Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.21.1802170130280.1077@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.wvu.edu>, Wryting-L <WRYTING-L@listserv.wvu.edu>
Subject: Justice Music
Date: Sat, 17 Feb 2018 01:37:15 -0500 (EST)
Justice Music http://www.alansondheim.org/nj01.jpg http://www.alansondheim.org/hu.mp3 erhu http://www.alansondheim.org/oar.mp3 older sarangi SVA - Cross-Cultural Human Relations, 2006-7 (not my title) (course assigned to me; I subbed; my notes/direction below) Subject: re: LAST CLASS - please read This coming Wednesday is our last class. These issues concern all of us, no matter what our beliefs - and they'll become increasingly visible as time goes on. My own feeling is that humans aren't programmed to "really listen" to one another - we're programmed instead to survive. But if we don't learn to listen, survival will become increasingly problematic. Maybe Listen! - that might be the only message left. See you Wednesday, and thanks - - Alan genre and canon - The world appeared fixed, clarified, imperial. NOW the world: a. Skein / membrane - social networking - knowledge management of knowledge management. b. Hierarchical in terms of digital phenomena: C:\ - root, absolute truth in the small - relative truth in the large. Postmodernism/deconstruction/entanglement/singularity. Internet - good or bad - My own take: a. First there's obvious access to other cultures' information - presented by participants in these cultures. One might follow 'threads' across the Web. b. On the other hand - who is providing the information? Is there spoofing or phishing involved? But: information that's provided is very likely to be authoritative. But: NGO, religous, or governmental sites may provide formal and biased information. (Cases: North Korea's Radio Pyong Yang, ham radio, Voice of America, Radio Netherlands, BBC.) : WHO is providing information? : WHY are they providing it? : WHAT do they hope to gain from this? : HOW are they providing it (Web style, navigation, etc.) c. On the third hand, the fragmentary nature of online information: how is information parcelled out in general? Can specific/anecdotal online infor- mation replace theory, ethnography, critical studies, etc.? d. Issues of the ECONOMY OF ATTENTION; it's not enough to have the information up - it must attract attention, and hold attention, in a busy online environment. Conservative viewpoint: freedom, personal merit, discipline, prudence, moderation, responsibility, self-restraint, hard work, authority, order, decency, elitism, non-permissiveness. The ascription to the Other of the Inverse of the Self. The assumption of universal rationality, particular traits. But even the syllogism is open to reinterpretation, transformation. The Western view of either radical disconnect or only formal entanglement packets of modernization: carrying: communication modes modes of abstraction and alienation (including plastics, etc.) modes of mobility overarching dialects = language as carrier of power :: slang and lingo implicit colonialist attitudes :: one-way vector :: purity and cleansing :: transportation :: problematic of the granularity of locale :: formal historiography (problem with Sidi Sultan) dissolution of locale, movement to urban centers plastic, for example, as _obdurate._ radio as steering mechanism, external voicing feedback mechanisms (Taos use of Smithsonian accounts) commodification of music and culture: objectification: use of western scales, musics, electricity tourism and dissolution of 'bush knowledge' musical 'reach' within music industry, entertainment industry influence of world-music modeling based on hegemonic culture 'depth' of subcultures, musical cultures: punk, hippy, etc. - Josh White's "invisible colleges" Pamela Tracy: Why don't you act your color? Identifications cutting/colliding across all sorts of boundaries: m/f, black/white, in-group/out-group, musical taste Why does music, among other forms, engender identity issues so strongly? What is music? Does the analysis of modernization apply here: Where does our music come from? Who does our music? Is one form of music 'inherently' better than another? Hebdidge: the recuperation of styles: "conversation of subcultural signs into mass-produced objects" the 'labelling' and re-definition of deviant behavior by dominant groups endless discussion with Myk, can one be punk? resistance and its commodification: CBGB as a case in point. - images from CBGB The complex history, mirroring, and identification of black/white music paralleling the same complex history in relation to Zines. Hebdidge quoting Barthes the petit-bourgeois as a person unable to imagine the other, the other is a scandal which threatens his existence. Two strategies dealing with this: 1 The Other can be trivialized, naturalized, domesticated - Otherness reduced to sameness. 2 The Other can be transformed into meaningless exotica, a 'pure object, a spectacle, a clown.' Here difference is consigned to a place beyond analysis. headings: Style as Intentional Communication, Style as Bricolage, We are surrounded by emptiness, but it is an emptiness filled with signs, Lefebvre first: what is it about dance/music? Primates react, new studies show that infants react, primarily to rhythm - it's built-in - how does an aural environment work: think of sound as second-person, atmospheric, goes around corners, etc. (Fancy-Dancing) Intersecting groups: gendering Jewish/Native American (recital of Kaddish) City/Reservation Traditional musics turned upside-down (becoming topical, similar to griot) - form of resistance, reclaiming tradition: singing as signing: "our" music for example - Papago ownership of songs and song-cycles, giving songs Zines = underground economy. What happened to them? Phrack at http://www.phrack.org/ Scream-Baby http://scotto.org/listing.php?smlid=175 and http://scotto.org/images/screambaby.txt One must remember that most peoples live normal lives in familiar surroundings, and all peoples are modern. 1. The Eden of the Edenic - an unsullied paradise; white hegemonic culture then becomes sullying, but also encapsulating. The Edenic becomes a dominated sub-culture by virtue of the lie; it resists, imitates, and adapts. All of this is clear in the film. The Edenic trope is one of childhood, naivete, goodness, lack of conflict, even lack of culture. The individual is "at one" with nature; nature and culture are one. The culture is self-sustaining and inert; nothing changes. Even sexual display and conflict is non-existent. At the back of this at times there is also the idea of unbridled sexuality. The trope is also one of destruction; the Edenic has no concept of ownership or stewardship; THEREFORE the land is there for the taking. The Edenic has no sense of monotheism; THEREFORE the humans are close to animals, sub-humans. The Edenic has no recognizable boundary, THEREFORE no rationale, no rationalism; it cannot be negotiated with, but property must be seized, and by seizure, created. The lie appears because the Edenic is under erasure just as soon as it's formulated. By erasure: it's divested of power, because it's asserted never to have power, never to have legitimacy. Religion is entangled in this of course. Then - Hatred/racism: What constitutes territorialization: (unspoken) codes: dress skin-color religion language habitus behavior ingroup/outgroup phenomena defense fear employment etc. code projections: dirty filthy over-sexed 'want our women' noisy rapacious greedy secretive etc. the projections are part of the local unspoken code in terms of sexual/personal relationships: race class age religion etc. [linear/structural grid. what happens with deterritorialization, nomadic or situational phenomenologies? feminism and feminist phenomenology: Luce Irigaray, feminin ecriture, fluid mechanics. catastrophe theory: fragility of the good; consider: a chain is as strong as its weakest link under capital, preferential treatment for the wealthy among human relations: tendency towards hardening and generalization of categories (Borges' tree, racial definitions, etc.) - on one hand the necessity of economy on the other the violence of economy what happens when a 'mix' occurs? (Ali's dilemma) double-bind theory - Laing and others fitting-in and not fitting-in and with whom? == Among different nationalities here. But even within the same: Do you ever know what's happening? Language as the mutual orientation of cognitive domains (Maturana) again. messiness precisely brings forth the truth: 1. the world is messy 2. the world is lateral (think of Feynman diagrams) 3. knowledge is grounded in the body 4. the world is abject (always on the verge of falling apart) (unspoken) codes again - dress skin-color religion language habitus behavior ingroup/outgroup phenomena defense fear employment feminism and feminist phenomenology: Luce Irigaray, feminin ecriture, fluid mechanics. Missionary texts: - last week - 1. inerrancy of position based on perceived inerrancy of text 2. skewed projections and introjections - misrecognitions, misinterpretations - but also an inability to self-critique or operate on a 'meta-level.' 3. inability to understand one mythos substituted for another 4. Eurocentric viewpoint: What constitutes an inability to perceive? 5. linear and 'rational' discourse: A leads to B, and so forth It ends here. Some hopelessly naive; I did the best I could. Teaching the problematic or diffuse proved disenheartening. I didn't apply again. +++