Latest Entries

Dreams Without Fields

About 3 years ago, I read Victor Davis Hanson’s Fields Without Dreams. It is a melancholy book– a requiem for the death of the American family farm, and a dire warning of what this means for our Democracy. The small farm, Hanson argues, functions as a critical component in society, anchoring it and foisting upon it a kind of pragmatic realism that can only spring from experience working the land, toiling in desperate obscurity, and wrestling with the capricious whim of nature. As goes agrarianism, Hanson argues, so goes Democracy.

It might seem that this is a strange message to hear from Hanson, who is otherwise known for his critiques of modern liberalism. These days, he writes for Pajamas Media, doling out harsh words for our current Democratic regime, defending the resurgent Republican party, and supporting free market economics. He is in many ways the poster child for modern neoconservatism, a firebrand who isn’t afraid to attack the slow advance of socialism through our society or to oppose the softening of our foreign policy.

It is perhaps ironic, then, that this article, written as a scathing attack on free-market meritocracy and discussing the decline of Middle America seems to resonate with Hanson’s writing in Fields, even as it directly contradicts his neoconservative views:

>It is no surprise, then, that what Lasch calls the “new aristocracy of brains,” more mobile than ever and indeed committed to a “migratory way of life” as “the price of getting ahead,” has little use for Middle America, which they imagine to be “technologically backward, politically reactionary, repressive in its sexual morality, middlebrow in its tastes, smug and complacent, dull and dowdy.” America’s meritocratic elites, Lasch claims, “are at home only in transit, en route to a high-level conference, to the grand opening of a new franchise, to an international film festival, or to an undiscovered resort. Theirs is essentially a tourist’s view of the world-not a perspective likely to encourage a passionate devotion to democracy”.

Witness Hanson’s similar disdain for our intellectual elite:

>A pampered lot they were, terrified of the ghetto across the freeway, struck dumb by a hammer and nails, left pale and stammering before the formidable blue-collar white repair man. They preached an awfully stern Darwinism. But even those tanned and fit on their Nautilises would be the first to go in any jungle their own models might create.

It is a fascinating study to compare Hanson’s book with Beer’s article, to witness and experience the vast and thundering cognitive dissonance of two pundits, who seem to fall on opposite ends of many spectrums, be they political, social, or otherwise, nevertheless coming to agreement on a central problem that has arisen in American society. Their solutions are different– Hanson argues for limited government protection and financial encouragement for small agrarian communities, whereas Beer seems to advocate equality of outcome through a scathing critique of meritocracy– they describe the problem using almost the same words.

Reading both Hanson’s book and Beer’s article, it is difficult to argue with their assertions about how our society’s increasingly rootless nature is fracturing the democracy upon which it is founded. At the same time, a solution appears impossible. We cannot destroy meritocracy, as Beer argues. Hanson’s notions about the protection of small farms likewise do not address the root problem. (After all, if there is no one who wants to participate in the agrarian sector of our society, government incentives, protections, and subsidies will do little to change that). This is as much a problem of perception as it is political policy.

Perhaps I am sympathetic to its effects because my expertise is, I feel, highly devalued by the free market system. I hold a degree in music theory and composition. I would like to believe that I am pretty good at using it to produce quality music. At the same time, I recognize that, given how little practical value such a skill inherently carries, finding employment in my field is difficult at best, and impossible at worst. (Which is why my current job has nothing to do with it). Right now, I have a degree in my hobby.

Just as it is interesting to see the anti-meritocracy arguments of Beer weirdly line up with the “conservative” arguments of Hanson, perhaps it is even stranger that my own feelings on the matter also align with theirs, if somewhat obliquely. As a musician, I would certainly fall within the ranks of those who Hanson and Beer continually scorn as “the elite”. I grew up in a materially wealthy environment, attended two expensive private schools, and now participate in the arts. I wouldn’t last an hour working in Hanson’s vineyard.

But my career choice is in many ways as doomed as Hanson’s farm. The world has decided that, with hundreds of years of Western music to play and enjoy, it has very little need for new music. My own scribblings and scratchings compete with masterworks of Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach, all of which I gladly admit carry far more merit than my own. Even I would rather listen to Beethoven’s 9th Symphony than California by Curtis Schweitzer.

Yet, once again, I’m faced with a dilemma, because I do believe that new music is important. And I can do little else. Aaron Copland writes in his book What to Listen for in Music that “to a composer, writing music is a natural as eating or sleeping”. He might have added, “is as essential” to a composer, because it is. I am deeply unhappy when I do not create music. But I also understand and believe in the free market, and I am fully aware of how little practical value the creation of music is.

Some people argue with me when I talk to them about this. “The music industry is enormous” they say. They point to my endless rants about the low quality of much of today’s music. “You say yours is better, so why is there a problem?” The problem is, although in a perfect world better=more economically valuable, in our current culture, that isn’t true. In fact, in many cases, the exact opposite is true.

I don’t mean to be a snob here either. I enjoy a lot of today’s “commercial” music. I’ll listen to a Coldplay song, and probably enjoy it. But I do recognize that the music of John Adams– say, “On the Transmigration of Souls”– is infinitely more valuable as a cultural artifact than “Baby got Back”. I don’t have to add it up to tell you whether Sir Mixalot or Adams made more money, even considering that Adams won a Pulitzer.

It might seem that I’m being a bit petulant here, but I genuinely don’t mean to. Quite some time ago, I was willing to accept the situation in which I find myself, and these days I don’t waste energy getting all that frustrated about it. I could have chosen to enter the academic elite that Hanson scorns. For awhile, I even went to grad school.

Perhaps my own scorn for the prison of humanities education stopped me, or perhaps it was the smell of cows in Greeley. I don’t really know. I do know how ironic it is that I was once too disgusted by the perpetuation of an unfair and undemocratic system of intellectual elites and by the unpleasant nature of rural life to continue. I am both unwilling to accept the romanticized agrarian existence that Hanson promotes and sympathetic to his melancholy laments for it. I despise the rootless and feudalistic nature of our ivory towers while at once unable to accept the hard facts of life outside of our comfortable modern society.

All of which is to say: I think there must be some kind of middle ground. Some societal and cultural structure that at once realizes, and therefore protects our, agrarian roots while at once preserving the real values of our meritocracy. Governmental solutions are kludgy at best, and tyrannical at worst, and so I don’t see those as an option.

Hanson and Beer lament our detachment from the past. Both, I think, don’t give enough credit to progress and innovation. Given that we are not in any danger of marveling too little at our own advancement, however, I think that such a mistake is understandable and certainly forgivable. We’ve tipped the balance so far in favor of the future that we don’t even remember how to protect the past. We have decided, together, democratically, that the roots of our democracy aren’t worth preserving.

Like Hanson and Beer, I am fearful of what that means.

DoublePlusGood

Personal Blather, Near-Death Experience Edition

As you may have noticed (per the below photos), it has grown cold here, and once again the bitter winter has set in. We have “late” winters here (it usually doesn’t start getting bad until February/March), which means that all the teasing we’ve endured until now is transforming into what I’ve come to know, officially, as the “really icky stuff”. (No, seriously: just watch the news around here. That phrase is more prevalent among local weathermen than “let’s take a look at our new STORMTRACKER(TM) DOPPLER”). On the plus side, this often means snow days at home by the fire. On the minus side, it also means that the icy lottery of death known colloquially as “the Colorado highway system” has once again kicked into fully gear. More on that later.

This weekend: the annual ski trip. Friends from all over converge on the mountainous regions of Colorado for a couple of days of snow frolicking. That, at least, is the idea: this year, the aforementioned weather made it more than a little interesting.

After heading up from Divide toward Breckenridge, we experienced our first weather-related challenge. Hoosier pass was, in a word, “terrifying”. Imagine a delightful combination of whiteout conditions, steep roads, and excruciating drop-offs curiously unadorned by guardrails. Then mix in a few macho-men driving enormous, diesel-powered trucks capable of accelerating from 0-120 up a 60-degree slope covered in a thick sheet of ice in under 30 seconds. Finally, add a dash of twilight, and you’ve got exactly the recipe for the trip up to the mountains.

We stayed at the friend-of-a-friend’s cabin up near Kremmling. Nice place, which featured the dried carcasses of various game bolted to the walls. (Always the sign of a good Coloradan, or so I’m told). The location was remote, requiring one to drive past several signs reading such lovely things as “Forest Access: No Motor Vehicles Permitted”. As I’m sure you can imagine, the snow certainly, uh, enhanced that experience.

Day 2: Vail. After carefully picking our way down the side of the mountain upon which the cabin was perched, we were soon happily motoring along I-70 toward an exciting day of skiing at Colorado’s premier ski resort. That is, until my 2001 Nissan Pathfinder decided to loose all traction while traveling at 50 mph, causing us to spin right, then left, then right again. When we stopped, we were literally facing opposite the direction of traffic, with the white faces of frightened motorists looking at us, their hands gripped around their steering wheels in the rictus of terror, their feet still slamming down on their breaks.

No harm, no foul, as they say. We got a thumbs up from another driver, who apparently was impressed that I managed to keep the car on the road rather than splashing down in the soft powdered ditches lining the sides of the interstate. At the time, I was unable to appreciate his kindness, what with my body still frozen solid in terror. Still, if you’re reading this (unlikely): thanks. I try.

Not to die, that is.

Skiing conditions were, unfortunately, less than ideal. I crawled the rest of the way to Vail, worried that I would once again find myself having to struggle to keep the car on the road. We were late arriving, and parking was a mess. (Seriously: if you happen to be in Vail management, and also happen to be reading this blog, please fix that. If you’re going to charge $100+ a day, the least you could do is ensure that people have a place to leave the car while they hand over their fistfuls of cash to your waiting minions).

By the time we got on the slopes, the snow was coming down so thick you could barely see. Then the winds kicked up, and it got really bad.

Suffice it to say, I and my cohorts left early, hoping to make it over Hoosier while the sun was still shining. Almost made it, too, but luckily going south on 9 through that deathtrap is far easier than the opposite. We made it home alive.

Barely.

News on the music front: Those of you who follow me on Facebook probably already know this, but The Black Dawn has been green-lighted to air internationally. It is pretty cool to be able to say that my music is being heard in over 20 countries right now.

No, actually, its really cool to say that. I feel kind of famous or something.

The next step in this lovely process is to make sure that the Evil Empire of ASCAP is aware of who to collect for. I’ve never really made money on my music before, so it would be nice to have a check or two to frame as the first. Well, a copy of a check to frame, I suppose. I’d like to deposit that sucker.

Cue sheets are interesting. ASCAP has forms on their website– simple spreadsheets you can fill out and email in. The whole process seems too easy, really: after all, how do I know that its actually working? Unfortunately, I have to wait 9 months to find out.

That’s it for now, folks. Its late on a Thursday, and I’ve got work in the morning. Soon, hopefully, that work will involve the music I write, or at the very least, create. One of these days I’ll figure it out. Or, more likely, someone else will figure it out and I’ll just copy them.

I’ll be sure to let you know when that happens.

Gentle Snow

Winter Trees

Colorado Springs, Colorado.

The First Year

A day after the 2008 election, I wrote:

Look around, for those whom you see standing, still proud of their beliefs; those willing to endure the fire and the shame, willing to silently bear the mocking voice of those who today are victorious over us– they are the True Conservatives. I have looked around, and perhaps never before have I been more proud of my political beliefs. Rumors of the death of Conservatism have, I assure you, been greatly exaggerated.

This sentiment has been (mostly) true until today. With a few, notable exceptions, American conservatives have found themselves at the wrong end of more than a few jokes. They have endured an Administration that cannot admit its own failures, but instead heaps unjust blame upon them, and a media that has been all too willing to prop up the message of the State. No one believed they would be returned to power in 2010, or even 2012. Certainly it would have been laughable, on November 5th, 2008, to predict that we were a little more than a year away from the first Republican victory. The tide is turning much quicker than we thought.

I suspect, however, that as populist conservatism becomes more fashionable, we will see more than a few attempts to hijack it. We’ve already seen Glenn Beck embrace it with gusto, and while his theatrics and pseudo-libertarian angst have done little harm to anyone, I suspect that his ilk are hungry for a chance to hijack the conservative movement for their own ends.

The GOP establishment, too, has shown little competence since Obama took office. The Hoffman/Scozzafava incident is proof enough that they are all too willing to sacrifice ideology for the sake of re-acquiring power. This would be understandable if their constituents in that district were willing to elect a liberal Republican, but as we saw, there were enough conservatives willing to stand up to the GOP that the Party elite’s willing deafness ultimately lost them a seat.

With Brown, it was different. Brown is actually to the left of Scozzafava, but the difference is, his constituency doesn’t mind. And the GOP’s tactics in Massachusetts were far more intelligent than in New York. The GOP quietly dumped money into the campaign early on, and the Brown campaign seized the opportunity to execute what was, for all intents and purposes, a surprise attack on the lackadaisical Democratic establishment in Massachusetts. Think of the waste they must have incurred dumping funds into the Coakley campaign, even as it became more and more apparent that it was the candidate, not the campaign war chest, that was the problem.

Still, this is a far cry from a reformed GOP establishment. While it is a victory– and a major victory– that Scott Brown will fill Ted Kennedy’s seat, this does not mean that the elites in the GOP have full rights to take control of the anti-Obama backlash that has cut short a dangerous Democratic supermajority. There are many in the GOP who realize that, now that their party is “popular” again, they have a chance to grab a lot of power in the coming elections. If they are allowed to do so, we may never see the Republican resurgence we are hoping for.

Today, conservatism (or at the very least, anti-progressivism) is popular again. That is both a blessing and a curse. It is worth remembering that, less than a year ago, we were still picking up the pieces. We were still trying to comprehend the magnitude of our defeat. We cannot forget the sting of defeat, even today, while we celebrate our victory.

After all, that is the very mistake that the Democratic Party made in the wake of 2008. And they are paying for it– dearly.

The Rise and Fall of Barack Obama

I don’t know if Scott Brown will win today. The intelligent and informed among us say yes, even when they don’t support Scott Brown. As for me, count me skeptical. We’ve seen too many close elections swing left or right in the closing hours of the race for me to feel comfortable making any kind of prediction. Conservatives have been here before, (See: Coleman v. Franken), and in those cases, gloating before the votes were counted turned out to be a grave mistake indeed. Martha Coakley, after all, could see a significant resurgence. It might be highly unlikely, but its still possible, and it wouldn’t take much to tip the election in her favor.

I am apparently far more optimistic about Coakley’s chances than the Democratic Party. They, however, are far more optimistic about the chances of their signature Healthcare Reform initiative passing in the event of a Brown victory. Which is to say, although they seem to have all but conceded the election to Brown, they nonetheless plan to ignore this clear, clarion “no” to healthcare reform and charge, full speed ahead, with their plans to enforce dependency on the State and thereby maximize their own power.

This, I might add, flies in the face of everything Obama built his campaign on. We were told that the “post-partisan” era would be free of dirty tricks (like the promised delay in Brown’s nomination). We were told it would reduce the influence of lobbyists (why then, is Martha Coakley and the entire Democratic Party so eager to get healthcare lobbyist’s money?). We were told that we would move “beyond” that which we disagreed with, and that Obama would forge a new bipartisan consensus. Yet we’re faced with a nation just as divided as it once was, and a Democratic regime that has, time and again, inflamed passions, insulted its critics, and generally done more to push our major parties apart than any President in recent memory. Even Bush showed a modicum of respect to his political enemies during his first year in office (see the entire ideology of “compassionate conservatism”). Obama’s approach is simply, “I won”.

The great divide between the promises of Obama and the realities of his governance are no small thing, and they certainly play more than a small role in the astonishingly quick erosion of the Democrat’s political fortunes over the past year. Who would have thought, after all, that, a year after the election of “the Lightworker”, Ted Kennedy’s vacant seat would appear to be a lock for a Republican, and, more than that, a Republican whose campaign was based on a promise to vote against Kennedy’s most cherished initiative? Who would have thought that the support Ted Kennedy so willingly gave to Obama during the Democratic primaries in 2008 would prove to be the very reason his Massachusetts seat changed ideological hands?

Perhaps it is early to ask those questions, but, on the first election day of 2010, with votes still to be counted both in Congress and in the chilly state of Massachusetts, that they are plausible is telling enough. Obama’s honeymoon is over. His “historic” path from political unknown to the White House is drawing to a close.

We once called Obama’s career “meteoric”. If a few more Scott Browns manage victories across the country, we may very well soon be calling it a crater.



Copyright © 2004–2009. All rights reserved.

RSS Feed. This blog is proudly powered by Wordpress and uses Modern Clix, a theme by Rodrigo Galindez.

Switch to our mobile site