws everyone who is pregnant is affected regardless of social status. Vigilante and travel laws as well as enabling prosecutors to second guess medical decisions affect everyone. JPs point is valid only for a subset of pregnancies. As for voting habits, some things concentrate the mind more then others.
Yeah, yeah, I know, all the Dems have to do is sit back and wait for the demographic trends to bend their way. When and where have we heard this before? In 2016 Hillary was convinced she could convince all those Bucks County Karens to switch sides, and so she duly blew off campaigning in the tacky parts of the state.
Which was just as well, because the Dem platform has nothing (culturally or otherwise) for anybody below the level of the middle class. They could have fixed the abortion issue when they had the chance, but of course then it would no longer serve as a live "issue".
As for how millennials “trend”, I’m personally kind of worried about that, considering that a lot of these kids seem to me like narcissistic little monsters …
To John Pillette,
As an Ole Miss student in the seventies, I can deposition attest that I knew of "at least" 24 sorority sisters of upwardly mobile social climber families transported their daughters out of state or country for abortions. Most were not East Coast legacies, but true "Southern" girls with valuable husband prospects.
OMG, a woman commenter! FINALLY and Thank Fucking God. Talk about reversing demographic trends! Please for the love of God say more!
Maybe it's not very welcoming to greet a female commenter with a gratuitous expletive? Masculinism strikes again?
"They could have fixed the abortion issue when they had the chance..."
When was that? The House passed two bills doing that in 2022 but the Dems didn't have sufficient seats in the Senate. I will again point out that, in the past 91 years, there have been eight years and a few months in which the Democrats have had sufficient majorities to pass significant social legislation given our constitutional and institutional constraints.
The law enforcement situation then re: abortion was quite different then the current situation.
Sorry, I just got TOO EXCITED at the prospect of an ACTUAL HUMAN FEMALE showing up at our sausage party!
Agreed that "masculinism" (haven't heard that one before) is a problem round these parts. Honestly, the Professor must feel like Father Flanagan, b/c this place is like Boys Town.)
I'm open to tips (heh) on how to emasculate myself, now that my mother and yenta ex-wife are no longer around to do it for me (I'll be here all week, folks! Don't forget to tip your waitress!)
Re: abortion, I should have said, "they could have TRIED to fix" it. But more to the point, they could also try to be BETTER AT POLITICS and then the problem wouldn't arise, now would it?!?
Agreed but actual politics is difficult if not impossible under an ideological dispensation and that has been our lot since Vietnam and the 60's civil rights legislation hastened the end of the New Deal consensus. Sadly, the "70s neoliberal and neoconservative heel turn has been ruinously persistent.
Here’s a very good and relevant article: How Do We Survive the Constitution? https://www.newyorker.com/books/under-review/how-do-we-survive-the-constitution
John & Anonymous,
No offense, but sorry to disappoint going forward. This erstwhile demoiselle is merely a philosophy voyeur, though my Jane Austen days are not quite over :-)
Coda: I just came across this. It turns out that Taylor Swift is also good if you're in prison: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/listening-to-taylor-swift-in-prison--I was reminded of Paul Feyerabend saying that he didn't care for Waiting for Godot, but was impressed that there was a gripping prison production of it.
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