Art For Art's Sake

What is it about the U.K. that allows so much good music to be created? Seriously, there has been more good music from that geographic/cultural part of the world than from anywhere else. Why is this?


A couple of years ago, I read that people in the U.K. buy more music per capita than in any other country in the world. It might not continue to be the case, what with Spotify so readily available, but it certainly says something about how they like to spend their time and money.  I can't imagine the U.S. ever being number one in music purchases. 


Which leads me to my next question: why aren't the arts more valued in the U.S.? I guess it would help if we had consistent arts education in our public schools. But, that lack of arts education is just another symptom of our society's lack of appreciation of the arts. Is this another unfortunate legacy of our Puritan beginnings? We don't visit museums, we don't demand arts education for our children, and we don't look for beauty, in general. The older I get, the more I want to be surrounded by beauty, so I'm noticing that there's a serious lack of beauty in most of my day-to-day experiences.


This really saddens me. I've raised 2 children in the U.S. and they've attended regular public schools. I can honestly say that they did not get much in the way of arts education, which doesn't bode well for the future of beauty in America. I have a rather sentimental attitude toward the U.S. and I love the ideals that the U.S. has traditionally represented: freedom, democracy, individualism. This is not to say that we have ever completely lived up to these ideals. We fall short again and again. But this country was founded with a purpose and I, mostly, like that purpose.


Sadly, I don't always agree with other people's interpretations of that purpose. I don't see that capitalism and public funding of the arts can't co-exist. I don't think that freedom and well-funded public schools are opposites. I don't believe that a social safety net turns us into a socialist society.


So, I'm impressed by countries that value beauty and aren't afraid to put some money behind it. I've never really been an Anglophile. If anything, I've been quick to point out how superior America is to the U.K. But their love of music is something I think they got right. 


Here is some music I'm listening to lately by non-Americans:

• "Strange and Beautiful" by Aqualung
• "Seen the Light" and "Pumping On Your Stereo" by Supergrass
• "In the Morning" by The Coral
• "Time and Space" by The Accidental
• "Hoppipolla" by Sigur Ros
• "Ageless Beauty" by Stars
• "Can't Stand Me Now" by The Libertines

A Fish Out Of Water

A few years ago, I moved from Wisconsin to North Carolina, where I had accepted a job. This was a major undertaking, but I was happy to do it because I find North Carolina to be a beautiful place and the town I moved to was on the eastern coast. I can see the bay from my front porch, actually. I can drive to the outer banks in about an hour. There are downsides to the location, too. Nearly every weekend, I drive 180 minutes (roundtrip) just to eat lunch, shop, and maybe get a pedicure or see a movie. It's not that these things aren't available where I live; it's just that there are far fewer choices and the standard is lower.

Culture shock is a funny thing. Before I moved, people in Wisconsin kept telling me that I was in for a shock, but I didn't really think so. After all, I've traveled a bit and I spent a semester abroad when I was in college. What could be so different about North Carolina? It's still in the U. S., after all. I realized, fairly quickly, that I had underestimated the differences.

I experienced culture shock on a couple of levels. First, I honestly struggled, at times, to understand what people were saying.  The accent threw me, particularly when the speaker was talking quickly. Second, the differences between the Midwest and the South are many and varied. People in the Midwest are often serious, but casual. What I mean is, Midwesterners have a reputation for being hard workers who often are to the point in their communication. However, it's also very common for employees to call their supervisors by their first names. Jeans are a common sight in the workplace. Not in every workplace, obviously. You won't find people in jeans in the governor's office, for example. But it's not considered unprofessional to wear jeans in a lot of businesses and places of employment. 

In the South, however, employees often wait to be told by their supervisors to call them by their first names and, even then, many of them prefer not to. Children are generally raised to use "sir" and "ma'am" with adults and many employees also use these terms with their supervisors. That's right - adults call other adults "sir" and "ma'am." And don't even try to wear jeans to work. Granted, I live in a small town in the South, but I had been living in a small town in Wisconsin, too. 

The next level of culture shock, and what I really wasn't prepared for, was how public a role religion plays down here. Let me rephrase that: how public a role certain sects of Christianity play down here. I had entered the Bible Belt. One of the first questions I was asked by my secretary when I started working here was, "What religion are you?" I was dumbfounded. I had never been asked that question at work before. I struggled to even answer because I was so shocked that I'd been asked. This was only the first in a long series of uncomfortable encounters I would have with ostentatious displays of Christianity over the next few years. 


At this point, I need to tell you that my job was that of a high-school principal. I tell you this because the rules of what people are allowed to say, wear, or display in public schools are different than in businesses or other places of work. At least, that's what I was taught. In my course in public school law, the professor made it clear that public school teachers shouldn't even have visible religious jewelry. The courts have consistently seen public school teachers as in unique positions with regard to the right to free speech. They are seen as having great influence over their students. Because of the separation of church and state, the courts expect that teachers will refrain from talking about or displaying their own religious beliefs. This is something that I have always expected and agreed with throughout my career. In my opinion and in my experience, religion is to be taught at home.


In the South, however, it's a different story. Teachers regularly wear jewelry with crosses and display religious items in their classrooms. During my first week on the job, I attended  a meeting where lunch was served. Before we ate, the Superintendent had one of the people at the meeting lead us in prayer. At the start of every School Board meeting, one of the Board members leads a prayer. The particularly painful part of these prayers for me is that they frequently include a reference to "Jesus Christ." These are not non-denominational prayers. And it's not unusual for local government meetings to being with prayer, either. 


The clear difference, for me, is that these things are coming from the adults, not from the students. There is also the issue of compelling someone who is at a meeting to take part in a prayer. Students are free to display their religions and if a student wants to pray before he eats his lunch, he is free to do so. However, would it be appropriate for a student to stand in the cafeteria and ask all the other students to be quiet and not to start eating until he had led them in a prayer? Of course not. Public schools are not supposed to allow anyone to impose religious beliefs or practices on the students. So why would it be OK to impose religious beliefs and practices on someone attending a public government meeting?


This all makes me very uncomfortable. I believe that certain things are private, personal, and not for public discussion or display. Religion is one of those things. If I'm at a party with my friends or family and we talk about religion, that's one thing. But it's very different to talk about it at work or to expect people who are at work to pray with you. The weird thing is that we make a big thing out of religious freedom and the separation of church and state in this country. Yet, there are countries in Europe where there is a state church where you don't find such ostentatious displays of religion. Maybe it happens here precisely because we don't have a state church.

Sonic Thrills

I have aways been affected by sounds.  There are some people's voices that affect me physically, giving me goosebumps or earaches.  There have been many public radio programs that I have listened to, not because I found the content interesting, but because the speaker's voice was so physically pleasurable to me.  There are also people whose voices are so irritating to me that I can't stand to hear them talk. 

Music has always played a very big role in my life because my parents were huge music fans.  They had a record collection that filled a fairly large closet.  My mom once told me that, during the first years of their marriage, they would each buy a record a week.  My mom preferred Frank Sinatra, Burt Bacharach, Herb Alpert, and movie musicals.  My dad liked jazz - Dave Brubeck, Thelonius Monk, Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald.  They also had a good selection of classical music, although no opera.  My sisters and I all took music lessons on various instruments and we played records or the radio nearly all the time.  My mom sang everywhere we went, which was often embarrassing for me.  She also danced almost everywhere.

Throughout my life, I have suffered from ear infections.  As a child, I would have 2-3 ear infections each year.  This gradually became fewer, and, for about the last 20 years, I get an ear infection only once every 3-5 years.  I believe this has contributed to my sensitivity to sounds, although I'm sure there's an element of autism in there, too.  I am more likely to be bothered by loud noises that other people don't mind and there are some types of music that I can't listen to on a car radio without experiencing discomfort bordering on pain.  I love cities, but I have a hard time tolerating the noise levels, especially while walking on a busy city sidewalk.  The combination of the noises of trucks, cars, construction equipment, and people all mixing together makes me very uncomfortable. 

There are other sounds, though, that make me feel very, very good.  Rain, when I'm hearing it through a window screen.  People whispering, when I hear it through a window screen.  A baseball game on the radio, at low volume.  A soda can when it's opened.  Shoes on certain floors and sidewalks (especially in movies).  And, of course, music.  Certain singers or specific vocal performances can send me into bliss. 

Rhett Miller's voice affects me almost every time I hear it.  I'm particularly moved by his voice on "Jagged."  I have no idea why.  I get a thrill every time I hear it.  I love the songs of the Old 97s and of Rhett Miller.  But even when Rhett sings other people's songs, I'm affected by his voice.  Once, when I saw him performing solo in Madison, he did "Can't Help Falling In Love."  It was gorgeous.  I love his voice.  I'd marry it.  I love Colin Blunstone's voice, too.  It sends me every time.  I'm especially fond of "Care of Cell 44" and "This Will Be Our Year."  Beautiful.  Roddy Woomble's voice on "Every Line of a Long Moment" is beautiful.  I don't normally feel anything when listening to him sing, but on that song, I do.  The song, itself, is lovely, but it's his voice on it that I love.  And Jeff Buckley's performance of "I Know It's Over" -- well, you just have to hear it.  It makes me feel very, very, very good.

There are lots of songs that I find especially beautiful, too.  "You Keep Me Hangin' On," by The Supremes, especially the line, "Why don't you be a man about it," and the notes that Diana Ross hits on the word, "man," are great.  How did they do that, anyway?  They must have recorded 2 tracks of her singing the whole thing.  It's a great sound.  I'm always really touched by many Steely Dan songs, like "Doctor Wu" and "Dirty Work."  I'm a sucker for a wistful song, so it's no surprise that I like Steely Dan.

Here is an utterly incomplete list of other songs I find particularly beautiful:
"The Long Way Round," by Badly Drawn Boy
"Since K Got Over Me," by The Clientele
"Baltimore," by Randy Newman
"Unsatisfied," by The Replacements
"Mistaken For Strangers," by The National
"Romeo & Juliet," by Dire Straits
"Un bel di vedremo," from Madame Butterfly
"Mr. November," by The National (although I have reservations about the chorus)
"I Believe She's Lying," by Rhett Miller
"Why I Love Country Music," by Lloyd Cole & The Commotions
"Walk Away Renee," by The Left Banke
"Baby You're Blind," by God Help The Girl (although I'd love to hear Stuart Murdoch sing it!)
"The Loneliness Of A Middle Distance Runner," "Like Dylan in the Movies," and "The Model," by Belle & Sebastian

What sounds/songs/voices do you find beautiful?

The Life of the American Mind

When I think about our intellectual history, I am horribly distressed by the lack of female representation. Granted, it's really only been since sometime in the 20th century that girls and young women have been educated equally with boys and young men, and I know that it takes time to overcome barriers, even after they have been knocked down in legal terms. But reading a book like The Metaphysical Club by Louis Menand really drives home how completely women have been marginalized in academia. In 568 pages of American intellectual history from the Civil War on, all of the players are men.


Nearly all of these men were university professors. They were also other things, such as authors, scientists, lawyers, and judges. But, almost all of them were professors. This is important because our institutions of higher education are designed to allow the faculty to theorize, experiment, and take intellectual risks. Tenure and academic freedom are the protections that allow the American mind to continue to develop and grow. So, for women to become better represented in the life of the American mind, they need to be better represented among the faculties of our universities.

Now I know that women are not the only people who've been marginalized in our society and I'm well aware that other groups of people have suffered much worse fates. But what makes this so disturbing to me is how few people I talk to are bothered by it. Many people truly seem to think that it's no big deal and often say things like, "But that's not an issue anymore.  Women have equal opportunities now."

Yes, women have many more opportunities now than ever in our history. There are women in nearly every career and overt discrimination against women is illegal. But there is still what we could call "inadvertent discrimination." The American Association of University Professors published a report in 2006 on gender equity that showed that, in the 2005-06 academic year, women were 39% of full-time faculty at post-secondary institutions. At institutions that award doctoral degrees (doctoral universities), women were 34.1% of full-time faculty and 46.5% of part-time faculty. In institutions that award only associate degrees, women were 50.8% of full-time faculty and 51% of part-time faculty. These statistics are interesting because 47% of full-time faculty jobs in higher education are at doctoral universities.  


Now compare those statistics to the fact that 53% of those American citizens who were awarded doctoral degrees in 2004 were women. Women earn most of the graduate degrees that are awarded nationwide, yet they are not equally represented among the faculty of these institutions. Why?


In another study called, "Demographic Inertia Revisited: An Immodest Proposal to Achieve Equitable Gender Representation among Faculty in Higher Education," which looked at data from one institution through 1999, the authors found that, barring any changes in hiring practices, it would take 40 years for women to make up 34% of the full-time faculty and 57 years for women to make up 50% of the full-time faculty.


Is this acceptable? 

Fear and Hatred

A few years ago, I read a book called In the Devil’s Snare by Mary Beth Norton.  It’s about the Salem witch panic of 1692 and the author argues that the trials, convictions, and executions of accused witches had more to do with local and regional politics than with anything else.  Over the years, many people have developed theories as to why so many people in the Salem area were accused of witchcraft.  Given that all but one of the accusers were female, and the extremely restricted roles women could play in Salem society at the time, many have speculated that this was an attempt on the part of these women to take some control and get some attention.  Mary Beth Norton does not disagree with that, but she then wonders why the local leaders were so quick to act on the accusations, when the testimony of women was usually given very little weight, and why they reacted so strongly.  Why, for example, did they stick to the belief that a young servant-woman had been tormented by a witch, even after her own employer (a man) testified that she was lying?  Why weren’t they suspicious when, during the interrogation of an accused witch who was vehemently denying the accusations against her, the accuser suddenly became unable to speak?  Her answer is that the leaders had experienced so many military and political failures in the years shortly before 1692 that they saw the witchcraft accusations as an opportunity to appear powerful and successful and to assuage their guilt. 

My interest in this book, however, wasn’t in the big argument that Norton makes; rather, I was taken by the details of the story.  Relations with the Wabanakis, the local native people, were strained because of the First and Second Indian Wars.  There were periodic truces, sometimes initiated by the Wabanakis because they had become dependent on trading with the settlers for cloth, liquor, and corn.  During the hostilities, however, the atrocities committed by the Wabanakis had never been seen before by the settlers.  Entire settlements were wiped out during the wars and non-military families were butchered in their homes.   The survivors were shocked and what they experienced fed the region’s growing hatred of the Indians.  The hatred, obviously, ran both ways and the Wabanakis continued to be angered by the unfair trading practices of the settlers.  Everyone was affected by the wars.  These experiences helped to create the panic that allowed something like the witch trials to occur.  I would describe it as a kind of regional madness in which most of the settlers appeared to be incapable of rational thought.

It’s made me look for similar things that might be happening today.  Obviously, the circumstances today are dramatically different than in 1692, but could it still happen that an entire community (or even worse, a nation) loses the ability to examine, rationally, evidence that contradicts its preconceptions, particularly in a situation with high stakes?   It has happened in modern times in isolated incidents.  The FBI report of the early 1990s about ritual/satanic child abuse allegations and the lack of evidence to support the claims shows that it is still possible for communities to allow their collective fears to overcome the ability to think rationally, especially when religion is involved.  Does this describe, in any way, what's happening now between the Republicans and the Democrats?  Between the Occupy Wall Street groups and CEOs?  Between Republicans and everyone else?