Roger Taylor. Art an Enemy of the People. 1978

PHILOSOPHY NOW

General Editor: Roy Edgley

English-speaking philosophy since the Second World War has beendominated by the method of l inguistic analysis, the latest phase ofthe analytical movement started in the early years of the century.That method is defined by certain doctrines about the nature andscope both of philosophy and of the other subjects from which itdistinguishes itself; and these doctrines reflect the fact that in thisperiod philosophy and other intellectual activit ies have been increas-ingly monopolised by the universit ies, social institutions with aspecial role. Though expansive in the number of practit ioners, theseactivit ies have cultivated an expertise that in characteristic ways havenarrowed their f ield of vision. As our twentieth-century world hasstaggered from crisis to crisis, English-speaking philosophy inparticular has submissively dwindled into a humble academicspecialism, on its own understanding isolated from the practicalproblems facing society, and from contemporary Continentalthought .

The books in this series are united by nothing except discontentwith this stage of affairs. Convinced that the analytical movementhas spent its momentum, its latest phase no doubt its last, the seriesseeks in one way or another to push philosophy out of its ivorytower.

Other books in the Series:Ptl lI-OSOPHY AND ITS PAST: Jonathan Rtu. Mit 'hael,4 vers, Ada nr l|/es t o b_t,RLJI . ING ILLUSIONS: Anthon.v Ski l lenSARTRF: Istt,an Meszaro.sSOCIAT- SCIENC-E AND SOCIAL IDEOLOGIES: Rot BhaskharFRFFDO\4 AND I - I I IERATION: Beniamin Gibb.sHECEI- 'S PHENOMENOI.OCY: Richard Normun

Art anEnemy

of the People

ROGER TAYLORUniversity of Sussex

TFIE ITARVESTER PRESS

Fi rs t pub l i shed in 1978 byT H E H A R V E S T E R P R E S S L I M I T E D2 Stanford Tcrrace, Hassocks, SussexPu bl isher: John Snier.s

O Rogcr Tav lo r , 1978

Brirish Librar.v Catoktguing in Publication Dara

- f a1Jor , Roeer

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A l l r igh ts rcserved

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CONT EN TS

Methods of Thinking and Methods of Work

Correcting Mistaken Ideas about Art and Culture

The Fraudulent Status of Art in N{arxism

A Warning of the Corrupting Influence ol ArtCul ture

I2959

Popular89

For Len Taylor, mY father

rII

Chapter One

METHODS OF THINKINGAND METHODS OF WORK

This book is about art and phi losophy. To say this is,ther:by, to put i t beyond the reach of the masses. By ' the

mas ses' I mean the mass of people in my ou'n society, as Ikno' .v i t . As an academic I have l i t t le more than vaguerelai ionships with members of the masses. Those rvi th whomJ ha ve such vague relat ionships include, to make the pointr i v id , the pos tman, the mi lkman, the re fuse co l lec to rs , thosen'hc come to service i tems l ike washing machines, peoplert ho work in shops, people who sel l vehicles and neighboursn' i rr : work, for instance, in the bui lding trade and the pol iceIo rc : : . For such peop le tha t th is book is about a r t anc iI t l r i l r sophy . more as a mat te r o f I 'ac t than sur rn ise , pu ts the[ro,r < be] 'oncl their reach. T'his is diseclncertrng. Can an.vthin_sir( ' {" : i l te aborrt i t?

I r beg in u i th , the prob lenr i s no t con f ined to what one; ;L rg . ' r t rv ish t r . . a t tempt in one 's bc tok . The prOt l len i e tx tcnds tol i t . ; r , rub l i shers and the i r concept o f a book . I r i s un th inka t r lei i tat a publ isher rvould conceir ,e of a book on art ancli r l r i i r sop l ty as be ing marke tab le to the genera l readersh ip o fl l tc i l rzr ne\\ 'spaper. El 'en a 'coffee table' historv of art and; , l r i l r sop l i l ,wou ld no t be a imed a t the genera l Sr rn reader . l t! ' . p , )ss ib lc one might induce readersh ip i l ' the pages o f t t reir i l i r " , l ryspg l iberal ly interspersecl with photographs of good-l . r r1 f in t men and women, in var ious s ta tes o f undress ,i l l u r - ra t ing (humourous ly ) po in ts in the tex t . Persona l ly , I

2 Art an Enemy of the People

would find this desirable, and would buy many more theore-tical books than I do if they were standardly presented in thisway. However, in general, there is a reluctance in thepublishing world to mix modes like this. Books on art andphilosophy etc. constitute the holy side of the publishingbusiness, offering publishers a sense of recompense for whatthey are likely to regard as the dirtier side of the business.The fact that I can countenance a mixing of modes in thisway says, indirectly, quite a lot about how art and philo-sophy will be approached in this book.

The idea of bridging some cultural gap normally springsfrom missionary motives. It is for this reason that murmursof disapproval would greet this book i f i t was to includet i t i l lat ing pictures. My intent ions, however, are ant i-missionary. To state my position in its most challenging formI hold that art and phi losophy are enemies of the masses.Therefore, i t is not my intent ion to br ing art and phi losophyto the masses, but, rather, arm the masses against them. I t isfor this reason that I would have the masses read this book.As things stand the masses, somewhat shamefacedly, ignoreart and phi losophy; I wish to st i r up an arrogant awareness ofand resistance to these act iv i t ies. The 'cul tural ' l i fe of oursociety is a conf idence tr ick pract ised on the masses. Themasses pay in two ways. First ly, through their pocket.s inf inancing the educat ional system etc., which is i tsel f ideoiogi-ca l l y commi t ted to the ' cu l tu ra l ' l i fe , and, second ly , th rougha general sense of inadequacy (concealed) rvhen measuringthemselves against the range of ski l ls the social orderdemands. The masses shou id in te res t themse lves in ' cu l tu ra l '

act iv i t ies in order to see horv these are conf idence tr ickspract ised against themselves, and therefore, how to resistthem. This book is, then, about art and phi losophy in anunusual way.

Another barr ier to reaching those I would reach l ies in myown posit ion. Over a decade spent, exclusively, in theacademic world is very poor training for communicat ing withthe masses, al though i t is very good training for a courteous

Methods of Thinking ond Methods of Work

distancing of oneself from others (thereby one communicates

a respect for social hierarchy). A certain sentence structure,

vocabulary, the disposition to labour so as to make all

arguments logically watertight, these are academically

acquired traits which do not recommend one to the broad

mass of people. However, to pretend to a voice, which is thevoice of the masses, or to resolve to explain oneself byconstantly making allowances for the ignorance of others is,in the first case, hypocrisy and, in the second, incapacitating(and, in any case, one would probably do it all wrong).Therefore, despite barriers, I intend to write this book asnaturally as I can, that is, without conscious affectation. Thematerial to be dealt with is not easy but neither is itimpossibly difficult. Where difficulties are experiencedbecause of the style, or the words used, then I ask that thereader should make allowsnces for my bockground. In fact,the language I use is not really technical, and most difficult-ies, if there are any, can be cleared with the aid of adict ionary. Where the sense of, what might seem to be,toltuous sentences eludes the reader the best remedy will beir : read on. ln due course the main point wi l l emerge. Theseconrrnents are offered in the hope that this book will prove anei.cept ion to rules about who reads what. This hope is notopt imist ical ly entertained, but the book is wri t ten on thisba s i s .

I o begin on the main substance of this book I shal lc{)nLcrn myself with some remarks on the world of phi lo-sophv as I have experienced i t . IvIy early training in phi lo-:5. ] i ) l lv gavc nle two percept ions of the world which mostpeople would not naturally come by, in fact the world as itaf i 'ccts rnost people prevents them from these perceptions, orctLtticroks. 'Ihe

first perception was that there were concepts.I t t taci , the prevai l ing view of phi losophy that was taught tot l te ( ihere are and have been many views as to what phi lo-'roph!' is) was that philosophy was concerned with thea ni i lysis of concepts. What did I understand by concepts? Myi icreept ion of this was not phi losophical ly clear, but i t was, I


think, clear enough for ordinary understanding. I could giveinstances of concepts. For instance, I would cite the conceptof truth, of meaning, of justice, of causality. All of these areconcepts of some importance in the history of philosophy.However, concepts are not confined to those which havepreoccupied philosophers. One could, for instance, sensiblytalk about the concept of a tree, of fire, of sexual experience.of a book. Concepts come into the world through ourconsciousness of the world. To think of concepts, in thisway, was to give rise to the perception that the concepts wehave of the world might not accurately reflect the world.Most people would find it easy to suppose that how theybelieved the world to be might be other than it was, but theidea that the mater ials with which we thought, the conceptsof f lorvers, t rees, f i res, sexual experiences, truth, just ice etc. ,might, in thenrselves, represent an inaccurate classification ofthe world is more difficult to grasp. The real perception ofthe possibi l i ty can, perhaps, only come, for good or i l l , af terconsiderable immersion in phi losophical act iv i ty. Anyway,this was the f i rst percept ion.

The second percept ion, which can be l inked ro the f i rst ,though i t came with relat ive autonc)my, rvas that values weredist inguishahle from facts. Most people operatc under rheassumpt ion tha l the goodness and rhe badness o f peop le andthe i r deeds is as cena in as there be ing peop le and a rvor ld tha tthey inhab i t . On the o ther hand the ph i losoph ica l a rgun len tsthe young s tudent o f ph i losophy rvas , and s t i l l i s , askec l tostr ic ' ly producecl an uneirse atrout valucs ' fhe quest ion wasraised as to ht-rrv to establ ish values, ani l once 1,ou raise thcquest ion -vou rcal isc hou di f f icul t i t is to i lnswer. Nlosr peoplcdn no t pose f h is qucs t ion fo r thenrsc lves . For thern the va luesof the societ l , are just accepted el ,en i f they dein' t l ive up tot h e m .' fhesc

t \ \ ' ( -) J lrrcept ions were related to each other. Whcnta lk ing o1 ' va lues we are ta lk ing o f concepts . We ha l 'econccpts of goodness, badness, r ightness, wrongness, etc.Perhaps thcre is nothing in the world which answers to thern.

Methods of Thinkins and Methods of Work

perhaps they are iasl concepts; things we have made up.I do not, at this juncture, wish to persuade anyone of this,

my purpose is different. It is, in part, to communicate to

those, who have no conception of such thoughts, somethingof what it is like to be a person in the world thinking like this.Most people can easily imagine everything that lies aroundthem being an illusion or part of a dream. TV is full ofdramas in which all sorts of things seem to happen tosomeone who subsequently turns out to have been dreamingall along. To feel the possibility of a gap between conceptsand the world is, however, to feel sceptical about the verylanguage one speaks. Perhaps language i tsel f is an i l lusion.Perhaps one should be unsure of each and every word oneuses. Most people just talk; the words pour out; they haveand need l i t t le consciousness of their language act iv i ty.Sometimes there is an awareness of the problem of handl ingol ie 's lan.guage in social ly acceptable ways, but few peopleget to the point of doubt ing that language is adequate. Iluspect the u'ord ' language' helps to clar i l 'y rvhat I am sayingaboir t concepts and values. What has to be imagined islanguage being a pr ison fronr which we cannot escape; al i r isr- .n of i l lusions. f 'h is is a rough descript ion of what earlyt ' \ r ]osr.rre to pir i losophf incluced in me. Values Lrccante some-i i t i r ;gl onc !r 'as not sure of; an area of uncertainty. Every;tr . ;*r t ion in t l re language had to be greeted r l i th the quest ion' \ \ ' i l ; r r c iocs i t mean?'. Evcn the simplest acts of iauguage, : { r ' r i l i l l 1c ' t be taken on t rus t , bu t had 1o be qr r i zzed to see i f; in i s igui i ' ic:rnce could be wrung t tut <t i thern.

i t t -s r lu i te rvrong, I anr conl, inced, to be so sccpt icai ol thei : r t tgLu l i :e we speak . Th is i s so , i f on ly becausc an1, sccp t ic ism,i i ror. l1 , t r . language is voiced within the language. I1 ' thei t inguirge does not make sense. then neither does lhc attemptt t l coirerent ly state that this is so. Horvever, as I have said, i ti \ l ' r ( ) l tht : r ightne.ss or wrongness of this posi t ion that I amconcerned wit l i . My rnain interest is to prepare the way forntakir tg intel l ig ible the signi f icance of my examinat ion of'cu l tural ' act i \ , ' i t ies.

Art an Enemy of the People

To pursue this I need to talk next about methods forunderstanding concepts. There was a certain view about howthis was to be done, which the philosophy I was introduced toas a student questioned. The view questioned put forwardwhat I shall call an abstract method. This abstract methodconstitutes what much of philosophy has been about. Themethod was that of analysis and definition. First of all therewas the assumption that the totality of reality (all there is)could be exhaustively analysed into its component parts.When this was done the second aspect of the method tookover, namely, the task of producing definitions to cover theindividual concepts analysed. Let me give a trivial butintelligible example. It might be asked, 'What is a motor-cycle helmet?' To answer this we might say it is both afunctional object and a material object. That it is a form ofheadgear designed to protect the motor-cycle rider in case ofaccident, and, also, a certain quantity of material substance,e.g. glass fibre. At the functional level we might go on tosub-divide the ob.iect into the outer protective shell, the innerpadding, the visor, the press studs etc. Al l of these funct ionalitems could be related to distinguishable quantities of marer-ial substance. The glass fibre for the outer-dome, the fibrousand rubber substances in the padding, the polythene, perspexsubstance in the visor, the metal l ic content to the press studs.This analysis could go on endlessly, al though i t was anassumption of the method being discussed, that i t would bepossible to exhaustively analyse all the characteristics andpropert ies of what one analysed. From this l ist of propert iesof motor-cycle helmets we might try to pick out those whichare essent ial to something being a motor-cycle helmet. I f thiscould be decided, these factors, when l isted, would const i tutethe definition of motor-cycle helmet. The definition wouldspecify those conditions necessary and sufficient for some-thing being a motor-cycle helmet. This activity of definingcould next be applied to all the components of motor-cyclehelmets. I f this task could be carr ied out, i t might be thought,one would then know al l there was to know about motor-cycle helmets.

Methods of Thinkins and Methods of Work

A great many philosophical works are composed in thisway, only their subject matter is the universe. A selection ofphilosophical works throughout the ages would demonstratethe similarity of style. The works of Aristotle, Spinoza,Hume, Russell constitute a representative sample.

The philosophical tradition I was exposed to, which chal-lenged this methodology, was one stemming from the work ofthe twentieth century philosopher Wittgenstein. The attackwent as follows: If you examine a concept like motor-cyclehelmet there is a temptation to suppose that everything calleda motor-cycle helmet has something in common with every-thing else so called. The temptation is that of supposing thereto be some essence, some common core. However, thistemptation is misguided because it fails to recognise thatconcepts come into the world at particular times (this is to saythey are not there from the beginning of time) and thatsubsequently, they develop and change. If you suppose forevery concept there is, there is some common core, then youare being over logical about concepts, and are, consequent ly,not allowing for the fact that concepts are developed byhuman beings over considerable periods of t ime.

A good analogy here is the development of roads. An overlogicalview of a country 's road network might insist that thepoint of a road between A and B was to provide the quickest,shortesi and most eff ic ient means of moving from the oneplace to the other. However, those who travel the road mayieel they had good grounds to doubt this and would proposemuch better routes. I t might only be after studying the socialhistor l- and geography of the area, in which A and B weresrtuated, that one might come to a real understanding of theroute taken by the road. Thus, one might discover that oncerhcre had been an important town C between A and B andthat or iginal ly there had been two fair ly dist inct roads l inkingA to C and B to C. Subsequent ly, the importance of C mayhave waned and the importance of A and B increased, so thatthe old routes A-C and B-C were combined to make themajor route A-8. A concentrat ion on the historv and

8 Art on Enemy of the People

development of the road explains it, whereas the over-logical,definitional view is, in comparison, too abstract for under-standing the real process of the world. The same is true ofconcepts. To insist on finding a neat definition to cover anyconcept examined is to turn away from the reality of theconcept as a developing organism. The concept of motor-cycle helmet is one changing through time. The concept itselfemerges from earlier concepts of helmets and throughout itshistory it is applied to a very varied range of objects. It mayprove impossible to find some characteristic which all motor-cycle helmets share, which also serves to mark them off fromall other objects. It might be suggested that all motor-cyclehelmets are designed to be worn on the head whilst the wearerrides a motor-cycle, but then there are other objects so designedwhich are not motor-cycle helmets, for example, woolly hatsdesigned in the colours of motor-cycle manufacturers, fortr ia ls r iders. I t might be suggested that for something to be amotor-cycle helmet i t needs to be made of some r igid mater ial ,but there are old fashioned motor-cycle helmets made out ofpl iable leather rvhich do not sat isfy this condit ion. Moreover,even i f i t was possible to f ind some condit ions which as of nowuniquely character ised motor-cycle helmets, we might f ind,subsequent ly, that the concept developed so as to meet newsocial needs, and that, therefore, the def ini t ion becameinapp l icab le .

One of ' the concepts \ \ r i f igenstein directed the attent iontowards in th is wav was the concept o f game. Th is i s a we l lknorvn erample in the history of recent phi losophy, butnone-ihe- less I quote t l ie passage.

( 'o r rs i i l c r l r r r c ra rnp le t l r t - ; r rocecd ings rv t - ca l l ' gnnrcs ' . I r r . rcn l rbc ia r r i ' ganrer , ca ld -garncs , ba lJ garncs , O lympic games and so on .\ \ 'ha t i s e ( ' !n l ln r ) l t 1o t l rc r r r a l l ' l - - l )on ' t sa ,v : 'There rnus t be son ie th ingeon l l ron , o r thcv wou ld no t bc ca l led "garues" ' L ' tu t k tok und seeu h c t i r e r l h c r c i s a r t v t h i n g c c ) r n r n ( i l t t o a l l . - [ : o r i t ' 1 ' o u l o o k a t t h e n rl t ru w i l l no t scc s r tn rc lh ing tha t i : commc' r r r to a i l , bLr t s im i la r i t i cs ,r t ' l a i ionsh ips , a r rc l a who le ser ies o t thent a t tha t . To rcpeat : don ' tth ink , [ - ru t Io t rk l - ,1 -ook l i r r r . ra rn l r l c a t b t ]a rd-carncs . u i th the i r

Methods of Thinking and Methods of Work 9

mult i far ious relat ionships. Now pass to card-games; here you f indmany correspondences with the f irst group, but many commonfactors drop out, and others appear. When we pass next to bal l-games, much that is common is retained, but much is lost.-Are theyal l amusing? Compare chess with noughts and crosses. Or is therealways winning and losing, or competit ion between players? Thinkof patience. In bal l games there is winning and losing; but when achi ld throws his bal l at the wall and catches i t again, this feature hasdisappeared. Look at the parts played by ski l l and luck; and at thedifference between ski l l in chess and ski l l in tennis. Think now ofgames l ike r ing-a-r ing-a-roses; here is the element of amusement buthow many other characterist ic ieatures have disappeared! And wecan go through the many, many other groups of games in the sameway; can see how similari t ies crop up and disappear.

And the result of this examination is: we see a complicated networko f s im i la r i t ies over lapp ing and c r iss -c ross ing , somet imes s imi la r i t ies o fdetai l . (L. Wittgenstein, Phi losophical Investigations, Oxford, I 953)

In summary form, the method I was exposed to attackedthe older, more abstract methodology by directing attenrionarvay from concepts as coherent entities and towards con-cepts as diverse uses of language. Quest ions about theconcept of meaning or truth or games etc. , became quest ionsabout how the words 'meaning' , ' t ruth' and 'game' wereused in the Engl ish language. The assumption was that theservords wor,r ld display a var iety of uses, so that the business oflnal-vsing a concept became that of displaying the var ioususcs of a word and i ts der ivat ives. This movement inph i iosophy was known as ' l i ngu is t i c ph i losophy ' . I t was arnovenrent ivhich tended to debunk the problems in thel t istorv of phi losophy. The history of phi losophy wasthought to be ful l of knotty problems which only came abouthccause people had insisted that quest ions about the naturerr l concepts receive neat, logical ly water-t ight answers. Theit i r tor l , ' of phi losophy was the history of people invent ingsttt-'h answers (often r,vith great ingenuity) and others refutingthem (rvi th equal ingenuit l i ) .

I 'h is, then, was something of the phi losophical c l imate(eonceived of, that is, in theoret ical terms) when I enteredin to the l i fe o f ph i losophy.

I l 0 Art an Enemy of the People

So far the introduction to the main themes of this book hasbeen semi-autobiographical. This has enabled me to intro-duce certain ideas upon which I wish to build.

When we talk of concepts we should not divorce themfrom the language we speak. Thus, to understand ourconcepts is the same as understanding the language. In otherwords, when people posit abstract questions about the natureof truth or justice or freedom one should not be taken in bythe assumed correctness of proceeding abstractly. Certainly,one should not be taken in by the complex, baffling to theuninitiated, definitional answers which are given to thesequestions. Whole forms of life, distinct social groups, areborne on the strength of these theoretical activities. and theirreal significance is not confined to the significance of thetheoretical pronouncements. The various social groupsinvolved have been linked, as is every social group in asociety, to the society 's power structures. The l ink has oftenbeen one of them forging the ideology of the society ( i .e. theset of ideas in terms of which the society is said to beorganised) which the mass of the people would do wel l toavoid being organised by.

The point I am making here is not being made abstract lybut it is very general and, perhaps, an example is clarifying.In our society the concept of a free society (which is held tobe ideal) is def ined as a democrat ic society, and this lat terconcept is def ined as a society in which al l the people canelect whom they l ike to govern their society. This is the mainl ine of thought, al though there are many qual i f icat ions andmodif icat ions bui l t into the ideology so as to meet thechal lenge of intel lectual ly inspired scept ic ism. I t is held thatBritish society satisfies the definition of a free society andthat the people of a free society are themselves free. There-fore, it is held the people are neither slaves nor are theydictated to. The Soviet Union cal ls i tsel f a democrat ic societybut, f rom the viewpoint of Western ideology, this is held tobe absurd as the people of the Soviet Union cannot electwhom they l ike to govern the society. On the basis of these

Methods of Thinkine and Methods of Work I I

largely theoretical pronouncements many people in thesociety, in so far as they bother to consider the matter, regard

themselves as free persons in a free society. However, theseabstract considerations blunt one's real perceptions of thesociety and real understanding of the ways the word 'free-

dom' (the concept of freedom) applies to one's life. Thus, thefact that the people can elect any government they want(which in itself is an inaccurate way of talking about the realsituation in British society) is irrelevant if the government isnot in control of the social processes within the society.Things like this can only be determined by looking closely atwhat goes on in the society. Moreover, the freedom of thepeople is an empty abstraction compared with the realsignificance of applying the word 'free' to the lives ofindividuals. Is the individual f ree to determine how muchmoney he earns? Is he free to determine what work he does?Is he free to decide on the level of production in his place ofemployment? Is he free to choose where he l ives? Or are thepeople as a col lect ive ent i ty able to decide these things, andothers, for themselves?

Abstraction in the first place needs to be challenged by theactual usage of the language. I t was in this way that the' l inguist ic phi losophy' movement str ipped the history ofphi losophy of i ts heavy, sonorous problems. The importanceof this requires emphasis. For a great number of people thereis a gap betrveen what they would cal l the theoret ical and thepract ical . Most peopl ' feel they have some grasp of thepract ical but bel ieve themselves unsuited to the theoret ical .This divide has social consequences in so far as success attheoret ical act iv i ty is one of the measures whereby therervards of the society are apport ioned. Despite this, there isa vast, popular mistrust of theoretical activity and theoretic-ians. This mistrust is, i t seems to me, healthy where i t directsattent ion back to the real processes of the world and awaytrom the i l lusory eff ic iency of abstract ion.

This is not to say that theories about the real processes ofthe rvorld are thereby suspect. What is the case is not always


self-evident and theories as to how it is are the means todiscovering how it is. Theory is suspect when it proceeds as aworld unto itself, yet supposes it is in a position to accuratelyinterpret and relate to the world. Typically, this happenswhen a conceptual system or language, which derives fromhuman beings dealing with the world, is abstracted from itssphere of employment and thence hounded with great logicalprecision for logical consequences. The inaccuracy thatcreeps in stems from a turning away from the real processesof the world. Some movements in phi losophy have pointed tothe reality of the danger. Trivial examples of the problemabound like the fact that it would be wrong to suppose thatbecause any number can be divided again and again ( i .e.infinitely) that, therefore, an object, whose length can beexpressed as a numerical dimension, can also be infinitelydivided.

The history of phi losophy is ful l of more signi f icant errors,which have derived from abstract methodology, l ike thecontent ion that nothing moves but only seems to, or thatgoodness is an object exist ing in some non-earthly place, orthat god is everything there is and everything rhere is is god,or that \ r 'e necessari ly l ive in the best of al l possible worlds.However, the dangers are not conf ined to phi losophy.Examples of people, societ ies, whole cul tures fal l ing intothem abound. There are obvious, pract ical repercussions olorganising the world in accordance with abstract percept ions.Thus, when an airport is s i tuated on avai lable waste-ground,but where the planners fai l to relate i ts s i tuat ion to thesurrounding environment, then the airport , and i ts conse-quent social problems, re.sul t f ronr i ts planning abstract ing i tf rom real and surrounding social process. Or, when a plannerf inds i t possible to draw a l ine on a map and thus bui lds onthe ground in accordance rvith the line on the map, but failsto observe and relate to the full social and physical complex-ion of the area. Here, the concrete misery of possessionorders or of, as in a recent case, the undermining of the claystrata and the consequent fall in the water table producing

Methods of Thinkins ond Methods of lVork l3

subsidence, result from the abstractness of the plan. In such a

case, the conceptualisation of the place, i.e. the ffiaP,

becomes the basis for judgement, rather than an aid to thelocation of the place as a developing, changing entity. Or, totake another case having obvious practical implications,when a motor-cycle licence qualifies you to drive a three-wheeler car because the original three-wheelers were basicallymotor-cycles having three wheels. The concept of the three-wheeler or tricycle (as it is referred to legally) being set up inthis way has prevented legal recognition of the fact that thethree-wheeler is now basically a car lacking the fourth wheel.Here, rve can see the society's conceptual system having a lifeof its own, abstracted from the real processes of the society.

In the employment of abstract methodologies it may bethat there are larger, concealed, pract ical impl icat ionsinvolved. On an abstract considerat ion of concepts, or thelanguage, the relat ionship between them and the world is oneof their being classi f icat ions of the world into which theu'or lc l is supposed to f i t neat ly. This is opposed to anotherl ie w of language, which seems to me more real ist ic, wherebylanguage is seen as the var ious methods we have for indicat-ing, point ing to, s ignal l ing towards the processes of the world{processes which can never be categorised b-v means of stat icr l c f in i l ions , s imp ly because they are processes) . The abs t rac tr i raracter isat ion of language is not going to be an arbi trary,rnot iveless choice by a cul tural gror"rp. l t is going to be relatedto rhc ac t iv i t ies o f the group. We might specu la te tha t at ' i l i lct ion of the character isat ion, and the attendant organis-r i i r : pr inciples of a society is one of appearing to have f ixedf rrr ()n(--c and for al l lvhat is not permanently f ixable, namelyrt rolai i le, ongoing real i ty. Perhaps, then, i t is not surpr is ingt i rat the dominance of logic, and i ts attendant intel lectualdiscipl ines and disposit ions, has been rvi thin a cul tural t radi-r ion which has had the most signi f icant, approximate successat f ix ing the rvor ld in accordance with human intent ions. I fi l t t abstract methodology comprehends the world as f ixed ands,tat ic then, perhaps, i ts adopt ion is part of the pract ical


project of trying to fix things so they will not need fixingagain. It is also the case that in less technological andscientific cultural traditions (as in the East, for example) agreater allowance is made for the eroding and elusive flow ofprocesses. However, this is a speculation and should only beheeded if actual, historical, human processes can be followedthrough in detail so as to confirm it. To insist on such amethod of proceeding is the negation of an abstractmethodology.

Language is, then, one of the ways we have of dealingsocially and individually with a changing, unfixed world.However, language itself is not outside the processes of theworld, but is a process in the world. lt is the implications ofthis thought which 'l inguistic philosophy' never digested.The point is that if the conceptual system is in process, thento understand it we must be concerned with its development.In other words to understand the language we must beconcerned with i ts history. 'L inguist ic phi losophy' , in i tsreject ion of an abstract methodology, was content to br ing tothe fore what it was natural and what it was odd for people inthe cul tural group, who concerned themselves with ' l inguist ic

philosophy', to say. In this way an attempt was made to chartthe various uses of language, as it existed, at one particulart ime, for a part icular social group. The possible l imitat ionsimposed by such restr icted samples passed by unnot iced. I twas assumed that to understand the conceptual system, fromthis point of v iew, was to understand the conceptual system.Wittgenstein had pointed to the fact that concepts grorv, butneither he, nor his followers, were very keen to explore thedetails of growth. To do so was to engage in historicalresearch and at that point the connections with philosophy,for the phi losopher, would seem understandably remote. Thefact that philosophy might be a bogus activity and that itshould be replaced by a study of the conceptual system as areal system would be difficult to acknowledge, or pursue, forthose brought up within the traditions of philosophy.

Now, the idea that to understand concepts it is necessary to

Methods of Thinkins and Methods of Work l 5

trace their development, and thus their history, might be

confused with two other forms of study about which mostpeople know nothing. One is the history of language as it is

conceived by the language departments of the universities,and the other is what is known as the history of ideas.However, neither of these is what is meant. The former isconcerned with the history of language on a narrower basisthan I have in mind. Its concerns are with phonetics,grammar and etymology and, on the whole, its grasp oflanguage is over literary. It does not treat language as thepoint at which a whole society's grasp of reality can beunderstood. The history of ideas, on the other hand, isconcerned with explaining the intellectual theories of pre-vious societ ies, rather than chart ing the history of theconcepts in which the whole life of a society, including itsintel lectual l i fe. is art iculated.

The signi f icance of what I am advocat ing may not beapparent to most people. On the whole, people are notinterested in what ' l inguist ic phi losphy' might be or what thehistory of ideas is etc. Moreover, the point being made aboutinvest igat ing the history of the conceptual system may be toogeneral to seem of any real importance. The potent ialimportance of this l ine of thought wi l l emerge more clear ly inthe chapters to fol los' which are concerned with the conceptot art as a process in society. This is to say the importance isrnore l ikely to be apparent when a part icular case is invest iga-tccl . Flou'ever, at a general level, and presupposing var ioust l t t rughts already introduced, the importance of the discus-sion can be approached more direct ly. The theoret ical t radi-t i i tns. the theories, the theoret ical act iv i t ies of our society, al li tppear to the mass of people as being remote from their l ives.I 'h is produces a feel ing of ignorance and inadequacy but onet i l t ich is easi ly shrugged off for most peopie on the groundsIhat the act iv i t ies, f rom which they are debarred, are al li ; t t l ter useless. There is the common feel ing that they haveier), ' l i t t le to do with the real world as they experience i t .Ihere are vir tues in this commonsense approach, because a

I

l

l 6 Art an Enemy of the People

great deal of theoretical activity has been committed to theillusory validity of abstraction. However, the plain sense ofordinary people is insufficient to guarantee that they avoidbeing deceived. The cruciar worry is that the conceptualsystem, the language in which people think and conui.s..may contain elements which have grown out of the society'stheoretical and intellectual activities. There is the possibilitythat, in some areas, the society's language may be inadequatefor dealing with the world, simply because if has grown outof false and artificial models as to how the worid is. Thepossibility of having inadequate language tools for dealingcorrectly with the world, becomes more worrying when onereflects on the possibility that the artificial modets. out ofwhich the language has grown, D?y serve the practical needsof powerful groups in the society in the *ay oi securing theirposi t ion against chal lenge. Thus, there is t 'he possibi l l t ly thatthe common language used by most people ionfirms theirsubservience. To speak the language of the society is alreadyfor the masses to concede their inferiority. It is as an effectiveprotest against this that the working class swear profusely.Every use of language is thereby tinged with hostillty. inusing the language there is conformity but in swearing ani l lusion of not conforming is created. people in the ,oJi . t1,are cr i t ical of most things that af fect them but, on the whole,the ianguage habits of the sociery are accepted uncri t ical ly,despite the fact that they might inculcare norms of proceduiedetr imental to the general welfare of the people.

What I am conrending in this book is that art andphi losophy (these act i ' i t ies are singled out from a range ofcomparable acr ir , ' i t ies on the basis of my famil iar i ry withthem) give r ise to conceptual pract ices which do run .nnt.u.uto the interests of most people, and that al l th is has beenhappening without the major iry of the people real is ing i t .what has to be resisted is a sorr of psychological condit ]on-ing process which the whole structure of sociay conspires toeffect. I t is a condit ioning process which works not throuehovert propaganda (as in China) but through the .onr.nrrr 6fconceptual habits.

Methods of Thinkinq and Methods of Work t7

This is not some idle speculation about the possibility that

our whole language system is a smokescreen which hides ourreal life from us. As suggested earlier it would be futile tomaintain this whilst at the same time presupposing theadequacy of a range of concepts in maintaining it. What I amsuggesting is that limited areas of the conceptual system maywork adversely against people's interests. It is my contentionthat the concept of art and attendant concepts work in thisway. That this is so for any concept can only be properlyuncovered by investigating the concept's social role and thisinvolves uncovering its historical development. These possi-bi l i t ies occur to me, then, as a result of what I haveconcluded about the particular concept 'art' and its treat-ment in the philosophy of art (aesthetics). To understand thisi1 is necessary to fol low the remaining chapters.

The concept of art , which is to be explored, points to a l i felived within society into which some are obsessively drawnbut from which most derive no sat isfact ion. The attract ionsof the art l i fe were attract ions fel t by myself as a student, infact they were attract ions which enabled me to commitmy'sel f to the l i fe of a student. The attract ion, as I experien-ccd i t , was one of enter ing into a superior existence. Super-ior, that is, to the er istence of the mass of the people. Thentass of the people were held to be besotted with theconsumer society and, consequent ly, held to have no capacityIo ebjscl lvsly comprehend their own l ives. The people weresccn as catt le in the f ie lds, having no sense of the purpose forr i f r ich they were there, or the manner in which they werettc irrg manipulated. On the other hand, to be in on the art ist icI t l 'e o1' the society was to walk in the company of .seers.- I 'h is

sounds a l i t t le l ike enter ing into rel ig ious experience,but in fact the experience was very di f ferent. The rel igiousl i t ' t ' , even at i ts most 'stuck up' , does involve the adherent instr tne pract ical contact with others, for example t idying thee hurchyard with other parishioners, or t ransport ing theclderly to church, or wal lpapering for the disabled. However,the art l i fe encouraged a superior distancing of the adherent

l8 Art an Enemy of the People

from others. A field was not something to enter and dothings in, but a landscape to be stood outside of andobserved. Similarly, with people at their occupations. More-over, the life was one of sitting apart and reading, or walkingin quiet rapture through the art gallery, or giving dignifiedattention in the concert hall. Much has happened in the artsover the last decade which may make this description of lifein the arts seem unrepresentative. However, the situation wasmuch as I have described. when I was first drawn into anawareness of artistic activity, and for those who know aboutthese things the experiments of the last ten years have madevery little difference to the way the art life is lived.

For those outside of this life the value of superiority builtinto it does, for the most part I suspect, pass them byunnoticed. Yet, at the same time. there must be someconsciousness of the fact that knowledge of the art life isrelated to the social hierarchy of the society, and that not tohave knowledge of it is always to be outside the accepted andestabl ished groups of power and status. Though, of course,to have the knowledge is not, thereby, to be within theappropriate social group. It tends to be the case that thosemost actively concerned with the public affairs of groupshaving considerable social status, have a good workingknowledge of the arts, without being obsessively drawn intothem, whereas i t is amongst the more passive members of thegroup that the more obsessive devotee is found.

What concerned me from the very start with regard to theart l i fe was how to just i fy the feel ing of superior existencethat r,vent with it, and therefore, indirectly, how to explainthe feel ing of not being up to the highest act iv i t ies of thesociety, fel t by those outside i t . I t was the impossibi l i ty offinding a satisfactory justification which led to the historicalref lect ions on the concept of art with which this book isconcerned. I t is on this basis, as I shal l t ry to show, that thesuperior i ty of the art l i fe emerges as bogus. I t is at this pointthat resistance to art can begin.

This chapter serves both as an introduct ion to the methods

Methods of Thinking and Methods of Work 19

of enquiry subsequently employed throughout the book, and

to wtrat the book is about. Before proceeding to say some-

iiling furttrer about both methodology and the content of

*r,ut ir to follow I shall briefly summarise what has been

advanced so far.*--An examination of the concept of art, as a social and

historical phenomenon, undermines the validity of abstract

ou.stions ibout the nature of art (the practice of abstraction

i on. itself requiring historical investigation). The examina-

tion utro undeimines the art life of our society as something

*t i.r., socially discriminates between different groups of

people. The superiority of the art life of the society needs

ctraitenging not only because it cannot be justified, but more

importintly because it is an integral part of the way the social

structure operates against most people. For the challenge to

be effective it must go hand in hand with an insistence on a

concrete, historical method which directs itself to the world

as an interacting movement of real processes (the conceptual

Iife of the world included). In this way abstraction is opposed

and generalisation only permitted where real processes exhi-

bit empirically locatable similarity. It is because this book is

ab.ut lh.r. sortr of questions that it can be said to be about

art and phi losophy.Before going on to specify the content of the following

chapters, there is one further point concerning the methodo-logy' which needs elaborating. In philosophy and otheracaclemic disciplines the question is often raised concerningthe extent to which people determine their lives. Most people

uould not face this quest ion as a general quest ion, al thoughthel 'might from t ime to t ime ponder as to whether their ownlives could have been lived differently. It is of obviousittrportance, in any attempt to assess the actions of people,

rhat one has some awareness of the different interpretationsthat would arise from different beliefs about whether or notpeople do determine their lives. Here, of course, one has the

nossibility of raising the abstract questions, 'What is free-dom?'. and 'Does man have free wi l l? ' .


However, the question cannot be decided abstractly or even,necessarily, generally. It is only by looking and seeingwhether particular people, or particular groups of people inparticular situations, do determine their lives that one candiscover the limited truth that those particular people did ordid not. But, it might be asked, by what criteria does onedecide whether or not people have determined what they havedone? In dealing with the theoretical problem it is il luminat-ing to posit a few, admittedly fanciful, cases.

Imagine the situation in which two adolescents, one malethe other female, are captured by a mad scientist andsubsequentli ' forcibly injected with potent and effectiveaphrodisiacs ( i .e. producing overwhelming amorous impul-ses). The adolescents are then unleashed upon each otherwhi lst the scient ist , f rom a concealed posit ion, makes hisobservat ions. The outcome of the si tuat ion is that theadolescents copulate.

Secondly, imagine the si tuat ion in which two working-classadolescents (again one male, the other female) and bothvirgins, fal l in love. The boy is sensit ive ro working-class,male chiding that the male asserts himself as male bydef lou'er ing the female virgin.

' Ihe gir l , on rhe other harrd, issensit ive to the social ly induced values that a gir l cheapensherself by al lowing pre-mari tal intercourse. The bol, loves thegir l but his object is to get her to consent to intercourse asquickl""" as possible, whereas the gir l , in loving the boy, rv ishesto have intercourse with him, but wishes for marr iage toprecede i t .

' fhe outcome is that one night, when darkness

fal ls on the local gol f course, the boy rapes the gir l .Comparing these trvo f ict ional s i tuat ions i t would be, for

most people, non-controversial to assert that in the f i rst casethe adolescents did not determine what they did, whereas inthe second case what they did was a mixture of theirdetermining and being determined. I t is not necessary to positcr i ter ia for whatever i t is that has deterrnined the act ions; thecases are sel f explanatory once looked at. Of course, the f i rstcase is much simpler than the second. This is because i t is

Methods of Thinking and Methods of Work 2 l

far-fetched, whereas, the second case is, as our world goes, apossible situation. Clearly, in the first case, conscious determi-

nation of the copulation by the individuals involved has been

6y-passed. The example does not clarify in any way how this

might be possible. It simply asserts that this is the case, and in

order to enter into the spirit of the example it is necessary to

credit the possibility. In the second case, we find the individu-

als manipulating each other and the environment in order to

achieve what they seek. The girl 's going out with the boy is adecision to act in accordance with the love she feels for him. Itis also a decision to act in accordance with the plan to marryhim. The girl, one can imagine, actively enters into heavypetting as something which is in accordance with her ownimpulses. She wants the boy to make love to her, which, ofcourse, he does; she gets what she wants though not in the waythat she wants. Similarly, the boy wants to make love to thegir l , and does, but not as he would want to. He takes her byforce, at the point at which she concedes to the social require-rnent of preserving virgini ty unt i l marr iage. The individuals arein their s i tuat ion facing i ts problems, both as they are set byt hemselves, and by social pressures act ing on them through the\\at ' the individuais have responded to these pressures. Theitr i l iv iduals movethrough their problems determining the reso-lut ion of them and, thereby, determining things for each other.

No abstract theory of f reedom is required to recognise thei l i t l 'crence between these two si tuat ions, and to see that ai- i r t lerent range of concepts is required in order to see and,.1,. : .cr ibe the di f ference. In the second case, as i t is e 'nvisaged,'" \ (r see the outcome results from a process in which thei i r i i i v idua ls de termine and are de termined. The ou tcome isrhr- way these elements fuse. To understand the si tuat ion i t is:)ceessary to see the ol l tcome as a result of a process in whichl l ic individuals make their real i ty, but make i t as a responselu var ious inf luences. I t is because the si tuat ion is l ike thisthat i t seems to be a si tuat ion with l i fe breathed into i t ,rr he reas the f i rst case is in comparison seemingly mechanical .() l 'course. the f i rst s i tuat ion is very sketchi ly presented and


as it stands it seems, perhaps, that the individuals blindlycopulate. On the other hand, a more human face would haveto be given to the situation if it was necessary to describeindividuals seeking satisfactory copulation with each other,and solving problems so as to achieve this.

Whether or not, in any analysis we conduct, we locatehuman beings making their reality is an empirical matter (i.e.a matter of how things are or are not). Moreover, the extentto which individuals are to be found determining their lives isagain an empirical matter; there may be, in any given socialsituation, more or less external factors influencing or deter-mining the outcome. However, what is important, from thestandpoint of proposing a method of enquiry, is that thesituations, in which people are to be found actively determin-ing their reality, should be articulated in accordance withtheir activity as determining agents. This is easy enough tosay but more difficult to understand with regard to itsimplications. In fact, the implications carry all the way backto ideas broached earlier about essences and processes. Thepoint is that where people can be credited with a determiningrole then the situations they are passing through, are onesthey are making, and outcomes of the making process arecontinuously being modified by the way the individual relateshimself to them. There are no stat ic moments, no essent ials l ices, l i fe is, for those determining i t . cont inuous process.There is no completion, no having fixed things withoutcont inuing and withdrawable acceptance that things arefixed.

This. no doubt, sounds very enigmatic and again i l lustra-iions are helpful. The world of advertisements tends toinduce the idea that a certain feel ing of style and mood couldbe what one constantly and continuousiy wouid feel if onlyone possessed the requisi te objects advert ised. However, amoment 's ref lect ion, on the acquisi t ion and ownership ofadvertised ob_iects ceinvincingly shows that those objects cannevcr be enjoyed as they seem to be in the advertiser's imageof them. The situation when one possesses an object is

Methods of Thinkins and Methods of llork 23

continuous and not static. The rest of one's life takes one

away from the static contemplation of the objects. The

meaning the objects have for one is transformed by the actual

experiences which take place around them (e.g. the site of a

major family quarrel, the room in which one spent an

evening of terror believing there was a marauder outside).Moreover, the objects themselves are changing. Gradually

they lose their lustre and a constant struggle has to be enteredinto in order to preserve them in their original state. None ofthese transformative factors are included in the advertiser'simage of life with those objects; one is supposed to enjoy theeternal smile, the eternal feeling of being cool.

However, life goes on, its various bits interact andconnect, and one is at the centre of one's life experiencecontinuously shaping and having before one the continuous,undeniable possibility of being able to shape it differently. Itis this sense of the fluidity, in the existence of those who areinvolved in determining their lives, which has to be renderedin any account of those lives. Where such an account isappropriate the lives cannot be presented as a finality or asconforming to an essence, but the fluid, ongoing, opentexture of the l ives needs to be gestured to. In this way thelives do not appear as conforming to a neat, manageablelormula but appear rather as the necessary, rather sprawlingaf l 'airs that they are: interconnecting process constantlybeing affirmed and rejected from a range of possible proces->es. The family could have bought a new car, but i t decidedon a swimming pool instead. The family beside the pool isnot the f inal i ty 'aquat ic sun worshippers' . I t is the group thatknorvs i t pays for i ts choice by l imitat ions on i ts freedom of: ict ion. The possible car is now not possible. The i l lusorycssence that went with i t cannot even now be sought. Thei.rreeze beside the pool is invariably chi l ly, the water con-stantly needs cleansing, the water antics increasingly becomestale as they fit into the habitual family patterns, and all ofthis, as complex as i t is, has to relate to al l the other momentstt t the l ives involved. Thus. the husband feels doomed to


continue in a job, which bores him, to repay his loan, whichfinanced the pool plus all the other similar loans that hisdedication to the job has secured. The wife's irritabilityincreases as the thoughtless abandon, which the enjoymentof the pool is meant to induce, leads to wet, muddy feettramping all over the house, which other concepts of how thefamily's existence should be has kept the wife cleaningthroughout the day. Such lives sprawl, open-ended in manydirections, and it is this untidy, inexhaustible set of inter-connections that an account of people making their livesmust get to.

With this said, I can return to the project of specifying thestructure of this book as it is to unfold. What is to follow ismeant as falling under the methodological recommendationwith which this chapter is, in part, concerned. However, thisis not always carr ied through to the let ter. The amount ofdetai l which has to be included in order to do just ice topeople's determining their real i ty is c lear ly immense. Thechapter to fol low, which is concerned with the falseness of anabstract understanding of art and which, to counteract this,produces a sketch of the history of the concept, is, whencompared with the ful l possibi l i t ies of parr icular iry andspecif ic i ty, very general in character. However, a hugevolume would have been necessary to present the argumentsotherwise, and apart f rom feel ing i l l -equipped to do this, tohave done so would have unduly increased the di f f icul t ies ofreaching the required audience. At the same r ime the val idi tyof the, by comparison, general analysis, conducted needs tobe measured against what is knorvn at a more part icular andspecif ic level. Should the analysis not measure up to the waypart icular l ives rvere l ived within their group sett ings, thenthe analysis would be inadequate. l t is, of course, my viewthat th is i s no t so .

The chapter on the concept of art makes much of connec-t ions between art and the bourgeoisie and t l i is requires someadvance explanat ion. To begin with the term 'bourgeoisie ' isnot used by the average person. I t is a term used more now

Methods of Thinking and Methods of Work t <

than it was, but for most people it is regarded as a piece ofjargon used by revolutionaries, like 'bread', meaning money,is regarded as a piece of jargon used by hippies. Setting asidethese associations and limitations on use, the term, in thecontext of this book, is used to mean those various historicalgroups who have used capital to secure private profit andwho have, for the most part, achieved this by securing forthemselves ownership of the society's various means ofproduction. The term is used not only to apply to those whoown the means of production, for the purposes of theproduction of private profit, but also to those closely relatedto such a social group in the society's power structure, andwhose net social activity adds up to assisting and preservingsuch a social structure. This might seem to some peoplerevolutionary talk, but, in fact, nothing of this sort has beenadvanced. If most people stop to think for a moment it willbecome obvious to them that their lives are neither seriouslyemployed in making large profits out of personal capital, norin securing ownership of and profiting thereby from thenjeans of product ion (e.g. ICI, Watney Mann etc.) . Toi-eal ise this is to real ise that there must be others who do, evenif they are not personal ly known to one, and that there mustbc st i l l others closely dependent for power and prest ige on thet ic l f 'are of this group. Despite these disavowals, the chapter,ur the concept of art wi l l seem Marxist in character to those

"i l ro have any concept of such matters. However, my views:-\ i i thc: concept of art are not Marxist and i t is the funct ion oft i ie th i rd chapter to demonst ra te th is .

In terms of the readership in which I am interested thei t l i rd chapter must be the most uninterest ing of the book as i t: ' , concerned with try ing to understanding the pract ice of\ iarxist wri ters on art . The point of t ry ing to achieve thist- tnderstanding is to disassociate my own analysis from the\{arxist label and also to show how Marxist concept ions of,and uses of, art are paradoxical ly bourgeois in character. I fthis chapter has any chance of appeal ing to the broad mass ofthc people i t is to those people, l iv ing in societ ies which

-l


regard themselves as Marxist, that it is directed. Such peopleare as much duped and adversely served by being measuredsocially through their acceptance, or otherwise, of the ideo-logy of art as are their Western counterparts. The people inMarxist societies are assured that they are saved from thecorruption of bourgeois art by a truly revolutionary,working-class art. The point I shall make in contra-distinction is that this latter notion is a contradiction interms, because the very concept of art is a bourgeois classifi-catory practice.

The final chapter of the book is intended as a detailedstudy of how, in our society, something becomes art. It isconcerned to show how jazz as a form of musical activityexisting outside of artistic activity is gradually sucked into thesphere of art and is as a consequence killed off as the thing itwas. As such this chapter acts as a warning to the wholerhythm and blues movement and its various off-shoots. Morethan this though, the analysis is intended as exemplifying themethods which have been the subject matter of these intro-ductory remarks. Thus, a detai led attempt is made to showhow the question as to whether or not jazz is art, is in no waysettled by theoretical, abstract considerations, but resultsfrom the interconnect ing of compl icated social processes,processes which can be signi f icant ly l inked to the generalremarks made about part icular social processes in the secondchapter. Crudely put, the point made is that as jazz becomespart of bourgeois experience so it becomes art, and as itbecomes art so it becomes detached from the interest anddesires of the broad mass of the people, whereas before thistransformation took place this was not so. I t is on the basisof this chapter that the idea of a revolt against art , which getsi ts credence from earl ier chapters, gains i ts impetus.

As a sort of footnote to this chapter I should l ike to pointout that the ideas contained in it are not peculiar to myself.There are other sources for acquiring them, although theother contexts, as I am aware of them, are not wri t ten withthe mases in mind as readers. Two books I would part icular ly

Methods of Thinkins and Methods of Work 27

.ae,rmrr€rd in this connection are K. Marx German Ideology

^"J j. p. Sarrre The Problem of Method. Personally I have

iiofi,.a from these two books more than most'

Chapter Two

CORRECTINGMISTAKEN IDEAS

ABOIJT ART AND CULTURE

We can imagine in a couple of hundred years from now asituat ion in which people st i l l cont inue to engage in theculturai , art ist ic l i fe. I t is a feature of this kind of l i fe as weknow i t at present that i t concerns i tsel f with the history ofcul tural act iv i t ies. I f the future si tuat ion was comparable wewould f ind that the people l iv ing then would have formedsome concept ion of twent ieth century art . Suppose, then,that they arr ived at their v iew of the art of our period afterhaving asked themselves what twent ieth century works there* 'ere that were dist inct ive of the period and, further, whatuo iks there were tha t they l i ked . Suppose they came to thef l i lou ing rather start l ing conclusions. They decided thatR lr i t l . l ' t t r our society, const i tLl tes the great art i .sts, rvr i ters.prrcts and composers e.g. Picasso, George Bernard Shaw,. lo:cplr Conrad, Walt Whitnlan, Elgar, etc. are not to be sorcsarclcd by' thern" They hold, let us suppose, that the greatuorks o f a r t o f the twent ie th century cons is t o f th ings l i ke,"r lan. i \ . gasometers, farm machinery and washing machines,i in i l lhar the revered names in the world of the arts include[: lv is Presley, Ivor Novel lo, Barbara Cart land, Pat ience)trong. Ben Travers, the Osmonds etc. Most people in oursociet) ' now, whether interested in the arts or not, wi l lr tcognise that some reversal of the normal ordering systemuoulcl have taken place for this eventual i ty to come about.

1'his projected future is, of course, art i l lcal ly conceived.


The process, whereby something is established as a work ofart, or someone is established as an important name in thearts, does not depend on people consciously getting together,at a particular time, and asking themselves if certain works,and people, measure up to certain standards. Within our ownsociety there exist traditional assumptions about whichobjects are art objects, and which persons are accountedgreat artists. These traditional assumptions constitute a moreor less commonly shared knowledge. The educational formsof the society ensure tirat most people know that Shakespeareis a great writer, and Chopin a great composer. The posses-sion of a more detailed knowledge about what works of artand artists there are depends largely, for the individual, onwhether or not his social background is one of engagementwith the arts ( i f so the family is l ikely to be wel l to do, ofsome social status, more bourgeois than not) and depends,also. on the extent to which the individual has succeededwithin the educational forms of the society. Having had theappropriate educat ional success, or having the appropriatesocial background, means that you will know Duchamp is afamous twentieth century artist, Bermejo a competentf i f leenth century Spanish painter, John Cage a controversialtwent ieth century musical personal i ty. Most of those, forwhom this book is intended, wi l l not know this.

Somettr ing to remember, therefore, is the formativeinf luence of t radi t ional assumptions. The predicted future isart i f ic ial because i t neglects to locate these tradi t ionalassumptions at work in the society. The people to comewould not have to wake up one morning and decide whatwas, and what was not, the art ist ic achievements of thetwent ieth century. The quest ion would already be sett led. I tmight be possible to al ter or modify these tradi t ions to someextent (af ter al l a sense of history is transmit ted by passingthrough societ ies and this cannot be solely a passive process;something happens to tradi t ions on route) but i t would beimpossible to ignore them altogether. We cannot, now,decide afresh what constitutes the art of the eiehteenth

Correcting Mistqken ldeqs obout Art qnd Culture 3l

nenrurv. because this is already decided, and so would be the

;;;;; ihe twentieth centurv for people of the twentv-second

century'However, supposing these suppositions about the future

did come to pass, we might wonder whether or not the people

il .o.. had made a mistake about the art of the twentieth

,.ntury. Alternatively, we might suppose that we were' or

oui toli.tv was, mistaken. In the latter case how might we

explain this mistake? A possible explanation might go as

iotto*r, The traditi,onal assumptions about what is art

natu.attv are influential. People in the society are instructed

in itt.r. t.uditions just as they are taught other traditions of

ih. ,ociety e.g. the history of the society's wars and battles.

These traditions though are acted upon' and the contempor-

ary additions to the traditions, which are passed on to

,u"br.qu.nt generations as part of the overall, ongoing tradi-

tion, are made. However, additions to the tradition are not

achieved as one might suppose new members of MENSA (the

ciub for people of high IQ scores), or new members of the

black belt c lass in judo, are added. The process involved, in

art, is not one of a sifting by experts, but one of innumerablesocial arrangements interacting with each other' The addi-t ions are not simply the result of rat ional del iberat ion. lncontemporary society, the social processes involved const i-lute one of the businesses or industr ies of the society.

\\Ie might compare, here, the way in which somethingbecr)mes established as a wclrk of art, or the way someonebecomes establ ished as a great art ist , or great cr i t ic, with thewa-v in which a commercial product establishes itself assuccessful . For instance, the pre-packed, sl iced loaf which weitli eat would generally be accounted inferior to the cottageindustry-type loaf, which these days is not general ly avai l -i . r l ) le. The modern loaf has replaced the apparent ly moredcsired, olc ler loaf, not on the basis of i ts acknowledgedsttper ior i ty as bread, but as the result of var ious other sociall 'actors, including highly competi t ive pr ic ing, superior distr i -but ion services. the thinness of the sl ices and the economy

32 Art an Enemy of the people

therein, the addition of preservatives avoiding staleness etc.It might be true that people would have preferred the olderloaf to have had all the advantages of the modern loaf, but,quite apart from their preferences, what they put up with issomething with these advantages, looking like bread, buttasting very unlike it. In other words, many factors explainthe success of the modern loaf, but one factor is not part ofthe explanation, namely, people having rationally decidedwhich bread they liked consuming the most.

We might suggest that extensions to the art tradition arethe outcome of a certain class situation in the society, ratherthan something springing from rational deliberation. Withincontemporary society the sustaining of the art tradition andgrowth within it, stem from social processes within upper-middle-class or bourgeois society. For example, in theschools the 'cultural' values which the educational systemtries to inculcate are not those of the majority of the pupils,or of their social background. The 'cultural' experiencecommended to the pupi ls is 'h igh-culture' . ,High-culture' is,as something actively accepted and welcomed, an integrarpart of bourgeois l i fe. I ts obvious, typical , social contextsinclude Covent Garden, The National Film Theatre, RoyalFest ival Hal l , The Old Vic, The Tate Gal lery, Sadlers Wel ls;contexts in which art ist ic, 'h igh-cultural ' events take place.I ts less obvious contexts include pr ivate Bond Street gal ler ies,establ ished publ ishing houses, prest ige art schools, l i teraturedepartments of universi t ies, so cal led 'qual i ty newspapers' ,businesses etc. I t seems clear that al though these l ists are onlythe t ips of very considerable icebergs of exclusive socialact iv i ty, they do signi fy whole worlds of social experiencewith which most people have had very l i t t le direct or int imateacquaintance. At this point we might try to explain ourmistake concerning art , remembering that, for the moment,it is being assumed that those fictional people of the futuremight be r ight. We might say rhar the mental set ( i .e. f rameof mind) of the predominat ing class in the art ist ic area (thebourgeoisie) prevents it from seeing what is of true value.

Correcting Mistoken ldeos about Art ond Culture 33

This suggestion is not preposterous. Analogously, it is argued

nv the cultural establishment that it is because of their

Uackground that the working-class prefer, whatever it is that

rhey do prefer on the T.V. to say, a T.V. production of

lltaiting for Godot (a rather obscure, 'high-cultural' drama,

written by Samuel Beckett)' In other words it is argued that a

working-class audience cannot tell the difference between the

sood and the bad and this is because of their socially induced

irur. of mind. The claim is that their class position is their

limitation. Well, for the sake of argument, the argument

could be turned around. We might add weight to this

argument by saying the involved, special language in which

the world of art is discussed is a smoke-screen conferring aspecial myst ique, or aura, about this aspect of bourgeois l i fe.The class speaks of its preference being 'art'. The languageitsel f confers a special status on what is enjoyed.

N{any people, in the history of wri t ing about art , havecome to this conclusion.

' fo lstoy, the Russian wri ter, conclu-ded this. (Tolstoy, What is Art .)For him, the art of his ownsocict l ' rvas only the art of , what he cal led, the upper classes.He disparaged this art and made a dist inct ion between i t andreul urt (real art being that which was not accepted in his ownsocicr l 'as art) . ln fact i t is tempting, in explaining the al legednristakc on the basis of c lass bias, to try to resurrect ara legory o f ' rea l a r t 'wh ich is no t the accepted ar t o f therocielv. However, what I wish to br ing out is that, though weItave uircol ' r -red some of the factors necessary to an under-stattding of the concept of art , in treat ing the discrepantr l r)nr.rrpls cl f art , between the tu 'ent ieth century and thei\ \ L ' l1 l \ ' -sr 'cond century, as indicat ing a mistake, we have gone1.\r ' i )ng at a rne{hodological level. The al leged mistake could; l i r t c\ lst , because there is no category of t rue art apart f romI l t t ' rstabl ished category.

I o try to br ing out the impl icat ions of this I refer to' i t rnclhirrg Marx wrote in his early work the Economic andI'lttlosophit.al Munuscripts of I B44.


Religion, family, state, law, morality, science, art, etc., are only par-ticular modes of production, and fall under its general law. Thepositive transcendence of private property, as the appropriation ofhuman l i fe, is therefore the posit ive transcendence of al l estrange-ment-that is to say, the return of man from rel igion, family, state,etc., to his human i.e. social existence. (pp. 102-3 Lawrence WishartLondon 59 edit ion.)

Commentators on what Marx meant, in his various writ-ings, think it obvious that, in this passage, Marx was notforeseeing a future in which art would no longer exist(perhaps had been abolished) as he certainly was foreseeinga future in which religion, the insular family, the State andLaw would not exist. This interpretation of Marx is quitecorrect. For Marx art is a universal, perennial feature ofhunran reality, whereas the State is, in comparison, tempor-ary. Art is a basic category of a human world, for Marx like.say, language.

I t is my suggest ion that to understand the concept of art i tneeds to be treated as Marx treats religion, State and Law. Itis my view that Marx's own treatment of art is methodologi-cally unsound. Marx deals with the State, for example, in ananti-essentialist manner; his method is historical. For Marx' the State' is a phrase used to refer to an assortment ofinst i tut ions within society. These inst i tut ions are held tcrconform to certain assert ions about them, such as their beingcontrol led by the rul ing class and their not emerging unt i l thedivis ion of society into dist inct social c lasses, and their act ingin the interests of the establ ished social order. These areempir ical ly observed facts about how the inst i tut ions of theState were created, and how they have funct ioned histor i-cal ly. However, these facts about the State are not presentecby Marx as accidental facts, or facts that could have easi lybeen otheru, ise. They are part of a story in which inst i tut ionsconst i tute some of the characters and, l ike characters instories, their development grows naturally, not accidentally,out of the total , natural and social s i tuat ion. However, theremarks Marx made about the State are not remarks to which

Correcting Mistaken ldeas about Art and Culture 35

there can be no exceptions: they are not part of a useless

attempt to define what the State is, or to distil some essenceout of the notion. The State, then, as an historical phenome-

non, can, depending upon social circumstances, come andgo. It is not a basic fact of human life without which humanlife would be unimaginable. The State is historical; it has a

clearly detectable beginning, and it is possible that the socialneed for it could lapse into disuse. To understand the State,for Marx, one has to follow the story of its development'When we turn to Marx's treatment of art the historicalmethod, he uses elsewhere, disappears. Art is, for Marx,some fundamental human dimension. This commitment toart, as something basic and universal, leads Marx to positionsat odds with the facts. I shal l have more to say about this inthe next chapter.

Something which paves the way for an historical treatmentof the concept 'art ' , is to draw attent ion to a dist inct ionberween the category of art and, what might appear to be'another category with which i t could be confused. I t is qui teclear that the enormous number of people, who have nointerest in the arts, are nevertheless interested in music (e.g.Radio 1), drama (T.V. plays), c inema (Jsws), dancing (Bal l -rcom and Disco), novels ( thr i l lers and romances) etc. Thisi i ' i of act iv i t ies indicates a general category of act iv i t iesrvhich includes var ious things but, also, excludes others' Forirrstance, i t excludes footbal l and darts. but includes musicalsand paint ing. This general category is not the categor! ' of art ,al though the category of art l ies within i t . thus, for music, wecr;uld give the example of Bach's Part i tas, for drama Shakes-p' lare's plays, for c inema Les Biches etc. We have, then, agc'ne'ral category within which reside var ious, dist inct sub-caiegories. I {aving clal i f ied this much, we might go on toquest ion whether the claims that art is universal and peren-nial are inval idlv deduced from the bel ief that this moregeneral category is universal. Horvever, even this belief is farfrom certain, for though we might feel confident that, inmost societies there have been, we could identify people


engaging in dancing, making music and painting, this is notnecessarily the same thing as being able to identify the moregeneral category. To identify the more general category, weshould need to be satisfied that the societies being investiga-ted did, in fact, divide their worlds up in this way. No matterhow the problem is solved, it is clear that, in our own society,we do have a sense of the general category as distinct fromthe category of art.

If art is a sub-category of this more general category, whyis this? I t seems obvious from the ways these not ions are usedthat the distinction has to do with different senses of value. Ifone is the kind of person who finds it natural to say of anovel one has particularly enjoyed that it is a work of arr,then, within a standard sett ing, one is saying that the novel isof greater value than other novels, f rom which the artcategorisation has been withheld. The sub-category ort,within the more general category, is kept al ive, as a dist inctform of social er istence, by those who bel ieve i ts act iv i t ies aresuperior to other act iv i t ies within the general category. BLlt ,are these bel iefs correct? We are, then, back rvi th the earl ierquest ion in a di f ferent form. Earl ier we were asking whetheror not what is picked out as art , in our societ-v, might be the\\ ' rong col lect ion of things, now we are asking whether i r ist rue to say tha t what i s a r t i s super io r to what i s o f the gener .a lcategory, but not art . In the history of rvr i t ing about artinnumerable theories have been put forward to try to estab-l ish ar"t as superior act iv iry. Sometimes the attempt has bcenmade to shorv that concern with art is superior to concernwith things that rvould not fal l wi thin the general categor), ,for erample science, at other t i rnes the attempt has beerrmade to shorv there is a cul tural div ide within the generaicategory berween what is high and superior, and what is lowand infer ior. For the most part , these theorjes have attemp-ted to do these things by producing a def ini t ion ol 'art which,of i tsel f , would mean that art was superior. The trouble withthe theoris ing has been that there have been a mass ofcontradictory theories. For every theory proposed there

Correcting Mistoken ldeas qbout Art and Culture 37

have been developments within art which have produced

counter-examples, and there have subsequently beencounter-theories and new theories proposed. The net out-come of all this activity has not been a gradual approachtowards the truth of the matter, but rather a source ofemployment for critics, aestheticians, philosophers and theliterary establishment. In other words, the question ofunderstanding the belief in the superiority of art and, byimpl icat ion, the quest ion as to whether a society could bemistaken as to what rvas and was not art, are not questionson which the theoris ing within art throws much l ight. I f , onthe other hand, we take on a social , histor ical perspect ive, interms of art ist ic act iv i ty as a whole, we begin to uncover astart l ing explanat ion.

Before actual ly moving into the histor ical mater ial I wi l lset out, in a formal way, the pattern of the histor icalerplanat ion to be offered. This might seem to make forunnecessary compl icat ion but, when fol lowed, i t does help tokeep the overal i strategy in view, which might otherwisei l isappear. The pattern of the explanat ion to be offered is,then. as fol lorvs:

ln our cul ture ( tvpe of society) there is a heading A (theconcept A), whrch heads the grouping a-h ( the groupinga-h is no l r ig id ly se t , as there is some d ispute , in the cu l tu re ,; i r lo l r 'herher o r no t iand j a re o f the group ing) . Moreover ,n c have another heading B, rvhich heads the groupingr-.-r and another heading C, heading the grouping s-v. lnr i r r . cu l lu re i t i s hc ld tha t A , B and C are mutua l l y exc lus ive, ra tegor ies . In ear l ie r soc ie t ies , in the e igh teenth century ,,re l ' ind in operat ion some headings, which as words haveir istcr ical l inks with some of the words for the headingslr i our ow'n cul ture. Two such headings I wi l l cal l A1 and( ' t ; th is i s to a l low tha t , as head ings , there may be d i f fe r -cnces between them and our own headings, but to al lowthat as words, there are l inks. In fact the things grouped,under these headings, are to some extent discrepant withour own groups . Thus A1 heads a- f and C1 t -v . When we


go back to the medieval or ancient worlds we can findconceptual structures corresponding, roughly, to the follow-ing descriptions. Thus, there are headings having histori-cal word-links with our heading A, which head distinct andmutually exclusive categories. We find, what we mightcall ,{2 and A3 headings co-existing though in oppositionto each other. 42 heads a-c and p and and s-v and x,whereas ,{3 heads d-g and k-o and y and z. The range ofterms a-z are, at least, word-linked throughout the rangeof periods. The obvious quest ion, to which such discoveredstructures lead, is 'Are A, Al, A2 and A3 ident ical?,. Now,this question cannot be settled by ascertaining mere formalcorrespondences, or, if it could, it would be obvious that ,A'1,A2 and ,A3 are not identical with A. When concepts areformalised, as has just been done, one must be careful not toforget that these groupings are l ived. To remember this is toknow that ident i ty encompasses change. Thus, a person ingrowing older is the same person though changed. This isbecause a person is an identifiable process rather than a fixedessence, which has always to be the same. However, to admitthat the groupings are l ived does not entai l that organicconnect ions (as they might be cal led) establ ish ident i ty. Anorganism can spl i t so as to abol ish i tsel f and so produceindependent organisms, or an organism can keep i ts ident i tyrvhi lst producing offspr ing a.s does the mother with her chi ld.The quest ion of ident i ty of conceptual pract ices is very muchthe quest ion of whether social groups could, without ser iousdisor ientat ion, s l ip into the conceptual pract ices of othersocial groups. What, then, would make the headings di f fer-ent would not be formal discrepancy, but rather the impossi-bi l i ty of l iv ing one network of conceptual relat ions asanother. Where there is no way of l iv ing one's own networkinside the network of a discrepant cul ture, then there wetouch the l imits of our conceptual l i fe.

In appropriate histor ical c ircumstances, a cul ture mayabsorb a netrvork, which is in fact al ien, by a transformationof it. where there are no appropriate historical circumstances

Correcting Mistaken Ideos about Art and Culture 39

a culture may be content to exhibit the discrepant network as

alien. On this basis we probably believe (or would probably

believe if we thought about it) that we could slip into theAncient Greek world and yet retain our conceptual identity,whereas. we would be more hesitant about our capacity to do

this in uncontaminated, aboriginal society (especially if weknew something about the way in which the aboriginesdivided up their world). The historical data, therefore, needsto be set out clearly, that is, free from the historicaltransformations that may have taken place (transformationswhich of themselves can make divergent data appear similar).Subsequently, one has to decide whether or not one networkof categories (one process of classification) could be lived asanother. In this way it is possible to pronounce on iheidentity or otherwise of classificatory processes as giventhrough the historical perspective. What, then, of the data?

It has been shown that it is only in the seventeenth andeighteenth centuries that the modern system of the artsemerges. E.g. P.O. Kristel ler 'The Modern System of theArts' A study in the History of Aesthetics. Journol of theHistory of ldeos, Vol. XII (Oct l95l) and Vol. XIII (January1952). In the ancient world there were two categories whichmodern scholarship calls the liberol arts and the imitotivearts. Arranged under the heading, rhe liberol arls were theact iv i t ies grammar, rhetor ic, dialect ic, ar i thmetic, geometry,astronomy, music, medicine and architecture, whereas underthe heading of the imitative orls were included the activitiesof poetry, sculpture, music, sophistry, the use of mirrors andmagic tricks. In fact, for the ancient world any activity thatwas covered by a set of rules for doing it was known as anart . I t is fair ly obvious, therefore, that words, in the ancientrvor ld, that can be l inked to our word 'art ' are doing adif ferent job to that done by our word. Of course, inordinary language many act iv i t ies, which require great ski l l i fthey are to be done well, and especially so if some high degreeof manual dexter i ty is cal led for, are referred to as arts.However, this not ion is not ident ical with the not ion of


art given to us by the high-culture of the society. The ancientworld's notion of art is not confined to activities requiring ahigh order of manual skill and there are, obviously, enor-mous divergencies between their concept and our 'high-

culture'not ion of art ( this lat ter not ion is, of course, the onewith which this discussion is concerned).

The modern concept of art is also noticeably absentthroughout the Middle Ages. Kristel ler, in his art ic le makesthe point clear,

The very concept of 'art ' retained the same comprehensive meaningit had possessed in antiquity, and the same connotation that i t wasteachable. And the term art ista coined in the Middle Ages indicatedeither the craftsman or the student of the l iberal arts. Neither forDante nor for Aquinas has the term Art the meaning rve associatewith i t , and ir has been emphasised or admitted that for Aquinasshoe-making and cooking, juggl ing, grammar and ari thmetic are noless and in no o ther sense or les than pa in t ing and scu lp tu re , poet r t 'and music, u'hich latter are never grouped together, not even asimi ta t i ve a r ts .

Medieval theories about the world were heavi ly dependantupon the authori ty of the Ancients (al though ancient theorieswere transformed to f i t the medieval sense of spir i tual i ty).One important source for what medieval theorists v, 'anted tosay about art was Cicero's pupi l Marius Victor inus. InVictor inus, the broad concept of art indicated by the Kris-tel ler quotat ions is in operat ion. For him the classi fy ing ofprecious stones and the science of populat ion stat ist ics arebr: th arts. In the Middle Ages, there are theories about whatmodern scholarship cal ls beauty (decor, pulchrum etc.) , butour concept of art is not the same as these mediel 'a l concepts.These so cal led concepts of beauty, in the main, concernsomeone or something being in accordance rvi th one's or i tsnature. Thus, for everything there is, i t is held that there issome essence i t has, or some funct ion i t is to ful f i l , and themore the propert ies of the thing, or person, contr ibute to thisfulfilnrent of its nature so the concepts of decor andpulc 'hrum apply. This has l i t t le to do with any modern

Correcting Mistaken ldeas about Art and Culture 4I

concept of beauty and even less to do with the vast variety

within the modern concept of art.It is Kristeller's contention that the same holds for the

Renaissance. Though Leonardo gives us something looking

iit . tt"t. modern system of the arts this is only so with

important reservations. For instance, architecture is not

listed by him as an art, whilst he treats painting and

mathematics as activities of the same kind. For another

Renaissance figure, Castiglione, there was no real distinction

between poetry, music and painting on the one hand and

fencing, hotte riding, classical learning, the collecting of

coins and medals and natural curiosities on the other'

The evidence, here, for the systems of c lassi f icat ion

employed by previous societies is only of limited value, in so

far as it is mainly derived from theoretical sources' The

assumption behind the evidence is that the pronouncements

by such f igures as Leonardo and Cast igl ione, do tel l us how

the people in Europe during the Renaissance period classi f ied

their lvor ld. However, the actual data ( i 'e. the l iv ing commu-

nity) is not avai lable and, therefore, the business of f inding

nui, u 'wel l as we are able' is heavi l i r dependant on such

sources. Despite this i t should not be forgotten that what is

at 'ai lable are contemporaneot ls attempts at theoris ing about

a society 's pract ices, and they are as l ikely to be at var iance

rr i th what goes on as are our own theoret ical wri t ings aboutt)Llr o\ \ '1 act iv i t ies. There are, of course, certain cross-checkst l ra t can be made. For ins tance, f rom what we know o f the

trrstor-v of archeology we can be certain that lv i thin thetor lds we have been describing, we would f ind no bui ldings

ttr l f i l l ing ident ical funct ions to the large contemporar-v art

r :al lery or concert hal l , and from what rve know of the history

ot 'pol i t ical inst i tut ions we know u'e would not f ind' in these

earl ier societ ies, departments of government devoted to thepromotion of the arts. Moreover ' the educat ional processes

of these societ ies have no inst i tut ional ised means for making

our educat ional div is ion betrveen the arts and the sciences.

fhe societies involved do not have our concepts for making


the distinction, and, consequently, they have no problemcomparable to our own, of bridging the gap.

It is Kristeller's view that the ground is prepared for themodern system of the arts by the emancipation of the naturalsciences. Kristeller says,

A point by point examination of the claim of the ancients andmoderns in the various f ields led to the insight that in certain f ields,where everything depends upon mathematical carculation and theaccumulation of knowledge, the progress of the moderns over theancients can be clearly demonstrated, whereas in certain other fieldswhich depend upon individual talent and on the taste of the cri t icthe relative merits of the ancient and moderns cannot be so .teariyestabl ished but may be subject to controversy.

Thus the ground is prepared for the first time for a cleardist inct ion between the arts and the sciences, a dist inct ion absenrfrom ancient, medievar or Renaissance discussions of such subiectseven f hough the same words were used.

The general point is, then, that the conceptual system as itconcerns art from the seventeenth century onwards is of apiece, but is decreasingly locatable the further back we gofronr the seventeenth century. There is, naturally enough, anorganic connect ion between what Kristel ler cal ls the modernsystem of the arts and what precedes i t , but this, in i tsel f ,fai ls to guarantee ident i ty, because what has to be explored iswhat is being done with a conceptual system, what itsfunct ion is, and the character of i ts gr ip on social conscious-ness. What is c lear, at this point, is that there is an histor icaldivide around the seventeenth century between what wentbefore and what comes after. From the seventeenth centuryonwards European society increasingly classifies under theheading 'art ' the act iv i t ies which our own society wouldrecognise as fal l ing under that heading. Before this t ime thesystem of classi f icat ion is clear ly di f ferent.

What then explains this histor ical div is ion? I suggest thehistorical explanation resides in those factors which give riseto the modern period. These include the growing dominanceof the bourgeoisie over against the landed ar istocracv and

Correcting Mistaken ldeos about Art and Culture

court circles, the emergence of science and also, importantly,the link between the two. It is this complex, which breaksdown the older, conceptual habits, and gives rise to new anddistinct forms of life. The emergence of the scientific attitudeand the emergence of the new economic system were veryintertwined. The early, primary centre of the new scientificmode, The Dutch Republic, was also the early centre ofbourgeois, mercantile activity, and both were interconnectedtheoretically and practically. Both these enterprises cameunder similar repressive pressure from the old, social order.This social order adapted or transformed itself and itsconceptual habits so as to meet the challenge. As one part ofthe old form of life had been transformed by the bourgeoisie(i.e. what has come to be scientific activities) so the aristo-cracy turned to other parts of the old l i fe form, which hadbeen less uniquely molested, and turned them into distinctand new forms of life, which were distinct and new in so far;rs they were set against, and in opposition to, the distinct lifestyle of the bourgeoisie. Art was the invent ion of thearistocracy.

Adkins Richardson summarises the point,

I t can be argued to considerable effect that the very notion ofabso lu te s tandards o f decorum in l i fe was a l ready a response to theinc t t rs ion-s o f a 'pa ten t nob i l i t y ' (d rawn f rom the wea l thy midd lec lass) upon the anc ien t p r iv i leges o f the nob i l i t l ' o f gent le b j r th . (J .Adkins Richarclson ' l l lustrat ion ancl Art ' , i t Bri t ish Journul ofAesthetics. l9i l \

- l -his point is very much based on the evidence assembled in

,{rnold Hauser's large The Social Hi.story of Art (London,1962).

The contrast between the older forms of l i fe and the newlycmerging forms is made by Adkins Richardson in discussingLeonardo.

For him the suggestion that a panel paint ing by a routinely compe-tent art isan might not be art would have been meaningless. Such


transcendent, exclusive concepts of value did not exist for theQuattrocento .. . Art was invented by a later industr ial age.

The significance of the new art concept was that ofelevating part of the old form of life into an object ofirrational reverence. This is to say, a whole set of 'word-

games', a whole vocabulary to talk about something called'art', was developed, whereby what was distinctive of thearistocratic life was held up as being of objectively superiorstatus. To enter into this form of life was to be concernedwith elevated and superior activity. In fact this was not thecase, but this was the ideological point. The scientific life wasconcerned with the advancement of knowledge, but in oppo-si t ion to this the art ist ic l i fe, as i t was now conceived of,contested for the status of a form of knowledge. Thus, theearly theories of art (art in the modern sense) coupled artwith truth, and the truth which art was directed to celebratein order to be art , was very concrete and very much known,namely, the old cosmological and social order, which thegrowing dominance of bourgeois trends was threatening andrvould soon overthrow.

At this point, art as a concept was reasonably coherent andcohesive despite (a) i t being the case that what passed for artwas that which corresponded u, i th a false and social lyredundant v iew o f the wor ld , and desp i te (b ) the fac t tha t thelabel 'art ' w'as offered as an object ive and veri f iable nteasureof wor th when i t was no th ing o f thc sor t .

- fhe es tab l i shed

ideo logy o f an under s iege, d iv ided amongsr i t se l f (e .g . thegap betw'een town, the court and country) and, therefore,warr ing feudal order presented i tsel f , and the society at large,w i th a r t i s t i c ac t i v i t y as o f the h ighe: . t , most abso lu te fo rm o fsocial and individual aspirat ion. ' fhe

revolut ionary class,through whose act iv i ly came about the normal isat ion ofbourgeois social relat ions (e.g. wage labour, the labourmarket, the ownership of the means of product ion) andwhich contains persons having status on the basis of the olderfeudal set-up, in i ts aspirat ion to be the rul ing class has the

Correcting Mistaken ldeas obout Art and Culture 45

aspiration to take over the life of the ruling class. However,as the life of the ruling class was lived in opposition to the lifeof a growing, dominant bourgeoisie, so the life of the rulingclass could not be assimilated in its particularity by theascendant class. Therefore, the general desire by the revolu-tionary class for art becomes the concrete project of elevatingcertain bourgeois practices to the status of art, and trans-forming (if only by means of theoretical activity - alteringthe theories about the nature of art) aristocratic instances ofart into manageable, bourgeois proportions.

This movement is reflected in changes which occur inaesthetic theory during the seventeenth and eighteenthcentur ies. The theories, which accommodate the art conceptto the general mental set of the bourgeoisie, are those whichntake beauty (as a concept having particular relevance to art)a matter of taste, i .e. a matter of how human beings happento be const i tuted. Thus, beauty is no longer thought of inrerms of t ruth ( i .e. the extent to which the work of art ref lectsor represents the established social structure) but is thoughtof in terms of the presence or absence of a psychologicalrcsponse, often ident i f ied in the theories as pleosure. I f art isl i r<lught of as some abstract category, in need of theoret icali icf in i t ion, then the var ious theories, in the history of aesthe-l ics, are simply assessed from the point of v iew of their. idequacy, but in n'rongly ' concentrat ing on art as an abstractr .rrr- lb lem, we miss the pract ical strategy behind the formula-t ion o f such theor ies .

- fhe ins is tence on ar t as be ing u l t i -

rnatel l ' a matter of taste. rathe'r than an accurate representa-i i l r r o f a cer ta in soc ia l o rder , i s the move requ i red to a l low,inro the category of art , the degree of f lexibi l i ty whereby thetrorrrgeoisie, as the rul ing class, can assimi late i t . Bourgeoisn . r i r r t i r r g . w l i t i n g e t c . . d o n o l c o t r n t a \ a r t o n a r i s t o c r a t i c; r i te r ia , bu t the i 'do as the bourgeo is ie ass imi la te and t rans-1r-rrm the l i le style of the ar istocracy. Such is the fundamen-tul , pract ical opposit ion betrveen the theorists Hume, Burke,l)ubos and Bonhours on the one hand and Boi leau, Reynolds;rnd Shaftesbury on the other. From this point onwards the


development of art is tied to the development of the bour-geoisie. This latter development is not a smooth progression,but, in itself, encompasses many revolutionary changesconnected with technological revolutions and the way theyare experienced socially; this complex movement is deeplyembedded in the unfolding of the category of art.

A theory of taste, a matter of the occurrence or non-occurrence of pleasure, does not hold a dominant positionfor long. As bourgeois social relations become the normalform of social relations, so the degree of leverage against thearistocratic theories of art becomes unnecessary. What issubsequently required are theories to add authority to theparticular, evolving, mental set of the new ruling class.Crudely speaking, this takes two basic forms (l) the insis-tence on form and the knowledge of form and (2) theinsistence on individualism, basically Romanticism. Theprimary theory of taste does not disappear altogether. Itremains as a way of explaining interest in art for those notact ively obsessed by the category. Up to a point i t is the waythe more scient i f ical ly or iented members of the bourgeoisiescientifically (psychologically) account for the life form inwhich they part ic ipate to a l imited degree. I t is the tolerated,non-revolut ionary, bourgeois opposit ion to the actualhistor ical character of bourgeois society which creates theauthori tat ive just i f icat ions for the bourgeois 'cul tural ' l i fe asa high ideal.

The bourgeoisie as a wholc is not ful f i l led by the product-ive processes of Capital ist societ l ' .

' fhe gror.r , th of appl ieclscience, the increase in mechanisat ion, the object ive ol 'product ion being the accumulat ion of prof i ts, the fragmenta-t ion and dehumanising aspects of the product ion process(both for wage earners and those who own the means ofproduct ion, including those who assist them) al l add up,within the bourgeoisie i tsel f , to an impulse to deny, escapefrom, or compensate for the economic base upon whichbourgeois, mater ial securi ty is dependent. The legacy of theolder form of society is one of the possibi l i t l ' of a great and

Correcting Mistaken Ideas about Art and Culture 47

absolute, spiritual fulfilment through the social organisationof the society. This is not to say such fulfilment was possiblewithin the older society, but its ideology offered this as thepoint of such a society. This is an active tradition withinbourgeois society and one which, quite apart from the senseof unfulfilment offered by the base of the society, is one thesociety would like to square with that base, as to do so wouldbe to propagandise for social cohesiveness and pullingtogether. In other words, the social need to make somethingout of the 'cultural life' is not some mythical quality ofhuman-ness expressing itself in the midst of bourgeoisdehumanisation, but rather the expression of culturallyconditioned expectations. Art, as we know it now, is theresult of these various processes working themselves out.

As experienced in contemporary society art is a form oflife, a conceptual system, which is lived within the bourgeoissetting. It is from this setting that the art process emanates,and its life-enhancing ripples do not extend far beyond theinterests of this social class.

'I 'here are institutional attempts

to enrol other sections of the society in the form of life, butthey are resisted. This resistance may be interpreted asproletarian resistance. The concept of art is not just aheading, but something which enters into and structuresjudgement. To say of something that i t is a work of art is notmerely to say it is, for instance, of the form music andtherefore art , for we know the mass area of musical con-: 'umption, in our society, has nothing to do with the sphere ofart . I t is the social area, in which the instance is taken up,that conf 'ers the status of art upon the instance. Once takenup and establ ished something renrains as an instance of artbecause it is established, because it constitutes part of thetradit ions of the category. The judgement that something isart assigns a value to it. The value is offered in bourgeoispractice as being objectively determinable, and the constantsearch for definitional theories has been the attempt torat ional ise this judgement. However, these judgements arewithout rat ionale. At best. the theories construct i r rat ional


reverence for activities which suit bourgeois needs, but notthe universal ones the theories make out they do. Art is afetish. As this is so, so mystification becomes part of theconcept of art. From outside the form of life, one can say artis nothing over and above what the bourgeoisie classifies asart, that is its meaning, but, from inside the category, such athought is intolerable because it dismantles the beliefs that gowith entering into the activities of the category. The beliefsposit the objective superiority of those things singled out asart and, thereby, the superiority of the form of life whichcelebrates them, and the social group which is implicated. Itis out of this sort of logical mystification that the category ofart emerged in the first place, that is, as an attempt on thepart of the old order in society to make out its life wassonrehow committed to a superior form of knowledge.

Therefore, we can say that art is a highly specific form oflife, which is identifiable only within specific historicalsett ings. This is to deny that art is universal ly distr ibuted.Although this is an alarming conclusion to those brought upon art as a kind of universal rel ig ion into which al l sensit ivehumans enter in one form or another, i t is, nevertheless, aconclusion which accords wel l with anthropological data(data on al ien and pr imit ive cul tures).

For instance, though Aborigines regard the act iv i ty ofpaint ing on tree bark as l 'ery important, the-v do this as partof r i tual ist ic procedures ingrained in their mythologicalpract ices. The f inrshed objects are not for publ ic exhibi t ion,but are buried in a secret place and taken out inl ' requent ly bya select and ini t iated group. When taken out they form partof the rel igious pract ices of the society, and are not used inways akin to paint ings in art gal lenes (e.g. for the contempla-t ion of their formal propert ies, or for a contemplat ion ofman's expressive funct ion). To take another case: Eskintocarving, which has been represented in art gal ler ies of theworld in recent years as the Art oJ' the Eskimo, was notproduced for v isual contemplat ion. The carvings were donelargel.r ' dur ing the long Winter nights, and when f inished


were simply discarded. Without fully entering into theEskimo's world, and so understanding his activity, it isnonetheless clear that the object of the carving was not thecreation of an object to contemplate, rather the object of theactivity was carving. Apparently, contemporary Eskimoswere surprised to find that our culture was interested in theirfinished objects and that there was a market for them in ourart gallery set-ups. However, the fact that the carvings wereworth money to the Eskimos was quite sufficient for them toturn themselves into primitive artists, despite the fact that intheir own culture no such concept was workable.

Works of art, therefore, are identifiable as such simplybecause the social processes, within the form of life that artis, have f ixed onto them the label 'art ' . That this is the soleground for something being art is demonstrated by the factthat to be accepted within the appropriate social area guaran-tees that something is art, and by the fact that the reasons forand explanations of acceptance have, over the centuries, beenso diverse that acceptance cannot be anything other thanarbi trary. In simpler language my point is that art , now, isnothing over and above what the bourgeoisie (high-bourgeoisie, real ly in the sub class of the class, the group thatrnanufactures the ideology of the class) cal ls art , and that forthis class to cal l something art is to have f ixed on labels ofralue, which cannot be just i f ied, though the aff ix ing of thelabels can be explained.

I t is a feature of the kind of histor ical analysis I have beensketching in that i t does not provide the grounds for adist inct ion between false art and real art . ln other words, tora!,3S has been said in the history of aesthet ics, that one'srociety 's art is only the art of the upper classes, and that reali i r t is something else, is to misunderstand the concept. Artis nothing over and above what has been social ly establ ishedas art . What is cal led art in our society is art regardless ofrvhat future societ ies cal l art and, therefore, the supposit ion,at the beginning of this chapter, that our society might havegot the art- l ist wrong assumes, wrongly, that there is


something to get right or wrong. The only mistake that canbe made is one of not knowing the conventions of the society(i.e. not knowing what the society calls art). The reason forthis is that the concept of art cannot be understood as anabstraction, because it is without significance divorced froman evolving set of social institutions. Art is, then, an openconcept, but if we are to understand it we must say more thanthis because what has to be explained is on what basis theconcept gets set up, and what social processes determine itsdevelopment. It is necessary to investigate the social signifi-cance of the category as a whole as distinct from investigatingthe social significance of particular works of art.

In terms of the possibilities contained within the project ofsuch an investigation, what has been attempted in thischapter is very slim. A detailed historical investigation alongthe lines proposed would be an immense task, involving arelating of the particular moments in history of the arts, andtheories of the arts, to the individuals, social groups andgeneral historical and social circumstances involved. How-ever, to pursue this (even given the stamina and interest to doso) would be to try the pat ience of the intended readershipbeyond what is reasonable. For instance, one smal l part ofthe task would be to achieve a detai led understanding of thesocial , economic and various personal formulat ions oftheories of art in Bri tain in the eighteenth century. However,to do this for those not interested in art at al l , and to do so onthe basis of wishing to conf irm them in this lack of interestwould come close to perversion. I doubt one would fol lowsuch an account without having a posit ive interest in thecategory to be elucidated. What has been given, then, is thebarest sketch of a possible histor ical analysis, but this in i tsel fis enough to indicate (a) a just i f iable al ternat ive to theestabl ishment orthodoxy about art and (b) the start l inguntruths contained within the ideology of art . The possibi l i tyof an alternative perspective is the hardest thing to encouragein popular consciousness, and for this the more straight-forward the treatment of the subject matter the better. The

Correcting Mistaken ldeas about Art snd Culture 5l

one context where, in this book, a more detailed (socially,historically, personally) approach has been attemptedconcerns the final chapter. This is appropriate because thesocial circumstances discussed there are, because of theirproximity to our own times and because of their relatednessto ordinary, social experience, easily made accessible togeneral, social interest. All that is required for the comple-tion of this chapter is an underlining of the practical implica-tions of holding the thesis about art which has beenbroached.

The most obvious impl icat ion, of the suggested analysis isthat for those outside the 'cul tural ' l i fe of the society, there isno need to look upon it as some high ideal from which,through lack of talent, intelligence or sensitivity, one isdebarred, nor is there any need to feel shame-faced, apologe-t ic or aggressive because of one's ignorance. There is no highideal, there is only the l i fe style of those social groups havingthe greatest f inancial resources within the society. To be ofthis group is, in the standard case, to f ind no di f f icul ty inf i t t ing into this l i fe-style, regardless, that is, of one's talent,intel l igence and sensit iv i ty. For those outside this form ofl i fe, who stop to think abr:ut the central act iv i t ies of the formof l i fe, i t must seem that the fact of their going on isunimportant, and in terms of their central act iv i t ies this istrue. People should, in the interests of people knowing howthe world is constructed, know that i t is a possible truth,borne out by an histor ical analysis, that the ai leged superior-i t y o f the 'cu l tu ra l ' l i fe i s a decept ion prac t ised by a c lassboth upon i tsel f and against other social c lasses, but once thispossibi l i t l ' has been registered i t might seem that this is t i reend of the matter; this is to say i t might seem that l i t t le ofpract ical s igni f icance fol lows from the discovery. However,there are many pract ical impl icat ions which only come intovierv when one turns away from the central act iv i t ies of thepract ice and looks at the general prol i ferat ion of i t .

For instance, our society 's educat ional system has con-siderable inf luence on the l ives of al l of us. I t is something

52 Art qn Enemy of the People

which to greater or lesser degree all members of the societyare compelled to enter. In fact the educational system is themost obvious, straightforward area of coercion practisedupon individuals in the society. Moreover, success or failurein this system correlates closely with the social hierarchy.Thus, those having a dominant class position in the hierarchytend, for the most part, to succeed in the system, whereasthose having more servile positions tend, comparatively, tofail, and, of course, to succeed in the system is to secure areasonably dominant position in the hierarchy. The skills andinterests, which the educational process is there to induce areheavi ly dependent upon the character of the 'cul tural ' l i fe.For instance, the language most people natural ly speak isvery different from the language forms which the educationalsystem would implant. The recommended language formsare model led on the tradi t ions of l i terary 'pr intable' Engl ish.There is, then, a pronounced di f ference between the ordinarypract ices of the language group and the l inguist ic ski l lsrequired for success within the educat ional process. Further,rvi thin the context of being taught Engl ish at school, mucht ime is spent studying the recognised 'high-art ' l i terature ofEuropean and American bourgeois society, and moreover,the history of Western civ i l isat ion is very much conducted internrs of i ts so-cal led 'cul tural ' achievements. The ordinarl-language, of the people, serves perfect ly wel l for the purposeso{ 'communica t ion , bu t i t i s no t one 's ab i l i t y to use th is tha tthe educat iona l sys tem seeks to tes t . The 'h igh-cu l tu ra l ' l i feof the sociely is not onc. of the fornrs of l i fe that the mass ofthe people l ive. yet to succeed educat ional ly con.siderableknou' ledge of i t is required.

Moreover, to what extent do people, as a whole, bel ieve inthe goals of the educat ional process. I t is c lear that parentsurge their chi ldren to do wel l at school, to compete witholhers and gain success, but this is not because of a deepingrained appreciat ion of the 'cul tural ' l i fe. The parents'desire for the chi ld 's educat ional success is t ied to seekingsocial success for the chi ld. As far as i t goes this is rat ional


because educational success is a means to social success andfinancial security. However, the divergence, between the lifelived and the life recommended, leads in so many cases toself-deception. Thus, without any real commitment to the'cultural'l ife of the society the adult urges the child to adoptthe standards of 'good English' etc. This urging is notaccompanied by an unveiling of the mystification of 'good

English'. In other words, the child is not told that the skillsrequired are just some of the tricks needed to get on, and thatthey should be learnt as tricks but not believed in. Thestandards recommended are offered as established absolutes,despite the fact that the concerned parent is often unhappywith those standards himself and fails (unknowingly) tooperate in accordance with them. The failure is readilyapparent to those deeply entrenched in the 'cultural' l ife.

Of course, the var ious publ ic inst i tut ions concerned withverbal communicat ion (newspapers, radio-stat ions etc.) donot, even for the most part , operate rvi th l i terary, 'h igh-

cultural ' language forms. Despite this the language, asrecommended within educat ion, takes as i ts paradigm the'high-cultural ' language. For instance, the 'high cul ture'radio channel, Radio 3, consistent ly uses announcers whoopera te w i th 'educated ' , 'good Eng l ish ' language fo rms. I t i sthis language form that the schools teach. I t is for this reasonlhat the educat ional system disparages the language forms ofRadio I and the popular press. The popular i ty of Radio 1,and the popular press, is related to the fact that, al thoughtheir language forms are not those of thc' mass of the people,rhel ' do, nevertheless, represent a concession to the massianguage and at the same t ime a sl ipping away from thecducat ional paradigrn. I f the people were to reject theparadigm as a paradigm, but to accept the acquisi t ion of thetr icks, for operat ing in accordance with the paradigm, asuseful within the present social context, the var ious forms ofsel f-decept ion and the knots people t ie themseives in could beavoided. The acquisi t ion of knowledge about the processesat work, and a constant appl icat ion of this knowledge to


one's practical reality is required, therefore, so as to avoidacting in accordance with false conceptions of oneself.

People do feel some hostility towards art, and do showsome recognition of its being a confidence trick, but these areattitudes struck in response to the antics of modern art.However, this criticism is misplaced because much of modernart has been itself a send-up of the 'high-cultural' l ife. Thepublicised cases of vast surns of money being spent on objectsand entertainments, which to the general public seem to haverequired little or no effort in their production, are commonplace. The general reaction to them is one of disparagmentand disbel ief . The general publ ic 's thin knowledge of thehistory of art convinces i t that, al though, for the most part ,art is uninterest ing, i t has, in i ts product ion, required theexercise of ski l l and effort . Compared with this the produc-t ion of modern art (or what is seen as being modern art) isviewed as being completely unjust i f iable. In other words, thepecul iar nature of modern art is rejected,. by the generalpubl ic, on the basis of giv ing grudging acceptance ro the arttradi t ion" Some point can be seen in the older art because ofthe work that rvent into i t , rvhereas nothing can be seen inmodern art because i t fai ls to sat isfy a work-ethic cr i ter ion.

However, the signi f icance and status ofthe art t radi t ion gofar bel 'ond ar)yrhing rhat can be just i f ied by rhe amounr ofuork e . rpended in i t s p roduc t ion , and the mean ing anc isigni f icancc' of modern arr goes be! 'ond w,hat c; ln beexplained as the result of a rveird form ot laziness. I t is rv i thinthe modern art ntc)vemenf that recclgnit ion of the real, socialsigni f icance of art has often been formulated. I t is this whichexp la ins the pecr r l ia r i t y o f much o f the work . I t has been apercept ion cf rnodern art that art is just ' ,vhat is cal led art ,and tha t to p roduce a work o1 'a r t i t i s su f f i c ien t to ge twhatever i t is, that you have produced, accepted as arr. fheidea that a rvork of art is something produced through alonely, pr ivate struggle, at the cost of considerable personalsuffer ing, is a Romantic ic lea cast of{ ' in nruch contemporaryart pract ice. I t is ref iected that something becomes art

Correcting Mistaken ldeas about Art ond Culture 55

through a collective conspiracy (i.e. not through personalagony) and that to secure one's status as an artist is a matterof setting about stage managing the conspiracy. The objectproduced has been largely an irrelevant consideration, thesocial context in which it has appeared the all importantconsideration. Some artists have resorted to finding oldobjects, like lavatory bowls, signing their names on them andentering them for exhibition. In so far as the art context hasnot thrown these things out they have, over the years,become a firm part of the art category, constituting asignificant trend in art history. In many cases the intentionbehind offering these objects has been to attack the artestablishment by reducing the activities of art to transparentabsurdity. If anything whatsoever can be art, then art cannotbe anything over and above what is called art. If socialpractice designates something as art then art it is. Thesetendencies in contemporary art have not undermined the artcategory; i t cont inues to thr ive. Contemporary art is not,then, to be welcomed as an effect ive chal lenge to the l i fe ofart , but at the same t ime i t is not to be attacked on the-qrounds of i ts not measuring up to the true standards of art .To attack movements in contemporary art , on these grounds,is to fal l for the ideology of art (an ideology which does notmeasure up to the actual pract ice of art) .

Fal l ing for the ideology of art can happen in another way.l t is a feature of the ideology of 'h igh-culture' , part icular ly inthis century, to assert that art is a universal, huntan category.C)ne instance of this, already mentioned, is the way theact iv i t ies of pr imit ive people have been brought under theconcept of art , despite the absence of analogous concepts inthe pr imit iv 'e 's w'or ld. In this way' objects previously classi-i ied in civ i l ised European society as museum pieces, andthereby of ethnographical interest, have been transferred tothe context ol the art gal lery. The social s igni f icance of thishas been to raise the social status of those pract ices which, inthis way, have been brought under the concept of art . Whatwere the cur iosi t ies of savagery become the profound


interpretations of the universe by the primitive mind. Nowthis commitment. within art, to the universality of art, worksin another direction. Because art is thought to be founduniversally, so it is thought that its appeal should be univer-sal. To be an artist is to want to say something meaningful toall men. This view is part of the ideology of art. However, itis a glaringly obvious fact about art that it is an activity for asmall coterie, and does not have universal appeal. Given theideology, there is something galling about the fact that thereare other activities in the society which have considerableappeal for the general public.

A telling example of this is popular music which reachesthe universal audience. Only the voice of art is held to be ableto do this legitimately: that popular music does it is explainedaway on the basis of i ts not doing so legi t imately. I t is said i tdoes so by encouraging unsophisticated and unintelligentpeople in 'cheap sensationalism' and stupidity. This is howinsult ing the ideology of art becomes towards the mass of thepeople. Despite this attack on popular 'cul ture' , and formany different reasons, we find certain groups within thegeneral art world attracted to aspects of this popular'cul ture' . As this attract ion takes on var ious forms of socialpract ice, so quest ions are raised as to the art-status of thoseaspects of the popular, more universal 'cul ture' for whichattract ion is fel t . In other words, as the bourgeoisie becomesinterested in certain of these act iv i t ies so the act iv i t ies arebrought under the concept of art . Tl ie social c lass could notal low i tsel f to be interested in anything less than art , so whati t is interested in must be art , and where the interest is inaspects of popular cul ture the art c lassi f icat ion seems toco inc ide w i th the aspec ts o f sa t is fy ing the ideo logy o f a r t ( i .e .being of universal appeal) . This si tuat ion, however, does notremain stat ic and so the assimi lat ion into art encompasses atransformation of the act iv i ty. For instance, dur ing the 60sthose aspects of popular music rooted in the tradi t ions ofrock music became of real interest to a young, intel lectual,middle-class publ ic. As this happened so ert , as an accolade,

Correcting Mistoken ldeas about Art ond Culture 57

became tenuously attached to certain forms of this music,but at the same time a transformation occurred whereby thecategory of 'progressive rock' came into being. As thishappened so 'progressive rock' established itself as a minor-ity interest, and it was within this category that the status ofrock as an art form was entertained. This, then, was a raidinto popular culture by the art world involving a carrying offof certain of its activities and changing them in the process.The borderlines between these various activities are not yetclearly drawn and many individuals straddle them all, but,despite this, i t is qui te obvious that the progressive rockgroup is more bourgeois than not ( though i t tends to be ayoung, seemingly rebel l ious, bourgeois group), that i t is moreat home with the value 'art ' than other groups in the society,and that i t sees i ts act iv i t ies as forming part of universal art(on a par with the so cal led 'art act iv i t ies of pr imit ive people'and so called 'medieval art' and modern European art andcontemporary a r l e tc . ) .

This raiding of popular cul ture, stemming as i t does Iromthe impulse in art to be universal, has a decept ive attract ionfor those whose act iv i t ies are ransacked. Art is a badge ofsuccess within the society, and to have i t conferred on one'sact iv i t ies, rvhen this is not normal, is to be incl ined to bask inthe value of the arvard, despite the fact that the total , socialsigni f icance of the process of awarding, in the society, issoc ia l l y d isc r im i r ra to ry aga ins t the mass o f the peop le . Toaccept the au 'a rd . as h igh commendat ion , i s to accept , a l lhesame t ime, tha t one 's own l i fe s ty le i s in { 'e r io r . l t i s a lsopossible that i f the award is taken too ser iously i t can suck thei i fe out of what were previously vi tal act iv i t ies.

I think jazzis one importalr t area where this has happenedand, in chapter four , I t ry to shou 'hou ' th is has taken p lace .' fhough

i t is controversial to say so I think the Beat les isanother case in point. Their ear ly act iv i t ies rvere f i rmlyroo ted in popu lar cu l tu re , bu t the more the 60s un fo lded themore they became cult f igures for the young, sel f-styledpol i t icos of the student bourgeosie. T'he more they became

58 Art an Enemy of the PeoPIe

this the less they became the idols of the hard-core teenageaudience. It was the art process that gave the members of thegroup the ideals of fulfil l ing themselves as creative musiciansby entering progressive music as individuals. They could havegone on making popular music, and entertaining the peoplein the process, as did Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard (twopeople who for different reasons avoided flirting with the artprocess). The general life and vitality of the Beatles pheno-menon disappeared during the entanglement with 'high

culture', though some of it has returned with Wings. For thecultural establishment the Beatles high moment was Sgt.Pepper (the moment when they clearly stepped over intoprogressive, art music) but I suspect the material that themass of the people really like is earlier.

This attack on art, or this attempt to expose its mystifyingface, is not intended to stop people putting paint on twodimensional surfaces, or making music, or dancing, or usinglanguage to create fictions. It is the organisational formssurrounding these act iv i t ies which are being subject to cr i t icalexamination, and what is being said is that art, as one ofthese organisational forms, is socially pernicious. However,there is no recommendation for an organised pol icy of revolt .The pract ical impl icat ions of the analysis are to give peoplethe conceptual tools with which to duck the restr ict iveimpl icat ions of the organised category of art . My bel ief isthat to be on the side of the people (not that ' the people'const i tute an homogenous ent i ty) is to give pract ical help foravoiding organised pol ic ies, and one does not do this byorganising everybody. The revolt against art is achieved whenits conceptual bewitchment is exorcised. Organisationalforms are unavoidable but so is the pract ice of avoidingthem, and the lat ter requires i ts science as much as does theformer.

Chopter Three

THE FRAUDULENT STATUSOF ART IN MARXISM

To those who feel the given, total structure of our societyworks against them Marxism has an obvious potential attrac-tion. Marxism is not one, but many things, but what, in theWestern context, it is normally thought of as being is apoiitical theory about the injurious nature of capitalistsociety and how it is to be overthrown. In its simplest, mostgeneral form the policy for change encompasses the organisa-t ion of those who do not own the means of product ion, andwho, as a consequence, suffer, so as to disappropriate thosewho do. When this is achieved, the objective is to establishthe means of product ion as belonging to everyone and, as aconsequence, to establ ish a classless, non-hierarchicalsociety. In this way the fragmentation and consequent debili-tat ion of man, which occurs in class-based societ ies, is to bereplaced by the ful l potent ial i t ies of rounded, humanised,social man.

Within Marxism there have been numerous theories(reflecting both splits within Marxism and Marxism's need torespond to changing circumstances) about how this wrest ingof power from the dominant, bourgeois class is to beaccomplished. I t has been, and is, held that a wel l -developedcapitalist society, experiencing frequent economic depres-sion, would be the only suitable context for making revolu-t ion. I t has been, and is, held that to achieve a social ist worldi t is, in the f i rst place, necessar). to exert pressure on

60 Art an Enemy o-f the People

advanced capitalist economies by fermenting Marxist revolu-tion in the under-developed Third World. It is argued thatsocialism can only be constructed by a violent, revolutionaryoverthrow of the existing power-structure, but, in otherquarters, it is argued that the Marxist society can be builtthrough the participation of organised, Marxist, politicalparties in the so-called democratic processes of capitalistsocieties. It is argued by some that the revolution must be aspontaneous uprising by the workers coinciding with appro-priate economic circumstances, whereas others think thatthrough the organised, terrorist activities of minority, Marx-ist groups the general social revolution can be engineered.These views, plus many others, al l relate to bel iefs about thepresence or absence within class-based, capital ist society offorms of resistance to any attempt to change the power-s t ruc t u re .

In this large debate about tacl ics and strategy i t is a basicbel ief that the people mus-r become aware of their c lasssubordinat ion, sce ir as their histoncal ni ission to change thisand then sc' t aboi l t organisrng thenrselves to change this. Thisen masle conrnr i t r t tc ' r ' r t to ()rganising and shaping the u'or ld.so as to transttrrnr societ-v, is secn as a long standin_e socialcomnri tment,

"r 'h ich extencls l 'ar t reyond the revolut ionaryt rans i 'o r rna t ion and deep in to man 's fu tu re as a soc ia l L le ing .I 'hc idc-a is Ihat, in thc nervl l ' formed society ' , t ] re sat ist 'act ionof rnan's unprecl ictable and grcr* ' ing neccis rvi l l be takcn careof by a strong conimitment cn evervoi lc '5 1;;111 lo organisingand runn ing the pr t tduc t ive l i fe r r f i i re soc ie ty . In th i - . rva l r t i sthought tha t thc peop le w i l l be ac t ive ly in cont r t r l o f theu'hole l i i 'e of the societ1,. !n ofher words, u 'hat in presenfsocict i ' is held to be the people control l ing the society, namelythe peop le hav ing sorne de ternr in ing ro le in the po i i t i ca l l i feof the society, is, n ' i th in the envisaged sc,cial ist socie' ,y,r iewed as a minor c le te rmin ing in f luence compared w i th thepeople control l ing the whole l i fe of the societ l ' , invcr lv ing, asi t does, the existence of industr ial co-operat ives and agricul-tural communes.

The Fraudulent Status of Art in Marxism 61

These notions of societies in rvhich the people, en masse,organise and run the whole life of the society involve, at aconcrete level, an organisational framework of representativecommittees (allied to general assemblies) which are differen-tiated in their functions by the level of generality required fortheir planning. In addition to the people's participation in thedecision-making processes of the society i t is assumed thatthere is a collective responsibility to engage in the physicalprocesses of product ion, so that the whole product ive l i fefrom planning to execut ion can be said to be a col lect iveachievement.

These, then, are some of the responses demanded of thepeople, by Marxism, i f they are to br ing about a social istt ransformation of the society. Now i t might be objected, andhas been, that people in advanced capital isr socief ies, i f notpeople in general , would not wi-ch to part ic ipate in theseforms of organisat ion and the relolut ionary processes theyimply. This is ro say, even i f i r was ro be certain that thingswould in fact lvork out as envisaged, i t is arguable that themass of the people would not rv ish to be involved. Often thisscept ic ism about t i re appet i tes of people for social is l societyis founded on bel iefs about hurnan nature. However, thenorn-,al Marxist cc)unter is to say that such bel iefs areLinernpir ic i i . l , or unscienl i f ic, being prejudiccs induced b1, thercleology of bourgcois society. lv{arxism accepts that inbourgeois SOciet] , ' tnen, aS a ntatter of f 'aCt, nr ight at asuper f i c ia l , consc ious levc l , no t w is i r to be invo lved inl \4ar.r ist societ l ' , bui this is put dorvn ro the way, bourgcoissociety w{rrps what is human in man. The idea is that, inbourgeo is soc ie ty , 'hurnan ' man goes underground wh i is t h isfalse, bourgeois scl f appears to predominate. However,'hurnan ' n tan is therc a l i a lo r rg , though suppressed, and whenthe social and economic condit ions are r ipe, then submergedrnan rvi l l have to a-ssert himself , s imply because this is rvhathe real ly is. 'Humanised' people are those who wish to and doenter into col iect iv i .sed creat ive, product ive act iv i ty as a wayof responding to and sat isfying their mult i far ious needs.


These needs are not multifarious in the same way as they aresupposed to be in capitalist society. In capitalist societypeople appear to want a vast range of consumer goods (e.g.hi-fi, cine cameras, electric toothbrushes, motorised lawnmowers, electric whisks etc.) and appear to want them intheir latest, most fashionable form, regardless of what theypossess already. Marxists see these needs as artificiallyinduced by the profiteering impulse of capitalist society andas not being real, human needs. Despite this, real needs arestill held to be multifarious because the real world, which setsman the problem of surviving, is always changing and themeans people invent to deal with the real, changing worldcreate, in their own right, new needs (e.g. machines requirethe organisation of machine maintenance).

'Real' people, 'human' people, as opposed to sociallywarped and distorted people, are said in Marxist theory tohave a real need to enter into the collective production andreproduction of the material iife, where both the planningand execution of this is something in which they are implica-ted. Marx himself did not see this commitment to theproduction of the material life as endless (for Marx there wasthe possibility of social, creative, productive activity outsidethe product ion of the mater ial l i fe) but s ince Marx, apartfrom the odd Marxist theorist like Marcuse, Marxism hasbeen less utopian. The idea has been that the col lect iv ised anddemocrat ised product ion of the means to l i fe is in i tsel f anecessary and sat isfying act iv i ty. This is, of course, some-thing which anyone reading this book can consider forhimself, although to conclude that this envisaged life mightbe necessary but not satisfying would be explained away byMarxism as resulting from the distorting influence of bour-geois society.

However, the considerations in Marxism which give rise tothe notion of 'human' people are a clumsy mixture of a prioriphilosophising (the kind of thing attacked in the first chap-ter) and historical insight. On the one hand, an attempt ismade to distinguish between men and animals in order to


discover an essential difference and, thus, uncover what isessential to being man. This distinction is framed by Marx interms of a distinction between creative and instinctual activ-ity. Men are said to conceive of things in their minds beforethey do them, whereas animals are said simply to do things.This Marxist claim is compounded out of the legacy ofRomanticism (man's distinguishing characteristic being hisappetite for creativity), an artificial model of the mind atwork (people do things intentionally without having to thinktheir actions in their minds first) and a very incompleteknowledge of animals (for instance, chimpanzees can makeplans which are carried out subsequently but not immedia-tely). (J. Goodall In the Shadow of Man.) As Marxismlocates 'human' man as creative man so it locates him in hisactual historical circumstances. Thus, creative man is seen asnecessary for the kind of human development there has been.What human beings have done would make no sense unlessman's activities are and have been creative. Moreover, it isreflected upon that this creative development is historicallyinseparable from its social expression. The perceptible deve-Iopment is not the result of accumulative, separate, individ-ual development, but rather the result of people actingtogether; a social creativity. However, as the historicalanalysis shows, this social creativity is not a creativity inwhich all equally participate. It is a feature of this historical,social creativity that it has used the social dimension as amater ial in i ts own r ight. For instance, the product ion ofdistinguishable economic classes has been one way that socialcreativity has utilised social existence so as to produce themeans to life plus, for certain social groups, something inaddit ion to this. The nature of the analysis has been then thatpeople are essentially creative, that their creativity has alwayshad to contend with the production of the material life, thatthis creativity has been a social creativity, and that it has usedthe social to the detriment of full, social participation in thecreative essence of 'human' man. The claim on the future isone of demanding a restoration of the 'human' to all men. In


standard versions of the analysis this is possible because theinadequate production methods, which in previous societieshave been the major factor in explaining the creative use ofthe social as a negation of full social creativity, have beenovercome (as an achievement of human creativity) by theindustrial potential of capitalist society. The only thingwhich stands in the way of democratised, collective creativity,in capitalist society, is the redundant, social power structure.

Man is creative certainly, and judging by the ri'chness ofhuman development and the progressive side to this develop-ment, there is a difference in degree between the creativity ofman and that of other species. Moreover, historically speak-ing, this creativity has been social in character and it has,obviously enough, been exercised on the problem of produc-ing the necessary mater ial l i fe. However, none of theseconsiderations show why collective, organised, creative, Fro-ductive activity should appear as a desirable, satisfying,social object ive. The fact that human creat iv i ty has takensocial forms and the fact that it has been necessary tosustaining the species (and may cont inue to be) says nothingabout how al l men can see this as their intent ional ful f i lment.A necessary act iv i ty that you do not control turned into onetha t you do is no t to d iscount the poss ib i l i t y tha t you w i l lcont inue to sce i t as a necessary evi l . That you cannot helpdeal ing with the world creat iveiy is not to say that you wantio e.rercise your creat iv i ty in a col lect ive. That humancreat iv i t ; - /zas erpressed i tsel f through col lect ive cooperat ionor, at Ieast, through degrees of social cooperat ion, is not tosay that this rs human ful f i lment. The appeal, then, of thecol l t"ct ively organised, creat ive and product ive l i fe is notlogical ly guaranteed by some concept of what man is, nor is i tsometh ing tha t the h is rory o f man demands as an empi r i ca lt r u t h .

So N{arxism has the attract ion of seeking the abol i t ion ofthe social in just ices of capital ist society, but i t is not just anegat ion; i t is a potent ial , whole l i fe, in i ts own r ight, and theattract ions of this are part of the way people might consider

The Fraudulent Stqtus of Art in Morxism 65

committing themselves to Marxism. However, to considerMarxism in this way is to concentrate on it as a theory, and itis just this that Marxism itself points to as one-sided.Marxism is not just a theory it is a practice. To say it is apractice is not to say, as is often supposed, that it demandspractice, but is to say that it is in fact a collection of diverseand different practices all informed by slightly differentinterpretations of what Marxist theory is. Marxism, as anumber of actual repercussions in the world, is a number ofvery well known things. In its least effective form it is thediverse, bickering organisations in advanced capitalist societ-ies. These have some small working-class backing, but on thewhole are organisations run by discontented, bourgeoisintellectuals, who are committed to organising the worlddifferently.

In the Third World Marxism is a number of things. It isterrorism, bombs, sporadic violence, guerilla warfare as wellas being infiltration by the larger Communist powers, involv-ing, as i t does, things l ike l ia isons between local capital istsand Moscow so as to expel the influence of American capital.Marxism is, also, and this is the major thing that i t is, thehistory of the various societies referred to as Communistboth by themselves and by Western, capital ist societ ies. Thereal i ty of Marxism in the world is, then, many sided.

To rei terate. I t is the fashionable preoccupat ion with lef t istthoughts, which has been, in di f ferent forms, a constant C20interest of Western student groups and intel lectuals, culmina-t ing during the past ten years in a very expl ic i t ident i f icat ionwith Marxisni ( this has led to a sizeable increase in thepubl ishing of books about Marxism-another side ro whathas happened). The pract ice of this has involved marches jnthe nrajor c i t ies, street r iot ing, a l i fe of smal l group meetingsl istening to guest speakers, discussing world issues andmaking local plans, at tempts to be part of local industr ialunrest and the production of different, alternative news-papers and pamphlets etc. I t , Marxism, is the language inwhich atroci t ies perpetrated by some human beings upon


others in forging a socialist Vietnam or Cuba are explainedand justified. It is also the reality of their doings in the worldand the highly disciplined societies which emerge from theashes of the old. Marxism is the whole history of the SovietUnion and Communist China. This includes, as everyoneknows, massive bloodshed and human suffering, as well asthe production of highly organised societies in which most ofa person's life is spent in work (whether collectivised or not).It, Marxism, includes also the reality of the interactionbetween these societies and others which, to pick out onpurpose the horrendous events, led in the Soviet case, to theorganised struggle against Nazi Germany, and, in theChinese case, to the active military involvement in Korea. Allof this plus much, much more constitutes the practical realityof Marxism in the world.

I do not list these things in a pro-Western capitalistic orpro-liberal, bourgeois and anti-Communist spirit. My pointis that these things are part of Marxism, just as the Americandestruction of Vietnam and race riots in American cities arepart of capitalism and its liberal, political, public relationssystem. Marxists hammer away at the gap between theoryand practice in the liberal society, but faced with the practiceof Marxism they disown it as not being in accordance withMarxist theory. However, Marxist theory is a practice, not inthe sense that i t urges people to change the world and not justthink about i t , but in the sense that i t is a set of l iv ing bel iefsheld by those who are act ive in the world, and who are act ivesimply because they are in the world. That a theory is the keyto problems has to be measured by the ser ious attemptswhich have been made to use i t to solve them. I f the resultsare not in accordance with the theory then the theory cannotbe the key to the cipher. In fact, the theory may be oneelement in the general, social problematic (perhaps an insolu-ble problematic at the level of organised, social pol ic ieswhich are to be adhered to by the whole society).

Of course, Nlarxism as theory is not one simple thing used

The Fraudulent Status of Art in Mqrxism 67

in different ways but a number of related practices. In theEuropean and Western context Marxist theory exists asstrenuous theorising whereas, by comparison, in the ThirdWorld Marxist theory is often little more than ready-madeslogans through which exploitation and human misery canseem to be understood and can be begun to be resisted. Thisdifference is related to a real difference between existentMarxist systems in these different areas of the world. InEastern Europe we find very bureaucratic, highly centralised,industrial societies, which have been described by scornfulWestern Marxists as systems of State Capitalism. In theMarxist, Oriental, Asian context, however, we find largelyagricultural societies, having strong industrial aspirations,organised along the lines of a cooperative feudalism. Inneither case do we find societies coinciding with what isgenerally regarded to have been Marx's aspirations forsocialist societies. ln the Soviet context the bureaucratic.hierarchical nature of the society is at odds with Marx'sconception o1' a grass-roots, democratised socialism.Whereas, the enormous uphill struggle being waged in Chinaagainst material hardship does not square with Marx'sconcept ion of modern social ism being borne on the wings ofrhe capital ist society 's potent ial i ty for plenty.

What I reallv want to suggest, here, is that Europeani\'larxism and the Vlarrism of the under-developed world areboth at varr iance with the embryonic concept ion of the\ larxist society, that they are both at var iance with eachother, and that they grow out of histor ical ly separatecultures. I t is this last fact which determines the kind ofsociet ies which have ar iserr, and their theories, and thefunct ion of theories within them, rather than the body ofMarxist theory i tsel f determining the kinds of societ ies. To bespecif ic, i t is my vierv that Marxism in Europe is much more atransformation of bourgeois cul tures than a repudiat ion ofthem. This is despite the language forms in which EuropeanMarxism discusses the world, which appear to dedicateI\{arxists to a repudiation of bourgeois society.


In the Third World the social traditions and problems asthings to inherit and transform are very different. Thesocieties, in the first place, are not bourgeois and the pressingproblern is one of accelerating the process whereby suchsocieties enter the modern world e.g. the acquisition of thetechnology of bourgeois society. Where, in terms of theMarxist labels worn by these different societies, one wouldexpect unity one finds discord and this is best understood as afunction of the divergent cultural settings in which the socialchanges have taken place. In bourgeois society the Marxistdemand for change is very much in accord with the idealaspirations of bourgeois society itself. In bourgeois societythere is a split between the material life of the society and thetheory of the society. The theory expounds a society which isnot materially grasping and profiteering but, on the contrary,a society which eradicates material deprivation whilst at thesame time advancing the people as sensitised human beings.The theories of education in bourgeois society are construc-ted on this basis. On the whole this is also the promise ofMarxism in the European and Western context, whether interms of Marxist groups in the West, or East European,Marxist societ ies.

The hypothesis I wish to suggest is that i t is f rom amongstthe intel lectual ideologists o1' bourgeois society. f romamongst, in fact, the more passive memirers crf the bourgeoi-sie, that the European, Western, N{arxist theorl , and pract iceemerges. I t is hard to f ind a pr incipal lVlarxist in this tradi t ionrvho does not have a clear bourgeois peCrgree and who hasnot entered into the social forms of bourgeois, intel lectuall i fe ( the area of t l rc 'h igh' ideals ol ' bourgeois society). i \ Iarx,h imse l f , i s , o f course , a very c lear case o f th is . Th is g roupalong w' i th those rvho const i tute the ic leolo_eists of bourgeoissoc ie ty cons t i tu te a fo r rna l , au thor i ta r ian fo rce w i lh in th iskind ol 'society. This group insists on bourgeois sociery l iv ingup to i ts ideolcrgy, and i t regards with scathing contempt theanarchic, individual ism and general disregard for the histor i-cal cont inui ty of the cul ture, which the commercial l i fe of


bourgeois society produces as an unintended set of conse-quences. Therefore, bourgeois society creates social formswhich concern themselves with the problem of justifying(theoretically) bourgeois society. The passivity of these socialforms via the status quo, apart from reinforcing it, is notinherent in them. My suggestion is that, in the East Europeancontext, these social forms have grown up so as to predomin-ate and have in the process ousted the system of private capitalwhether in rhe form of the individual or the privatecorporation. The societies of Eastern Europe are those inwhich, through a r igid, social hierarchy, the ideologists of thesociety have, in practice, the control over the economic lifeand cultural cont inui ty of societ ies which have evolved fromthe potent ial i t ies of commercial ism (societ ies in the service ofpr ivate prof i t ) in lo societ ies which, at least superf ic ial ly,appear to sat isfy the 'higher ' ideals of bourgeois society.Even the ideal of a democrat ic society is retained, despite theEast European societ ies fai l ing to real ise i t just as much asWestern capital ist societ ies, which also, in theory and in asemblance of pract ice are committed to i t , fa i l in i ts real isa-t ion .

One of the 'hi-sh' ideals of bourgeois society is the preser-vat ion of and enrolment of people in the 'cul tural ' l i fe oi ' thesociety. Art , along u, i th rvork, const i tutes the crucial spec-trum of values wit i r in this form ol ' -society. This is hou' thevalue system is real ised theoret ical ly. Work is the ethic of thesociet5' , whereby each conlr ibutes to the rvel fare of everyoneelse, and art is for the ful f i l rnent of matt beyond the realmof necessity. That the society cloes not work l ike this isirrelevant to the donrinance of the theorl ' u, i thin the society.Th is commi tment to the 'h igh cu l tu ra l ' l i l e i s . o f cor l rse ,incompatible with an awareness of i t as a recent, local,histor ical product ( the substance of the preceding chapter) andmanipulator of c lass antagonism.

Norv, Marr ism as a vis ion of a posit ive l i fe ( the mainatf ract ion of Marr ist society t>nce the hindrances of capital istsociety have been lef t behind) offers the ethic of social


contributory work and fulfilment beyond this through parti-cipation in man's creativity. It is this which is at the heart ofthe Marxist theory of what it is to be human. When oneexamines Marxism to find a positive content for this generalidea of participation in human creativity, one finds that it issome idea of art which is meant. To be crude about it the bestMarxism as theory can offer people, apart from sociallyuseful work with a communised means of production, is art.In other words it is to protect and preserve the life forms ofbourgeois society that the active and powerful ideologists ofEast European Marxist societies have organised, at the costof enormous human suffering, the people. Through theseforms of organisation the contradictory, debilitating effectson the bourgeois ideals, allorved by the system of privatecapital, are avoided. Within the Western context it is virtu-ally the same positive life that Marxist groups, when strainingtheoretically to grasp the future, offer. The position isdifferent in China and related societies. and the reason forthis is that the forms of l i fe of bourgeois society have notdeveloped there. TLre forms of l i fe of bourgeois society grouup in European society and concern other societ ies only in sofar as they are actively Europeanised. The forms of life,which are to be protected, or made general , social real i ty, byan organisat ional straightening of the contradict ions in Capi-tal ist society, are not sought our in al l their muhipl ic i ty bythose concerned. l t is the sol id middle of the ideal ised l i feforms which is sought, and not the content ious and unset-t l ing edges. Thus, the social impulse, in connect ion with art ,is not to secure as a general , social real i ty the avant-garde l i feof art and i ts constant rel 'o lut ionary fervour, but to promoteas general , social experience the sol id, histor ical ly wel l -founded, tradi t ions and centre of what bourgeois societyregards as art .

This hypothesis about European and Western Marxism isvi tal io understanding how i t is that Marxism is so muddledand so ahistor ical in i ts t reatment of art , part icular ly so in i tsdiverse theoret ical wri t ings on the history and nature of art .

The Froudulent Status of Art in Morxism 7 l

The connection here works, of course, the other way round;what Marxism says and does about art, in so far as this is asizeable area of Marxist activity, reveals what Marxism is. Itis worth tracing this through in some detail so as to exposeMarxism's very assured assumption that it grasps reality veryconcretely as the fraud it is.

There is a well-known passage in Marx's own writings,which subsequent Marxists writing on art have constantlyreturned to, in which the central contradiction in Marxistaesthetics appears at the outset. The passage taken from theIntroduction to Marx's Grundrisse is in itself pretty silly andit is surprising that so many Marxist theorists have found itso informative. What Marx wrote is as follows.

But the dif f iculty is not in grasping the idea that Greek art and

epos are bound up with certain forms of social development. l t l ies

rather in understanding why they st i l l consti tute for us a source ofaesthetic enjoyment and in certain respects prevai l as the standardand model beyond attainment.

A man cannot become a chi ld again unless he becomes chi ldish.But does he not enjoy the art less ways of the chi ld, and must he notstr ive to reproduce i ts truth on a higher plane? Is not the character ofevery epoch revived, perfect ly true to nature, in the chi ld's nature?Why should the chitdhood of human society, where i t had obtainedits most beauti ful development, not exert an eternal charm as an agethat rvi l l never return? There are i l l -bred chi ldren and precocious

ch i ld ren . Many o f the anc ien t na t ions be long to the la t te r c lass . The

Gresks were normal chi ldren. The charm their art has for us does notconfl ict u' i th the primit ive character ol the social order from which i thad sprung. I t i s ra ther the produc t o f the la t te r , and is due ra ther tothe fac t tha t the imtnature soc ia l cond i t ions under rvh ich the ar tarose and under rvhich alone i t could appear can never relurn.

Concealed from view in this passage is the Marxist at t i tudeto contemporary art which, with var iat ions, runs throughMarxist aesthetics. The point is that despite Marxism wishingto produce as real i ty the 'high' ideals of bourgeois society(e.g. social ly contr ibutory work, sensit ised man through the'higher 'act iv i t ies of art etc. , the democrat ic society and manas free) it does this through a repudiation of the reality of


bourgeois society. The paraphernalia for doing this includean attack on bourgeois self-indulgence and, through theillumination of historical materialism, an unveiling of themystifying ideologies of bourgeois society. As shown, in thelast chapter, it is not possible to intelligently enter into thelife of art without entering into the value system it implies.The art label is awarded as a meritorious badge and itsignifies the highest achievement of which man is capable. Toseethe with a cold Marxist fury at the injustices and generalbanality (as they are seen) of actual bourgeois society is to bepredisposed to reject an art that caters for bourgeois self-indulgence and bourgeois il lusions. However, art, this bour-geois life-form, is for the Marxist the 'high' ideal that thewhole efforts of a society conspire to produce. Therefore, incontemporary art , only that u,hich is judged to reveal societyand aid the process of revolutionary reorganisation canmatch the 'high' ideal.

But, of course, the'high' ideal rvhictr art is, is s imply the setof social pract ices of bourgeois society; the wholc of thesepract ices cannot be thrown away without dispensing al to-gether with the 'high' ideal. Moreover, the l i fe form is rootedin i ts past accret ions and these do not seem to have the sameimmediate, pol i t ical s igni f icance vrs d vis revolut ionary prac-t ice as do the contentporary products of bourgeois 'cul ture' .

The l i fe is entered into therefore, except in so far as i tpressingly and immediately conf l icts rvi th the theory forchange. To exclude certain pract ices on these grounds is toprov ide the c r i te r ion rvhereby conten lporary p rac t ices canacqu i re the badge o f mer i t . They acqu i re i t in v i r rue o f the i rcutt ing through the laygp5 of myst i f icat ion. I - Iow, 'ever, i f th isstandard is appl ied to what passes for the total history of art ,the accret ions of historv u'ould have to be excluded, sincethey w'ould be . iudgecl to have been const;"ucted out ofimpl ic i t bel iefs in previous myst i fy ing ideologies. To throwso much away on the basis of this cr i ter ion is unthinkable inso far as a purpose of the whole exercise is not the destruct ionof a r t , bu t i t s p roper cu l t i va t ion in the serv ice o1 'humani tv .

The Fraudulent Status of Art in Marxism t 5

Therefore, a double standard is required whereby that whichexcludes contemporary practices as art is not applied to thehistory of art.

It is at this juncture that we can understand how Marxcame to pose the question about the nature of Greek art. Interms of a concealed attitude about how to sift what was ofvalue in contemporary art, Greek art could not count asvaluable, but as the tradition in which Marx's whole intellect-ual life was embedded held Greek art to be of great value,then Marx had to find a way of explaining its enduringsignificance. The explanation given is silly because it pur-ports to explain not just Karl Marx's idiosyncratic way ofresponding to Greek art but the general attraction, within theculture, of these Greek pract ices, which the modern evolu-t ions of European civi l isat ion had made into art . For anyonewho knows anything about the way modern European'cul ture' has responded to these Greek pract ices i t is veryobvious that the response is not in terms of an appreciat ionof the na ive ch i ldhood o f mank ind .

So, at the outset of Marxism, we have a discrepancybetween what is demanded of present art and how art 's pastis treated. For these two areas the value art is establ ished ondif ferent bases. Marx's own explanat ion for the enduringvalue of Greek art does not become an orthodoxy, but i t issymptomatic of the numerous bi ts of fudging that go onwithin Marxism to keep the art of the past intact. At no pointdoes Marr ism invest igate the histor ical nature of art asconceptual pract ice. The pretensions to a histor ical matc'r ia l-ist anal-vsis of art are cont ined to explaining individual rvorksof art , or forms and genres of art , as the product of histor icaicircumstances. The or igins and growth of the conceptualpract ice are not looked at, al though on accept ing thc' bour-geois myth about art as a universal phenomenon Marxismhas provided accounts, on this basis, of the or igins andhistory of art . Intermingled with these we f ind def ini t ionaiattenlpts to say what art is. In other rvords the bourgeois,theoret ical pract ice in connect ion with art cont inues

I

T

74 Art an Enemy of the PeoPle

unabated in the context of European and Western Marxism.The discrepancy, already noted in Marx's writings,

reappears as a conflict in practice during the period of theRussian revolution. There is a partial recognition by certainindividuals at this time that art far from being a universal,essential practice is a solidly upper-class bourgeois practice.The traditions for thinking in this way had been foundedearlier by people like Belinsky, Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubovand Tolstoy, and were taken up in the revolution byBogdanov, Mayakovsky, Meyerhold and the Proletkultmovement. Bogdanov wrote at the time, 'In the name of ourfuture we are burning Raphael, destroying the museums andtrampling on the flowers of art.' (Quoted in H. Arvon'sMarxist Esthetics Cornell University Press, 19'73.) And thisindicates the iconoclast ic urges of the group, though not i tsactual achievements. At the same time as having theseextremely hostile attitudes towards what passed for art,people in these groups had posit ive att i tudes towards certainprojects. Bogdanov wished to see the creat ion of a proletar-ian l i terature. Mayakovsky wanted to smash bourgeois artbut set up an oral art involving the reci tat ion of poems andsongs. Meyerhold was involved as director of the theatr icalsect ion of the Peoples Commissariat for Popular Culture andini t iated the act ing of propaganda plays, in which the actorswere described as 'shock troops' in their service of therevolut ion. Holever, these people were not representat ive ofthe general and dominant att i tude of the revolut ion towardsart , and they were eventual ly si lenced or crushed by thedominant trend; their actual s igni f icance I wi l l return to in amoment in discussing Brecht. The off ic ial and prevai l ingatt i tude is wel l indicated by a var iety of quotat ions fromLen in .

First of al l L.enin attacking the Proletkul t movement.

l f rve do not clearly understand that a proletarian culture can be bui l t

only' on the basis of a precise knowledge of the culture created by the

entire evolut ion of humanity and by the integration of this culture, i f

The Froudulent Status of Art in Marxism '15

we do not understand that, we cannot fulf i l our task. Proletarianculture is not something that suddenly surfaces without our havingany idea of where i t comes from, i t is not the invention of the peoplewho claim to be special ists in proletarian culture. Al l of that ispreposterous.... All the culture thot Capitalism has left us must becarefully preserved [my italics] and it is on this basis that Socialismmust be bui l t , otherwise i t wi l l be impossible for us to create the l i feof communist society. And this science, this technique and this artare in the hands and minds of special ists. (Quoted in H. Arvon'sMarxist Esthetics)

Here. then, we have Lenin insist ing on the preservat ion ofthe existing established bourgeois culture in the face of anapparent ly ant i -art movement. Elsewhere, however, we f indhim cl inging to the same att i tude only this t ime in opposit ionto avant-garde, bourgeois modernism.

We are too great iconoclasts in paint ing. The beauti ful must bepreserved. taken as an e: iample, as the point of departure even i f i t is'o ld ' . Why tL r rn our backs on rvhat i s t ru ly beaut i fu l , abandon i t asthc- point of departure for further der,elopment solelv because i t is'o ld '? Why worsh ip the new as a god compel l ing submiss ion mere lybecause i t i s 'new '? Nonsense! Bosh and nonsense! l {e re much ispure hypocrisy and of course unconscious deference to the artfash ions ru l ing the West . We are good revo lu t ionar ies bu t somehowwe fcc l ob l iged to p rove tha t we are a lso up to the mark in modernc u l t u r c l I , h o w e r e r , m a k e b o l d t o d e c l a r e m y s e l l a ' b a r b a r i a n ' . I t i sbeyond me to cons ider the produc ts o f express ion ism, fu tu r ism,cub isnr and o ther ' i sms ' the h ighes t n ran i fes ta t ion o f a r t i s t i c gen ius .I do no t unders tand them. I exper ience no joy f rom them. (V .Lenin, ( ln Literoture and Art)

Despite the reference to barbarism Lenin is clear ly nobarbarian. Like the rest of the Bolsheviks Lenin is a highly'cul tured' individual. What he is sett l ing for is sol id, conser-vat ive, bourgeois art , rvhereas the unsett l ing, constant,pseudo-revolut ionary movements of modern art are cast of f .Howel 'er, Lenin's commitment to the revolut ionary pro-grammes means the issuing of specif ic direct ives to thecontemporary art l i fe, of which the above is only a negat ive

I


instance. More positive instances are as follows.

. . . Art belongs tothepeople. I ts roots should be deeply implanted inthe very thick of the labouring masses. I t should be understood andloved by these masses . . . I t must s t i r to ac t i v i t y and deve lop the ar tinst incts within them. Should we serve exquisite sweet cake to a smallminority while the worker and peasant masses are in need of blackb r e a d ? . . .

. . . For art to get closer to the people and the people to art we muststart by raising general educational and cultural standards. (Bothfrorn Lenin's On Li lerature and Art l

This may sound l ike a revolut ionary programme but in factwhen considered i t ful ly accords with the ideology of art . Atthe ideological level art is held to be a universal act iv i ty whichbecause it deals in fundamental human matters shouldconcern everyone. To insist , therefore, on a process of socialorganisat ion to make this so is not to chal lenge the bourgeoisva lue 'a r t 'bu t ra ther to ins is t on rea l i t y con f 'o rming to thevalue. The doctr ine of Social ist Real isrn which the SovietUnion adopts as the standard u'hich Soviet art must attaininsists, at the same t ime as insist ing on art aiding the processof revolut ion, on i t universal is ing the values of the society.

Soc ia l i s t Rea l isnr . . . denrands o f the ar t j s t a t ru th f t r l , h is to r ica l l yeoncrc le reprcsc 'n ta t ion o f rea l i t v i r t i t s rcvo l r . r t ionar i deve loprncnt .N lc r reover , he must cont r ibu ie to the ideo log ica l t rans forn ta t ion andthe ec lL rca t ion o f the worker in the sp i r i t o f soc ia l i sm. (Qr io ted inAn'or.r's Mar.rist Est het it's)

This s la tement l ' rom the F i rs t Conqress o f Sov ie t Wr i te rs1934 bccomes the dominant therne fo r thc - a r ts in Sov ie tsoc ie ty under the ' cu l tu ra l ' d ic ta to rsh ip o f Zhdanov. Forins tance, a s ta tement by the 1946 Cent ra l Commi t tee o f theComrnun is t Par ty o f the Sor ie t Un ion i l l us t ra tes the po in t .

- I 'he s t rength o f Sor ie t l i te ra tu re , rvh ich is the most advanccd

l i t c ra t r . r re in the wor ld , l ies in the fac t tha t i t i s a l i te ra tu re wh ich hasanrl can havc no other interests than the interests ol the people, thein te rcs ts o f the Sta te . The func t ion o f Sov ie t l i te ra tu re i s to a id the

The Fraudulent Status of Art in Marxism 7',7

State in properl] 'educating young people, in answering their needs,in teaching the new generation to be strong. That is why everythingthat tends to foster an absence of ideology, apol i t ical ism, 'Art forArts' sake' is foreign to Soviet l i terature and is harmful to theinterests of the people and the Soviet State. (Quoted in Arvon'sMarxist Esthetics)

Despite these strong sounding statements a l iv ing relat ion-ship with the art of the past is preserved in Soviet society ( theheri tage of 'ser ious' music, c lassical bal let , col lect ions ofpaint ings etc.) though such art has nothing to do with thestandards of Socialist Realism, and further, and more impor-tant ly, the contemporary art which passes the standards issol idly set in the forms and genres of sol id bourgeois art . Thislat ter point is so i f only because any hint of modernism oravant-gardism in art is prohibited. In fact, the charge againstSoviet art as made by Western Marxists and endorsed bydiscontented East European Marxists (e.g. Lukacs) is that farl"rorn being revolut ionary i t is decadent, bourgeois art .However , those rvho make th is a t tack in so fa r as they ha lesome s! 'mpathl ' for the rnore modernist features of bourgeoisaft ( i .e. rnodern developments in Western art) are seen fromihe Sov ie t s ic le as suppor t ing what i s decadent in bourgeo isa l t . Thev ar ( ' seen. in o ther words , as suppor t ing ar t I ' o rmsu h ieh havc g iven Lrp an l 'p re tens ions to sa t is l ' y in rea I p rac t icethc 'h igh ' idea ls r " r f a r t ideo logy ( i . c . . the grand bourgeo istheory o f a r i ) . Bo th g roups are , then. cornprehended by thei ;pectr l l f f l of bourgeois art .

fh is la t te r po in t i s jL rs t as t rue o f t l r c ' rse vo ices in V la r r i s rn* t ro , on the sur face , appear to be an t i -n r t .

' f l t i s i s b rought

ou t qu i re c lea l l y by P isca tor and Brecht in Ger rnan l , ' . ForI) iscator i f was supposed to be the case ihat art was of ncra()nsequence. What was sl tpposed to be of importance \r 'as tocngage in p i - ' l i t i ca l ac t i v i l1 , on in ip rov ised s fages in uork ing-i : lass distr icts ot ' Bc'r l in. l -hc cclntradict iorr .s in this projcetwere ver,v clear ly pointed to at the t i rne in the GermanC'onrmunist Party 's paper Red Flog.


One reads in the program ... that i t is not art but propaganda .. . theaim is to express on the stage the proletarian and Communist ideafor propagandist ic and educational purposes. There is not supposedto be any'esthetic pleasure'. But in that case the word theater shouldnot be used: i t should be cal led by i ts r ightful name-propaganda.The word theater implies art, art ist ic creation .. . Art is too sacred athing for i ts name to be applied to vulgar propaganda .. . What theworker needs in our day is a vigorous art . . . i t matters l i t t le i f this artis of bourgeois origin so long as i t is art. (Quoted in Arvon's MarxistEsthetics)

The point is that Piscator, despite his ant i -art soundingtheory, chose to work, to pract ise, in theatre. Signif icant lyRed Flag in pointing to the contradiction identifies itself asorthodox Marxist in i ts approbat ion of 'cul ture' . Brecht 'sintent ions are sini i lar to Piscator 's. For him the funct ion oftheatre is to do away with personal involvement on the partof the audience in the personal drama on the stage. Theatre isto be epic theatre which through the tableaux form seeks toteach. At the level of teaching the theatie is supposed to begiven over to the proletar iat . This lat ter airn ( the main aim) isironic given the subsequent fate of Brecht 's plays ( theircont inuous performance in Western bourgeois theatre).Horvever, Brecht chooses to teach through theatre, this is thearea of his Marxist pract ice, and quest ioning concerning thepract ical ef f icacy of using the theatr ical form is neverconcretely entertained. Brecht is f i rst and foremost a man ofthe theat re r lho wou ld I i ke to see i t (h is bourgeo is conrex t )used for ends rvhich are, in a theatr ical sense, pro-proletar ianbut in real i ty are simply ' fu l f i lment ' of the avant-garde endof the art spectrum. That art is of great col tcern to Brecht isev ident in h is oppos i t ion to Zhdanov and the pos i t ion in theSoviet Union.

l r l i s no t capab ie o f tu rn ing ar t i s t i c ideas dreanred up in o f f i cesirr lo rr 'or(.s o.f art . . .

. . . C)n lv boots can be made to measurL ' . Moreo le r , the tus te o fmany people who are highly educated fronr the pol i t ical point ot '

The Fraudulent Status of Art in Morxism

view is perverted and therefore of no importance whatsoever.i tal ics and again quoted in Arvon)

In statements like these Brecht comes clean and shows artis for him a value in its own right quite apart from theproletariat (importantly the proletariat never sought outBrecht as their mentor). In this way rather than distinguish-ing himself from other Marxists he identifies himself as beingone. For instance, if we turn to another shade of Marxism,Trotsky, we get the same phenomenon.

The products of art ist ic excel lence must be evaluated f irst andforemost on the basis of their own laws, that is to say the laws of art.(Trotsky, Literature and Revolution)

The refusal to relinquish art as a universal, ahistoricalvalue comes out in its clearest form in the detailed attemptswithin Marxist theoret ical wri t ing to formulate a theory ofart . Two such theories I wi l l br ief ly examine so as to br ingout the unacceptable contradict ions. The f i rst is Lukacs'sand the second Vasquez's in his recent book Art and Society(Vasquez's theory grows out of Lukacs but he does claim totranscend certain l imitat ions as he sees them in Lukacs'st heories).

Luckacs, l ike many other inf luent ial f igures in the forma-t ion of a Marxist aesthet ics (e.g. Adorno, Benjamin,\{arcuse) came from a rvealthy, pr iv i leged, bourgeois back-ground. H is fami ly in Budapest was a Jewish , cap i ta l i s t one,ancl long before his conversion to Marxism his l i fe was givenovsl 1s the arts, great ly inf luenced as he was b1' wri ters l ikeShel ley, Keats, Baudelaire and Ibsen. Given that he becomesa convinced adherent to the theory of histor ical mater ial ismit is obl igatory upon Lukacs, in so far as his interest is inaes(het ics, to give some account of the history of art .Hower, 'er, on examining this account i t appears much moreaprior i and def ini t ional than empir ical and histor ical . Theorigins of art are located for Lukacs just where the bourgeois

79

(Mv

I


theory of art locates them. They are connected with thedevelopment of rhythm, symmetry and decoration. We aretold that the making of useful tools caused joy in the creatorsand that this joy contained the seeds of pleasure in theaesthetic sense. There is no anthropological substantiation ofthis, and no sense of the enormity of identifying pre-historical joy as embryonic aesthetic response (a notionunderstood by Lukacs through the bourgeois refinements ofhis own social situation). However. for Lukacs what hechooses to identify as decorative art is distinguished, by him,from aesthetic works (art proper!) on the grounds that thelal ter contains an ethical , human content, whereas theformer does not. There is no attempt, here, to locate thesedivergent classi f icat ions social ly; the invest igat ion is quitedi f ferent. The guiding pr inciple of the invest igat ion is whatLukacs already, before he starts, considers art to be. It is forthis reason that Lukacs's account of the nature of ar lconstant ly moves through stages rvhere i t has to be dist ing-uished from some other thing (e.g. rel ig ion, science, ethics)rvhere the dist inct ions are made on the basis of handy,def ini t ional decisions rather than observed dissimi lar i ty ofsocial process. Thus, art is not rel ig ion because rel igion ispr imari ly 'other worldly ' whereas art is pr imari ly ' th is

rvor ldly ' ; and art is not science because science is object iveand detached, u'hereas art is subject ive and concerned notr ' , ' i th establ ishing general isat ions but with showing how thc.part icular and general f i t together; and art is not ethicsbecause ethics is concerned to instruct in what is good for rhesake of producing the good, whc'reas art is concerned with anequal presentat iol t of the good and bad so that they may berecognised for what they are. ln none of this is contact madervi th real i ty. These are just theories and def ini t ional games,and the i i fe of rel ig ion, art , science, ethics never comes intoview. When the level of detai l is reached i t is the detai l of theacaclemic and scholar ( the novels. the poems, their forms andconten ts ) and no t the de ta i l o f the ar t l i fe be ing l i ved .

In Lukacs rvhat we get in the f inal analysis is a normative

The Frqudulent Status of Art in Marxism 8 l

commitment to a realist theory of art (a compound ofSocialist Realism and Critical Realism) and an attempt toshow that ort proper is what is in conformity with this theory.There is some historical recognition of art not always havingbeen a clearly separable phenomenon, that it has beenentangled with religion for instance (the bourgeois theory ofreligious art), and that it only becomes separated clearly fromthe Rennaissance onwards, but this does not give rise toquestions about the relationship between what exists sociallyand what existent systems of classification there are. It is thetheory of realism which predominates and structures what-ever fundamental questioning takes place, and this theorydespite al l the f inessing that goes into i ts construct ion(ref lect ion, special i ty, type etc.) produces a sense of what artis which has been, and is, at variance with different versionsof what constitute art within Marxism alone, quite apartfrom theories of art outside this tradi t ion. Moreover, thetheory fai ls to uniquely character ise art . In dist inguishingbetween art and science Lukacs says,

Art creates the u'orlci of men always and exclusively . . . In every facetof the ref lect ion (contrary to scienti f ic ref lect ion) man is present as adetc rminant ; in a r t the wor ld ou ts ide o f man on ly occurs as amedia t ing e lement o f human concerns and fee l ings . (G. LukacsSpec ia l i ry , as a Category o f Aes the t ics t rans la ted in B . K i ra ly fa lv iThe.4esthetics of Gyorgy Lukacs, Princeton University Press, 1975)

I t seems that for I -ukacs the aim of science is to f ind theuniversal (al though i t works through hypotheses and approx-irnat ions), whereas art is concerned to explore how the

-seneral isat ions and that which is individual (something mini-mal ly interpreted and minimal iy understood) interconnect.Al l of this is vague but the point seems to be that art isconcerned with what is human, and how that which ispart icular-human is caught up in and related to var ious socialand mater ial aggregat ions. However, to l imit one's contrastsol ' rvays of understanding the world to the neat div idebetween art and science (science character ised in an extremely


positivistic spirit) is artificial and certainly much too easy.What about historical materialism itself? This is to sayhistorical materialism is not just a philosophical theory, notjust a piece of ontology, it is a methodology. Would not anhistorical materialist analysis of a slice of the world not meetthe conditions which are supposed to distinguish art fromother modes of interpretation? Certainly Sartre has conduc-ted studies which are not regarded as part of his artisticoutput, but which would appear to satisfy Lukacs' require-ments for art (e.g. Sartre on Genet). It is true that Lukacsalso sees art as being in some sense mimetic but this in itself isinsufficient for 'true' art without the addition of the realisrcondition. As Kiralyfalvi says of Lukacs' theory,

. . . true art makes i t possible for man to gain a broader and deeperconsciousness of his development, purt ing the perspective of his l i feinto a clearer focus so that he knows where he comes from and whardirect ion he is going, and creating in him a .moral readiness, topart icipare posir ively in sociery and I i fe. (B. Kiralyfalvi Aesthetics ofGyorgy Lukacs p.144)

What then makes art important, or makes art ar l , is thatthe possibi l i ty of this sort of insight is opened up by thework. I cannot see that this condit ion is not met by otherproducts, which (products) are not regarded by Lukacs, oranyone else, as art . The only possibi l i ty of some uniquelydistinguishing condition left in Lukacs' analysis is that only inthe mimetic form can these insights produce profound effecrsin human beings. Whether or not such a psychologicalresponse is what Lukacs regards as stemming from themimetic form, i t is certainly the case that he thinks works ofart are important because of their capacity to produce theeff icacious insight. However, as we shal l see when, in amoment, we turn to this aspect of Lukacs's theories any senseof the empir ical has been abandoned by him for the pr ivateconvict ions of the aesthete.

Not only does Lukacs' theory inadequately distinguish artfrom other enterprises but it also has to be stretched verv

IThe Fraudulent Status of Art in Morxism 83

hard to apply to the acknowledged range of art forms e.g.music, dancing, pottery. Music, for example, gets in on thegrounds of its being concerned with the reflection of man'sinner feelings. In other words, the outer world is leftuntouched though the inner world is portrayed. To thisextent the condition of realism is satisfied. However, theinclusion of music is half-hearted as is demonstrated by thefact that modern writers like Kafka and Beckett do not forLukacs produce true works of art because of, in his view,their extreme subjectivism. It is difficult to see why what is afault in literature can be the one quality which makes music,as an art form, capable of 'true' art. In fact on analysis musicdoes have for Lukacs a lesser place. He sees it as having alesser effect on the way a person lives his life than doesliterature, but this view is totally unsubstantiated in fact, andas a matter of fact is false. For evidence of this one needsonly to turn to the next chapter and survey the details whichare included on the l ives of jazz musicians.

I t is ju.st vzhere Lukacs' theories touch ground that i t ispossible to see how theoret ical and how out of touch theyare. Thus in writing about the effects of art, in order tojustify the value of art, we get passages such as the fol-lowing.

That moving and shaking effect, that convulsion which is provided

by tragcdy, comedy. the novel, the good paint ing, the good statue andthe musical creation, that purging of our passions, causes us to

beconte' better human beings than \r 'e were, to develop in us the

readiness for the moral ly good. (Lukacs, t l r t as Super'structure,L lun .ear l ' . 1955. Trans la ted in K i ra ly fa lv i P ' I l8 ' )

Thc e t tec t o f the ar t work upon man a f te r the exper ience remainsalmtrst completely imperceptible, and only a whole series of similarexpcriences wil l reveal visible att i tudinal, cultural, etc., changes,frequently, of course, a single art work may bring about a completelurnabout in a man's life. (Lukacs, The Peculiarity of Aesthetics,Ber l in , 1963. K i ra ly fa lv i p . 120. )

I t is obvious that the response to art is not being approached


as a genuine, social datum. As a matter of fact are people,who have been frequently exposed to the kind of realist artLukacs recommends, better or morally improved people inLukacs' understanding of that notion? If so a sizeablenumber of intransigent, Western bourgeoisie would satisfythe condition of having been frequently exposed to therequisite objects.

The significant fact about Lukacs is that he enters Marx-ism as a way of fulfil l ing what his commitment to theideology of art demands of him. However, once inside themovement he seeks to retain his sense of art (an histor ical lycondit ioned sense) against the unexpected adverse pul l of themovement once i t has bui l t up i ts own unpredictable momen-tum. This is the funct ion of Cri t ical Real ism which al lowsLukacs to retain rnore of the sol id centre of bourgeois artthan is possible with a str ict adherence to Social ist Real ismplus the respect, which goes with i t , for the art of then o n - i m m c d i a t e p a s t .

Vasquez f inds Lukacs' insistence on real ism , i r c losed andnormative aesthet ic ' (r lh ich i t is) and proposes instead a rnoregeneral theory, based on Marx's Economic qnd philosophir:Manuscripts, as const i tut ing a more sat isfactory Marxistfheor l ,o f a r t . Thc- bas is o f th is theor f i s the v ic . rv rha t man ' -sessence is creat iv i ty (a vieu discussed earl ier) and rhat rvhenth is c rea t iv i t y i s exerc ised fo r i t se l f ( i .e . fo r the ioy o1 'creaf i l ' i t ,v) and not fr)r soff ie necessary ut i l i tar ian end, thclrwe have art . Thus scient i f ic act iv i ty and purelv pract icalac t i ' i t i es a re e . rc luded f rom the range o f a r t i s r i c ac t i v i t ies ,u,hereas the use of human creat iv i ty for the mere purpose ofdo ing , rvha t i s ca l led , humanis ing the wor ld (a f f i rm ingonese l f as a hunran be ing) takes one in to the area o f a r t .

Since man is essential ly a creative being, hc creates u,orks of art t , . tfee l h is a f f i rmar ion , h is c rea t iv i t y , tha t i s , h is humani ty . (A .S.Vasquez, Arl ancl Society, Nc.w york, 1973, p.44)

Thc s i rn i la r i r_v 'bcrween ar t and labor thus l ies in the i r sharec lre la t ionsh ip to the human essence; tha t i s , thev are br : t t r c rea t i 'e

The Froudulent Status of Art in Morxism 85

activi t ies by means of which man produces objects that express him,that speak for and about him. ( ibid., p.63)

The usefulness of a work of art is determined not only by i tscapacity to satisfy a determinate material need, but by its capacity tosatisfy the general need that man feels to humanize everything hecomes in contact with, to aff irm his essence and to recognise himselfin the objective world he has created. ( ibid., p.65)

This is a very general theory of art and the main troublewith it l ies in this generality. The generality allows Vasquez toestabiish the connection with the Econornic and PhilosophicManuscripts and, in terms of some pre-established sense ofwhat art is in Vasquez's mind, the theory does not obviouslyconflict with anything. However, insufficient thought hasbeen given to what the theory might include. The scant;"ecognition that what human beings engage in beyond art areact iv i t ies of pract ical necessity does less than just ice to ther ichness of human act iv i ty ( for instance, how are games, orsport excluded by the theory?). Moreover, certain act iv i t ieswi th in a r t , wh ich do no t f i t Vasquez 's sense o f a r t , a rerubbed out as not being in accordance with the theory andtherefore rubbed out as art , when in fact i t is an avant-gardistprejudice which prevents Vasquez from seeing thenr as f i t t ingthe theory . 11 i : ; VasqLrez 's conten t ion , and an avant -gard is tcontent ion, that sclme work (especial lv in the area of paint-ing) i s photograph ic and is concerned mere ly to in r i ta te thervorld and, therefore, on the general theory not art . Thepo in t n iade is tha t i t does no l spr ing f ronr ln i ln 's c rea t iv i t y :in r i ta t io i r i s no t c rea t ion . ' fo a rgue in th is rvsy s t ro rvsentrenchmeii l . in narrow', empir ic ist thcories of mind andshou 's , a lso , no recogn i t ion o f recent work in a r t h is to ry (e .g .Coinbric l-r 's .4rr und I l lusictn). I t is fair l ,v obvious, i l ' onepauscs io th ink , tha t there can be no such th ing in pa in t ing asstraight cop-v- ing I ' rom real i ty. One cannot observe the world,decide hon' i t is and thereby kno,uv exact ly what has to bedone to the two-dinrensional surface (t l re paint ing in themak ing) to p roducc a l i keness (any k ind o f l i keness , photo-graphic or not) . The problern of producing a l ikeness is that


of working out what one has to put down in two dimensionsthat will produce a sense of equivalence to what one hasobserved in the scene to be painted. This problem cannot besolved without resorting to invention. If 'creative man' is notsome bogus, precious concept it must apply surely to inven-tive activities of this sort.

Vasquez knows, quite apart from his general theory, whathe regards as art. His concept of art embraces the history ofart, the period of bourgeois art covered by Lukacs' CriticalRealism and modern art (recent Western, bourgeois art).Vasquez is then a Western Marxist who is prepared to lendhis 'enl ightened' voice to the Marxist struggle in the Westernhemisphere (e.g. Cuba). The theory of art is secondary, thelived concept of art primary. This is brought out very clearlyin another context where Vasquez seems to see for a momentthat popular culture satisfies the general theory of art. So heal lows i t is art , which is surpr is ing in so far as the cul ture inwhich i t is produced does not so regard i t , but as he al lowsth is so he w i thdraws i t . I t i s a r t , bu t no t ' t rue ' a r t , and th iscomes from the theorist who claims that aesthet ic theorymust be against normativ ism and the laying down of rules forcreat iv i ty.

. . . under cap i ta l i s t conc l i t ions the u t i l i za t ion o f mass means o ld is t r ibu t ion resu l ts in ths d is t r ibu t ion no t o t -g rea t a r t , bu t o lin fc - r io r , bana l , rou t ine ar t nh ich cor respondr l r r the tas tes o f theenrp t ) . ho l lou ar rd d ! 'persona l ized mass rnan ( ib id . . p .241\

This art he cal ls mass art and i t is ident i f ied as foi lows,' I ' hese

produc is a re in the l i te ra ry f ie lC , s to r ics o i ' rhe True Con l 'es -s ion : ; r 'a r ie ty , popu lar ron tan t ic f i c t ion o f every s ( ) r t ( inc lud ing ra i l ioand tc lev is ion ser ia ls ) and the grea l ma jor r tv o f c r jme and de tecL iveno ie ls ; in n rus ic the grea t ma jor i t t ' o f popu lar songs : and in i i lm thegrcirt majori iy of conrnrercial f i l rns. ( ibid., p.21a)

The experiences associated with the consumption of thisrnater ial and the kind of individuals (most of the people inthe society) u 'ho have thern are descr ibed b-v Vasquez in thefol lowins rvav.

The Froudulent Status of Art in Marxism 87

In this type of pseudo-art feelings are stifled and the most profoundpassions are cheapened. Mass art is nothing but false or falsified art,a banal art or a caricature of true art, an art produced entirely to themeasure of the hollow and depersonalized people to whom itaddresses itself . (ibid., p.244\

This then is the 'culturally enlightened' Marxist's assess-ment of the masses (the notion with which this book began).The view is that they need to be raised up to a form of societyin which after work 'true' art is the fulfilment of the humanbeing. Vasquez refers approvingly to Marx on this point.

Whether considering Aeschylus, Goethe, or Balzac, Marx regardedtheir creations as subl ime expressions of the universal humanity theproletariat is cal led on to real ize .. . ( ibid., p.274)

I have tried to show that this is one of the main theoreticalobjectives of European-inspired Marxism and that this is asmuch a preservation as a destruction of bourgeois society. Itis to achieve this that the masses are encouraged to organise,struggle, suffer, die and ki l l . I hope they have better things todo. Marxism is a false liberation from the moral straight-jacket of bourgeois society just as, in the next chapter, thenotion that art is jozz too is a false liberation. Your liberationdepends on having no more to do with this moral code than isnecessary to keep your eye on i t , l ike rvatching out for thetraff ic pol ice who also appear, in their unmarked vehicles, asbeing at one with the masses.

Chopter Four

AWARNING OF THECORRUPTING INFLUENCE

OF ART ONPOPULAR CULTURE

If art is an historically localised set of social processes andnot a basic human or ientat ion then the status of jazz as artwill depend upon its being located within these social proces-ses. Less generally, if art is a form of life sustained and livedout by various societies that either were part of or grew out ofthe general seventeenth century European si tuat ion, and i fthroughout the prol i ferat ion of and changes in this form ofl i fe stratas at the top of the social hierarchies involved (al l thesociet ies involved being hierarchical) were and are respon-sible for the sustaining and l iv ing out of the form of l i fe, thenthe status of jazz as art wi l l concern locatable social processeswithin these stratas. As jazz. is the creat ion of colouredpeople, in the Southern States during the early part of thiscentury and the lat ter quarter of the last, i t d id not begin i tsl i fe within the higher social straias, or where there wereconnections they were remote from these higher stratas'concern with the art cont inuum. l f , therefore, jazz hassubsequent ly been establ ished as a recognised art form, or i f ,as seems more in keeping with the facts, inconclusiveattempts have been made to establ ish jazz as such, then thereshould be locatable social t races of the attempted process ofintegrat ion within the appropriate social strata. At a superf i -cial level (the level of critical activity) these traces are easilyuncovered. A consciousness of jazz. as a possible art formemerges in the 1930s and is generated by the cr i t ical act iv i t ies


of some European intelligentsia, localised mainly in France,Britain and Scandinavia. There is at this time a similarthough distinguishable process at work in the States, i.e.orchestral iazz. Gradually this consciousness spreads toencompass American critics, jazz men and a jazz public (thelatter category is by the time of this spread a non-proletarian,intellectual, ambiguously bourgeois, anti-bourgeois group-though there are fluctuations in this e.g. Bop audiences in theStates and Trad audiences in Europe during the 50s).

It would not be difficult, therefore, to make plausible theargument that acceptance in the appropriate social area was asufficient condition for jazz being a legitimate art form. Inconstructing this argument one could set up amusing con-trasts between those committed to jazz as an art form, and,therefore, to the importance of discrimination (paradigmcase being the intellectual, jazz critic and musicologist) andmany of those within jazz, particularly jazz musicians, who,because not obsessed by the spectre of the art category,appal, or, at least, surprise, Lhe jazz critic with their lack ofdiscrimination. For example, Charlie Parker very muchenjoyed the piece of music Slow Boat to China.

To detail this case, however, is not my primary intention.My interest is more in the fact that jazz writing (the majorarea where notions of jazz are made articulate) is a misinter-pretat ion of jazz, because i t seeks to relate jazzto an i l lusoryconcept of art as universal. In other words, jazz is misinter-preted because it is seen through the ideological function ofthe art concept, whereas jazzhas entered within the boundar-ies of art because this seeing of i t through the ideologicalfunction has been socially realised.

To begin with let me briefly indicate the way in whichjazz is related to the art category as far as the most musico-logical or intellectual jazz critics are concerned. To thisend I would like to draw attention to the writing of Hodier(A. Hodier, Jozz lts Evolution and Essence), Newton(F. Newton, The Jazz Life) and Marothy (J. Marothy,Music and the Bourgeois. Music and the Proletorian.

A Warning on the Corruptive Influence of Art 9l

Hodier is a French intellectual and musicologist, Newton,who is apparently E. Hobsbawn in disguise, disclaims anyproficiency as a musicologist, but brings to jazz writing aninformed sociological sense, and Marothy is an Hungarian,orthodox Marxist and musicologist.

There are real differences between these writers concerningthe particular forms of jazz they wish to most highlyrecommend or prescribe. Hodier believes the history of jazzhas produced a classical period of jazz (for Hodier the periodbetween 1935-45) and that jazz before and since has beeninferior. Newton, on the other hand, is prepared to acceptthe whole of what passes in contemporary jazz circ les f or real1azz, whereas, Marothy is committed to reol jazz (i.e. non-commercial jazz) which aff i rms col lect ive experience overagainst bourgeois ego-centredness. In Western jazz terms(pass€ terms real ly) this posi t ion leaves Marothy a ' t rad fan' ;one who is very much opposed to modern developments injazz. Despite these di f ferences there is something which l inksthese three wri ters. None of them bel ieves that the achieve-ments of jazz measure up to what they would consider to bethe great achievements of composit ional art-music. They al lhave great enthusiasm for jazz, and f ind in i t values farabove, as they would consider them, the values of popular,eommercial music, for which they al l express a disdainfulloathing. Nel l ' ton, for instance, saw 50s rock n' rol l as musicf 'or moronic masses. In fact, compared with 'h igh-culture'

music both Neu'ton and Marothy f ind in jazz refreshingrlual i t ies. For Neu'ton, jazz, has been a democrat ic, ant i -srrobbish act iv i ty, and for l \ {arothy jazz.has been the healthyvoice of the revolut ionary proletar iat , as opposed to thedecadent vo ice o f a mor ibund bourgeo is ie .

Desp i te these concess ions to the va lue o f jazz , when i tcomes to the po in t o { ' suppos ing tha t abso lu te judgements a rept ' rssible al l three cr i t ics see the lazz tradi t ion as havingproduced nothing equal to what they regard as the greatachievements of art music. Marothy bel ieves that the kind ofj t tzz, of which he approves, is a proletar ian folk music, which

c


might subsequently be utilised by some great post-revolution-ary composer for the ends of 'true' art. Newton, also, finds itmeaningful to classify jazz by means of the folk category.For Newton, jazz is an urban, folk music, which, surpris-ingly has been able to maintain itself despite the commerciali-zation of most forms of life within capitalist society. For allthree critics (two of whom, Hodier and Newton, are highlyesteemed in jazz circles) jazz has failed, or simply has notproduced great works of art, but in a scale of value which has'high' art-music at the top, and commercial, pop-music at thebottom (all three are committed to this scale) jazzis very highup the scale.

The positioning of jazz, in the most intellectual of criticalwriting, corresponds closely to the general position of jazzwithin the culture. Within jazz itself, from the 1940sonwards, practitioners of jazz, writers on jazz, who deal withthe subject in a more anecdotal way than Hodier etc. , (e.g.Nat Hentoff,) and many jazz fans have been convinced thatjazz is a new art form, created in America, mainly, thoughnot exclusively, by negroes, and that lazzmen have anident i ty as art ists. (Hodier etc. , al low that most jazz musi-cians have greater technical dexter i ty than high-brow musi-cians. apart possibly from keyboard players.) However, thisinternal convict ion does not qui te equal the general inst i tu-t ional posi t ion of ' jazz. A few examples i l lustrate this. Forinstance, the bulk of BBC's jazzprogrammes occur on Radio2late at night, indicat ing both that they are not programnesfor the mass of Radio I and 2's audience, and that they arenot for the Radio 3 audience. Radio 3 does put out a few jazzprogrammes, Jazz in Bri tain and Jazz. Record Requests butthey are very much squeezed into minori ty slots. This is noconspiracy against jazz on the part of the BBC, but ref lectstheir Audience Research Department 's f indings on the jazzpubl ic. Thus, the main bulk of people interested in 'ser ious

music 'are not very interested in jazz, and the same is true ofthe audience for ' l ight music 'and pop. The jazz audience hassome respect for 'ser ious music ' , and on the whole isdisdainful about commercial , pop music.

A Worning on the Corruptive Influence of Art 93

The complex of attitudes surrounding jazz then, places iton the borders of art music. A situation like this is, of course,fluid, but for the last fifteen years the jazz situation hasremained rather static as major social changes have gone onapace without them taking up the jazz experience. In the 50sthings were different, because a young, middle-class studentaudience developed a short-lived 'purist' interest in jazz. Atthat point, jazzwas entering the art category at some speed,as is evidenced by the number of serious books publishedabout jazz at that time. However, when the student bour-geoisie of the 60s turned away from jaz.z to developmentswithin pop music, jazz ceased to develop in any major socialsense, though this does not reflect on changes within jazzstyles during this time. Jazz is today dealt with occasionallyin a serious, intellectual way by the more serious, intellectualpapers, but when this happens i t happens as part of a columndevoted normal ly to progressive, pop music. ln other words,it is not a standard, regular feature of the art world. but it lson theborders of i t . The depict ion of jazz as a folk music byintel lectual cr i t ics is a posit ive' indicat ion of i ts posi t ion. Bysay ing ' fo lk mus ic ' the c r i t i c i s sa f ing ' th is i s a mus ic I s tandoutside of, i t is not the music of m1' social group, but i t is amusic that grows authent ical lv out of real , social experienceand is, therefore, valuable' . Of course, the cr i t ic qual i f ies thenot ion o f ' fo lk ' by words l i ke 'u rban ' o r 'p ro le ta r ian ' .

N{y interest, as i t rvas stated earl ier, can now be presentedmore accurately. I t is an interest in the misinterpretat ions ofiazz which have resulted from the actual br inging of i t intoihe fr inges of art by means of r , 'ar ious percept ions of i tihrough the ideological funct ion of the concept of art ( i .e. artas a universal act iv i t ] ' ) . One of rny main complaints rvi l l bethat the appl icat ion of art , as a univer-.al category, to jazz.hasblunted a percept ion of jat .z as part icular i ty.

L


In order to explore this theme I shall begin by concentratingon the origins of jazz. Jazz, as Newton is eager to point out,is not a definable entity; it is an organic entity which hasdifferent, though related, significances at different times. Aconcrete point of departure on the beginnings of lazz is APictorial History of Jazz by Keepnews and Grauer Jr. Onlooking through the early photographs one notices changestaking place in the style of the photography. The very earliestphotographs fulfil the minimal function of the photograph.The members of the bands are assembled so that they can allbe seen. They carry their instruments. In many cases theywear uniformi the uniform of the band. The individuals areal l assembled on the basis of them being members of a band.The individual band members look as though they have beenmade uncomfortable by being photographed; clear ly, thephotograph is not being used b-v them ( individual by individ-ual) for exhibi t ionist , sel f-advert isement. The photographscould almost be photographs of convicts, i .e. photographs ofthose who would prefer not to be photographed. Despitethis, the photographs probably or iginate from the musicians'desire to be photographed. Photography is i tsel f new and i tsappl icat ion to coloured people rare. Even in 1939 photogra-phic services for coloured people in the South were poor as isevidenced in the rvel l known let ters from Bunk Johnson toFrecier ic Ramsey . l r , on his inabi l i ty to send Ramsey phoro-graphs o f h imse l f - ' l 'm pre t ty sure tha t you a l l know jusrho*, everything is down South rvi th the poor colored matn.The service here is real ly poor for colored people. '

Horvever, a band as a whole is a larger economic possibi l -i t y ' than an ind iv idua l . and New Or leans , in the las t cen tur -v ,afforded color:red people -qreater freedom than most orherareas in the South. To be photographed i tsel f conferredsfatus. Slavery is only 30 years behind the recording of theseassemblies. The band gives the negro status in his own eyes.l-he band is to be ident i f ied with the l iberat ion of the negro,a l though th is va lue is doub le-c 'dged. The band 's d ress s ty le i smil i tary and bands and music were an important part of the

A Warning on the Corruptive Influence of Art 95

l iberating armies. The musicians' instruments are in allprobability instruments left over from disbanded militarybands. They have, then, a symbolic significance, as well asconferring status as pieces of property possessed, and as signsof personal skill or expertise. These photographs conceal ashyness, a lack of social confidence in the photographicsituation, but also a preparedness to stand and be photo-graphed because of what the band and being a member of its igni f ied.

As jazz spreads, so as to take in wider audiences, so thestyle of the photographs in the Keepnews and Grauer pictor-ial history change. The main bulk of the examples, in thechanged style, occur in the eariy 20s, but the style can befound several years ei ther side of this period. This secondbatch of photographs test i fy to the musicians as social lyacceptable performers of some accornplishment. The air ofsocial acceptabi l i tv is induced by a conscious photographicstyle. The bands are posed. I t is no longer suff ic ient to haveeveryone prese nt and so make sure that they calr be seen. Thecontent of the photograph is now careful ly arranged. Thewhole effect is one of neatness, precision plus shades ofdignity.

' fhe ensemble is chic. The fashionable style of the

20s, involving a preference for whole shapes bounded bycic 'ar contours, al l s l ight ly eraggerated bv a penchant for thes lender , invades the photograph ic p resenta t ion . The per fo r -mers, then, are presented rvi thin the framervork of what isf ash ionab le , o f what i s o f the moment . f ro r th is reason, theyare prescnted as acceptable and desirable. The.v are part ofthe sc'ene. Where the photographs are of coloured musiciansthe,v- are presented as members of the chic r :nsemble, this is tosay that the clean. conceptual contour <tf bond bounds thepresental ion o1' the pe rformers. In these photographicsessions we are not treated to off-duty poses, the performersrenrain part ol 'a fashronable decor. Ti-rey are surrounded by agalazy of glear l ing instruments; they are the players of thesei r r .s t ruments . The k ind o f p lay ing wh ich resu l ts i s suggestedby a dist inct ion within the photographs in this style. Many

t -

96 Art qn Enemy of the People

are of the performers sitting in their places on the bandstand;they come across as smooth and well-behaved. In otherwords they know their place. They are not slaves from CongoSquare in New Orleans.

However, just as many of the photographs are posed shotsof the band in act ion. The act ion is simulated. The overr idingcompositional structure owes nothing to realism. Theemotional content of these photographs is one of rakishnessand excitement. The smooth, well-behaved, colouredmusicians indicate, in these photographs, the kind of musicthey play, or, and perhaps better, the kind of music theydon't play. The more formal pose is undermined by the moreanarchic one, though the anarchic pose is not genuinelyanarchic; the orgiast ic impulse is st i l l rvel l -repressed, but,now, i t is showing. The musicians don't play st i f f , formalmusic, they play music vvhich is of 'norv' , which is fashion-able, which repudiates the past.

The bands advert ise thenrselves as being Creole, rvhichstr ict ly interpreted means, or meant, of [ -at in or igins, thoughborn in the Car ibbean, and there fore , no t o f A f r i can or ig ins .Houever, thc' conccpt of Creole in employ'ment was aconn ivec l dup l i c i t , v feed ing o i f t t s l i te ra l mean ing . Today theorc i inar l 'u r rders tand ing o f Crec t le , i f no t i t s d ic t ionar ,v -approv 'ed mc i in ing , i s tha t o f be ing l igh t -co lo r r red anc i o l - theC ' i i r ibbean ( iack ing thereb i a ck 'a r r ; rc ia l mean ing) .

' fh is

m()venrcnt in the concepi cantc at- ' 'or l t as lhr rcsul l ol peoplco l ' var ious rac ia l o r ig ins p i rss ing fhcmse i r ts o t f ' as Creo le .The ord inary unc lc rs ia : rd ing o l ' ihe concr 'p t g i r , 'es up au thor i -tar ian l i t r ralncss and _v- ielr . is to l ransparenl soi l ia l fact. Whenthe Grar:er lKeepnews' photographs rvere taken, the l i teralinterprctat ion ol ' Creale rvas not total l l ' debased by socialabuse, and i t coulcl st i l l s igni l 'y ' soc: ial : rcceptabi l i ty.

' f l r is is

not to sa)" that anyone real ly bel ieved that the menrbr:rs ofKicl Oly 's Creole Jazz l lanci rr . ,erc Creole, i t rvas just ntoreacceptable when el 'er-"-one engaged in the transparent { 'antasythat they were. ln terms of fashionable acceprabi l i ry i t wasa lso impera t ive tha t they shou ld no t he Creo le ; the impor tan t

A Warning on the Corruptive Influence of Arl 97

fact was that they should appear to be but yet be known notto be.Here, we have an idea emerging that I shall make a lotof, namely that one enormously important life-project forthe negro in the USA has been living in order to dissemble.

Creole band was part, therefore, of an acceptable image.In addition, the bands in the photographs appear in eveningdress (there is even a band that calls itself the Tuxedo JazzBand). We are, then, in a different world from the marchingbands in their uniforms. Yet it is the same world, for it isknown that many musicians appeared in both contexts.These photographs from the past, present a concrete recordof a l ived ambiguity. On the one hand the negro standsself-conscious but obdurate, affirming the fact of his exist-ence, on the other hand he negates himself in dissembl ingEuropean-ness. However, what really is socially acceptableand integrates is the ambiguity.

To br ing out with more authori ty the meaning of thisambiguity i t is necessary to locate the social context for whichthe photographs are bi ts of evidence.

Much research has been done and many books wri t tenabout slavery in the Southern States of which Rol l JordanRol/ is one of the latest examples. A resume of al l thatevidence is not u 'hat I wish to reproduce here. Rather I wishto make concre te cer ta in poss ib i l i t i es inherent in the South-irn context before Reconstruct ion. N{uch of our retrospect-r \e th ink ing about s la l 'e ry p revents us f rom recons t ruc t ing i t, rs a l i l ' cd s i tua t ion . From assumed pos i t ions o l ' rnora l;uperior i ty we vent our spleen upon the rvhi te master racet fa i l ing to no te in th is tha t there were many f ree co lourec isr i ho possessed slaves) and empathise rvi th the suff 'er ing of thenegro . We rend to conceptua l i se the s i tua t ion in te rms o ft) ' ' rann)-, suffer ing and the unended struggle for f reedom.What we avo id in th is a t t i tude is the seduc t ion o f con templa t -ing what i t was in nineteenth century America to be Euro-pean in or igins (but to have forsaken Europe) and to olvnslaves or iginat ing from Afr ica (a cont inent shrouded inEuropean consciousness by a European concept of savagery).

\-


In avoiding these thoughts, we avoid, as a consequence,locating what it was to be slaves responding to this situation.Clearly, there was not just one way in which this general,social situation was lived out. Gervase is right to affirmpaternalism as a general social project, but it is not thiselement which, it seems to me, is the most influential. or themost relevant to understanding the early significance of jazz.It is the general possibility of debauchery that I wish to ihowwas chosen.

ln its clearest, or least concealed form we have thesi tuat ion of white, male masters, overseers etc. , having theirway with female slaves. The typical location for this is theplantat ion where males, with power or authori ty, had a freerun of the f ie ld gir ls regardless of exist ing mock, mari talrelat ions between slaves. what sartre cal ls the pract ico- inertreinforces this propensity, for in and around New Orleansthere were more coloured females than coloured males andmore white males than white females (J.W. BlassingameBlack Nev, Orlean-s). The paucity of white marriageablefemales in the New orlea's disrr icr had led in the eighieenthcentury to the king of France sending out female pr isonersfrom Salperr idre, and to the Mississippi Company oiganisingthe sy'stem knon,n as 'casket gir ls ' , whereby gir ls came fromFrance with a smal l chest of c lothing plus a smal l dowry forthe purpose o f mar r iage (p . Johnson ,Cood T ime Town ' inNev, Orleans 1718-1968 Tlrc past as prelude ed. HoddingC ar te r ) . Aga ins t th is background many permanent l ia isonsdeveloped betu'een uhite rrrales and coloured fernales, produ-ci .g subsequent ly the sociar need for the category oi ' f r . . -coloureds as a way of responding to the ol fspr ing of suchpernanenr relat ionships. These relat ionships were atremprsin the Nerv world context to produce subst i tutes for Euio-pean norr-nal i ry, bui lding the subst i tutes out of whatevermater ial u 'as to hand. white female scarci t l ' and the presenceof black female slaves was, obviously, a deterrniningpract ico- inert , which was accommodated in di f ferent *uur]The practice of using black female slaves ss sloves for sexual


gratification was one prevalent way in which the accommo-dation was made. But against this sketch of the crudesatisfaction of physical need, by means of util ising whateverwas to hand, we need to set other facts. For instance, the factthat white mistresses took up with slave men (Blassingame),or the fact that negro women were taken up with for shortdurations on the basis of placage arrangements (i.e. the settingup of a mistress in an appartment). Moreover, slaves wereallowed into masters' houses for collective celebrations,where they dressed up in fine clothes (i.e. European stylefinery), indulged in sumptuous banquetry and performederot ic dances, l ike the 'carabine' and the 'pi le chactas' . InSouthern Louisiana Voodoo not only sustained itself but itdrew whites into i ts pract ices, thus, in the 1850s a NewOrleans newspaper described a Voodoo ceremony as follows,

Blacks and wh i tes were c i rc l ing around promiscuous ly , wr i th ing ' inmuscular contractions. panting, raving and frothing at the mouth.But the most degrad ing and in famous fea ture o f th is scene was thepresence of a very large number of ladies, moving in the highestwa lks o f soc ie ty , r i ch and h i ther to supposed respec lab le , tha t werecaught in the dragnet .

From such facts ar ises an idea which goes beyond straight-foruard physical need as provoked by a scarci ty of females.The negro as negro engenders in white consciousness a desirefor sexual excess and self- indulgence. The negro symbol isesfor whites the obscene and the orgiast ic ( i f you l ike, the 'c ' ros

pr inc ip le ' ) . I t i s par t l y fo r th is reason tha t pur i tan wh i teswere so insistent on brow-beat ing blacks into a tame Christ-ian submissiveness. Such whites saw in the slaves' drums andtheir dances the possibi l i ty of the obscene orgy. On this basis,in many areas, the drum and the dance were banned. InCathol ic areas, however, what repression there was, wasmuch less severe, and New Orleans i tsel f is a clear example ofthis ( thus the permit ted act iv i t ies in Congo Square). How-ever, in so far as whites al lorved themselves to be drawn intoa celebrat ion of the orgiast ic pr inciple, they did not do so

.7

100 Art An Enemy of the People

without various forms of concealment. I do not mean by thisthat their activities were clandestine (though often they werethis as well), but that, for themselves in the activity, there wasan attempt made to disguise an object of desire. The disguisetook the form of Europeanising the objecr; the plaqagearrangement would be a typical example. The represlivemechanisms instilled by European culture asserted them-selves in structuring the debauchery (as European valueswould have classified the activities). An objective was thepursuit of the orgiast ic, but the pursuit did not occur invacuo. The context prescribed other objectives, which wereintegral with the more straightforward objective. Thus, theorgy with blacks was a specific release; a release fromrepressive mechanisms in European culture. The object wasdebauchery. In more colourful language we might say theobject was the rape of European ideology. For the Europeanthe orgy was a debauching. What concealed the object ofdesire, the Europeanised black, became the sexual ly exci t ingcont rad ic t ion .

After emancipat ion the system of slave labour gave way towage-labour. This change permeated al l t ransact ions, includ-ing serual t ransact ions. We mo\e, therefore, f rom a si tuat ionin which black females are sexual ly ut i l ised as slaves, to as i tua t ion in wh ich they are u t i l i sed in var ious fo rms o fprost i tut iorr . The signi f icance of this, for Nerv Orleans, wasthat at i ts height the Storyvi l le distr ict had 2,200 registeredpros t i tu tes packed in to i t s 38 b locks . The to ta l negro popu la-t ion in Nerv Orleans al this t ime u'as around 60.000. In fact thespread of prost i tut ion in New Orleans had threatened toengu l f the who le c i ty un t i l A lder rnan S idney Story p roposedthat there should be 'a certain distr ict outside of which i tu 'ould be unlarvful for prost i tut ion to be carr ied on' . Eman-cipat ion, therefore, al tered only the form in which sexualpract ice took place.

The red-l ight distr ict of New Orleans is, of course, anobl igatory subject in descr ibing the formation of jazz. How-ever, the specif ic content of the New Orleans brothel is not

A Warning on the Cotuptive Influence of Art 101

really attended to. The normal thing is to allude to the seamy

oiiginr of iazz, so as to strengthen the claim that jazz is an

iuti.nti. music, springing frorn real life situations. The New

ilil.unt brothel is, however, an interesting phenomenon' It is

,rui g.n.rul ly uni form, but there is a uniform concept ion

emanating from the top which pervades most set-ups to a

gr.u,. , oi l . t t . t degree. The top is Basin Street, which is not

i ; be confused with some seedy street in Soho' The most

iu,rlout establishrnent on Basin Street was Mahogany Hall'

i i i l l t rv a chubby negro woman cal led Madame Lulu white.

t i . r . , ' in i ts moit obvious form, we have the contrast and

intermingl ing of black and white, Afr ican and European; the

cr-rntrast deciar ing i tsel f in the debasement of what is Euro-

pcan. TttL, t , the house, wlt ich has four stor ies, f ive grand

parlours on the ground f loor, 15 bedrooms on the upper

i1. , , ' r , al l u ' i th pr ivate baths, is cal led Mahogany Hal l ( i 'e ' a

t i r re European hc ;use bu t a b lack house) ' l l s ou 'ner i s

adclressed as thor-rgh French, she is Madame White, but

ihough cal led White she is coloured (as a matter of fact she

;,*rrei t rersel f of f as Creole). She ls referred to in a guicle of

t l ; r : pc r ioc l (Souven i r Book le t ) as i 'o l lows,

\ . . i u t c r , t c n d i t r n t ; l r l \ l i r ' I t t l r t . t a i l r l ' t ( r l f l l l ( ) ' t . h a t i t t g n t a t t c l t

l ! l c . i D n g s t t t r i l , r l l . l l l L r s i c a n c l l i t c r a t t r r e . S t l e ' \ w c i l - | e a J a n d o n t . t h a t, . : r r ' r i l i r l r t ' . 1 . , , t q ! r 1 r J r l t t t d I l t l l . ' , i r i ' l t t , ' i i e l p i : l . c i l ! r \ l l i i n t l ' \ l l O t ! 1 1 \ '

1 ' l J1191 r111 ' ; .

i l c rc , the l i , wc scc her sc t up as an a t t rac t ion w i t l i i n thc

, . r l i t l cx t o1 'European cu l tu re . However . the magn i f i cence o f

I l t r house ( in tact a rather brassy ancl gauci-v magnif icence'. r ro55 gpp l ' s o f so-ca l led f ines t European tas te ) ' the pseudo-

; r r i ru re o { ' i t s hos ts . i s a l l in a id o f lhe var io t l s sa t is fac t ions c l l

; ros t i tu t ion . N lahogany Ha l l was no t a lone except ion ' A l l

i l )e top es t i rb l i shmei l t s were s t ruc tu red by these va lues ' Th t ts ,

r l rc A i l ing ton is re fe r red to in the fan tous l l l ue Book (no th ing

io do w i th Wi t tgens te in ) ,

rF


The wonderful original i ty of everything that goes to f i t out amansion makes i t the most attract ive ever seen in this or the oldcountry. Within the great walls of this mansion wil l be found thework of great art ists from Europe and America.

Other establishments were run by Emma Johnson, knownas the Parisian Queen of America (to rape the Queen ofParis) and the Countess Willie Piazza, where Jelly RollMorton played piano (Willie and Jelly Rol/ both beingexpressions referring to the penis).

The significance of these establishments is neatly summari-sed by Clarence Williams talking in Hentoff,s Hear MeTqlkin ' to Yo,

And the gir ls would come down dressed in the f inest e'ening gowns,jttst like they were going to the opera. praces like that werJf-or richpeop le most ly wh i te .

These brothels for the r ich were not exclusively inhabitedb1' coioured prost i t r_rtes. Many rvhi te females were alsoemployed. This would have had a di f ferent signi f icance fromthe coloured gir l parading in European f inery, but i t obvious_Iy f i t ted into the overal l project. I t is reveal ing to emphasisehow dif f 'erent \ \ ,as the general sexual, fanta.sy l i fe of theperiod, as served by these establ ishments, compared withcontemporarl ' sexual fantasy. Sex in Ne,,v, C)r leans, dur ingthis period, rras far removed fronr the al lure of k inky boot iSpider ! \ 'oman and PVC. Even at the lower end of the Neworleans ser i 'dustry the style of sexual fantasy drew on thesanle sources. Thus, Louis Armstrong descri t res the gir lss tand ing ou ts ide the i r ' c r ibs ' d ressed in ' l i ne and beau i i fu lnegl igees' . in other words apparel led in erot ica which w'rkedthrough rhe assoc ia t ions o f Europe and h igh c lass .

The top brothels were not the nests in which jazz, washatched. The music for these establ ishments was provided bvpiano players. They were known as professo,:s oi the piano,thus, underl in ing the connect ion with European .ul trr . .Bands \ re re no l par t o f the se t t ing because they were too


obviously noisy and disrupt ive. There was no loud playing.The piano because of its bulk was property within property.It did not belong to the streets or the marching bands, andconsequent ly, in the history of jazz, i t had, at the beginning,a separate development. It is for this reason that early blackplaying of the piano expresses i tsel f in composit ional music,l ike rag-t ime, whereas in jazz proper we have to wait unt i lEl l ington for this to come about. The early, coloured piano-players were much closer to legitimate music than the instru-mental ists in the street marching bands and dance bands,al though this divis ion was not absolute, as is evidenced by thedi l ' ferent status of var ious instruments in the bands (e.g. theviol in and clar inet were more closely associated with legi t i -ntate music than the other instruments). The piano comesinto jazz, as jazz. leaves the streets and enters the interiors.This movement is not simply the jazz band becoming seden-lary ' , i t is the inf luence of the jaz,z idiom and integral andanendant social at t i tudes upon the piano-players. One of theclcarest expressions of this intersect ion is in the del 'e lopmentr.r f boogie woogie, where the lef t hand takes up the funct iontr f ' the guitars rhythmic chording whi le the r ight handt 'Lr i f i is the piano tradi t ion of f i l l ing in so as to provide a total, ' \ C l l t .

ln Countess Wil l ie Piazza's place Jel ly Rol l Morton per-1( ) r 'n rs as pro fessor o f the p iano, bu t the echoes o f jazz

l .c l rade the sweet vo lume- leve l o f the mus ic . The b lackz' .r hi ie contrast is wri t ten into not only the name of Nlahoganyi la l l , bu t in to thc- mus ica l a tmosphere as we l l . Th is cont ras ti ' . the meaning of the social experience that i t rvas. An, ' , t r ia ted , bu t impor tan t event wh ich emphas ises th is rnean ing, ' , a: ; the closure by the federal governments of the 'Storyvi l le '

, . l i : t r i c t dur ing Wor ld War I . Th is came about when four.a i lo rs were k i l led in the d is t r i c t . A t the po in t o f Amer ica' , i rorving sol idar i ty rv i th a part icular European cause, i ti ' 'ceame necessar! ' for the authori t ies to excise that which wasanafhema to i t .

The contrast, I have been examining, is not conf ined to the

r r104 Art an Enemy of the People

sordid fringes of New Orleans society, although, in NewOrleans, prostitution was in fact more than a fringe activity.The contrast is ubiquitous throughout New Orleans as a goodtime town.

Until the 1850s New Orleans was the musical capital ofAmerica (H.A. Krun 'The Music of New Orleans' inHodding Carter's (ed) The Past as Prelude), but this ismisleading unless we concentrate on dancing and ballrooms.It is this which is the vastly popular activity. New Orleans didhave an opera house, but it was not always popular, andprobably would not have survived apart from the support ofthe ballrooms, in the form of their providing alternativesources of income for musicians. However, it was importantthat there was an opera house, for compared with thebal l rooms, i t al lowed social consciousness to l ive out thecontrasts I have been arguing for. It was more importantthough, that there were the bal l rooms.

The importance of the bal l room reveals i tsel f when weknow the kind of social experience i t permit ted and encour-aged. Masked bal ls, in which social dir , ' is ions of bir th andcoiour were played down, were very popular. Pr ior to 1805there was mixed dancing where white men (fathers and sons)would come together to revel and dance with free-colouredsand siaves both men and women. From 1805 the QuadroonBal l was introduced by an Auguste Tersier, whereby, onWednesdays and Saturdays, dances were held erciusively forwhite men and free-coloured worrren only ( the category offree-coloured women being easi ly enlargeable by anycoloured wonten a rvhi te man fancied sett ing up as such). Thereal s igni f icance of this move was the removal of thecoloured male from the contert in rvhich the white maleerhibi ted, through the mask of social convent ions, his sexualdesires. The Quadroon Bal l proved an instant success. As aL.ouise Tast io wrote at the t ime.

Evcry clerk and scriviner who can make up a ferv dol lars, hurr ies tothese unhallowed sanctuaries, and launches unreservedlv into evert,


species of sensual indulgence... . Nor is i t unusual to see members of

the legislature mingling freely with these motley groups' (Quoted in

Krun article)

It is in these settings, and similar ones, that towards the

end of the century the original jazz bands performed,

alternating between this role and that of marching bands.The idea that iazz as dance music was an early twentiethcentury invention of Tin Pan Alley, which is FrancisNewton's claim, seems to me quite wrong. It was at thebeginning a dance music, and more than this a dance musicwithin a commercial setting. The ballrooms were in competi-tion with each other and emerging out of this commercialrivalry we get the tradition of the 'cuttin" contest, which wasstill apparent, though transformed greatly, at Mintons, whenMonk, Parker and Gillespie set about inventing a jazz that noone else wi l l be able to l ive with.

I have now said something about the social context inrvhich a certain social project was lived out. A set ofsimpl i fy ing contrasts help to clar i fy my meaning. Beingwhite, as encapsulated in New Orleans social experience, washringing blackness into whiteness, and thereby obtainingsome release from being white, but at the same time not beingblac'k and remaining white. The project was contradictory. itw. ls to be white, but not be white and to be black but not beblack (al l of this from the standpoint of those who weren'hite), it was to bring blackness into whiteness os o whitenesstrut at the same time thal which entered as a whiteness had to!rc o blackness. We might say all of this constitutes the.4merican sett ing or, at least the white American sett ing. TheL'.Lrropean gr ip on America is not strong but for a rvhi le arnther garbled version of European style is an inspirat ion,especial ly with certain powerful social c lasses. The Americanexperience is the way in which this gr ip is gradual ly dismant-led. Europe is the fantasy, and in the fantasy Europe is'debased' and this is central to being American' This can berepresented in economic terms for Arnerican capitalism is the


powerhouse, which is the ultimately effective destroyer of thepervasiveness of European culture. But all of this is, atpresent, from the standpoint of white Americans. What isneeded is an account of this complex from the other side. Toapproach this I shall return to an adjunct of my mainenterprise, that adjunct being the formation of jazz.

In schematic form to be black is to be committed to adouble dissembling. First there is the being blsck, but thehaving to oppear os white though revealing blacknessthrough the white pose. This is the demand white societymakes on blacks. The demand. however. is twofold. I t is thedemand that what rs black makes itself white through dutifulbehaviour (dutiful, white labouring-classes) but that itremains black, i .e. s lave, third class ci t izen, non-equal. Thisdemand is the exploi tat ion of the blacks' product ive capa-ci ty. Secondly, there is the more seduct ive demand (seduct iveto those demanding) that the exci tement and release ofblackness be offered through a disguise of whiteness. Theblack then dissembles whiteness to have his blsckness exploi-ted, but this is the external demand, and what we need tospecify is how meeting the demand is inter ior ised. I t isinteriorised by dissembling the dissembling. This is to say thenegro makes bland naivety at imitat ion indist inguishable, atan interpersonal level, f rom cynical mockery. I f there is anawareness of this dupl ic i ty there is a tendency for whites toconnive at i t , because the desired object blackness is notsimply shades of Afr ica and savagery, but the send up ofupt ight whiteness (this i t seems to me is a contagious cul turalin f luence) .

I f al l th is sounds l ike an analysis of the Black and WhiteNl instrel Show, i t should be remembered that Minstrelsy wasvery popuiar at this t ime, and i t was a conrext in which al lthese contrasts and ambiguit ies rvere played out in starkcaricatures. For instance, the rvalk around at the conclusionof a Minstrel show involved the Cakewalk (see 1899 photo inBlack New Orleans), which was socially acknowledged as animpudent imitat ion of European, good posture and correct


walking (of course we all move like negroes now, you know,'float like a butterfly sting like a bee'). The blacked up whitesalso celebrated the negroes' phallic potential. Thus, they sangof being able to bend trees until they had humps like camels,or of their being able to pull a steamboat out of the river withtheir fishing rods, or of how they could sail down theMississippi on the backs of alligators which turned into seaserpents, which they then rode for miles underwater withoutbreathing. Apparently when one of these minstrels found hisentrance to a river blocked by a giant catfish he simply sailedhis boat right at its mouth and turned it inside out (how couldany woman resist?) (Blacking Up,R.C. Toll). For the negrothen, the dissembling whitness was made in the form ofdissembling the dissembling. To be negro was to be two-faced. The formation of jazzis one important area in whichwe see this happening.

In the work songs and early blues we are dealing withmaterial which, as all experts accept, was designed to beambiguous. There is the meaning of the song which isacceptable to the European overseer, and there is thesardonic, send-up meaning (sometimes clandest ine message)which del ights the singers. An att i tude is being bred here. I t isthat of not meaning what you say, and living to soy what youdon't meon, whi le at the same t ime implying what you meanand living to imply meaning. Success as a negro amongstnegroes is measured by your success at dissembl ing. TheBlues makes l ight of suffer ing so as to underl ine i t . In theearly jazz the perfectly acceptable European melody appearsto be present, and to be holding the piece together, butsomething else is intertwined within i t , which is somethingsaying something else. Here, we are deal ing with what is nowcal led ' improvisat ion' , but in the early days of jazz i t wasknown to everybody as ' faking' . (Perhaps we have run ful lc i rc le when we get to Coleman Hawkins wondering whetheror not Ornette Coleman might be faking and thus might notbe for real .)

At one level the European hears ingenuous attempts at

r-T108 Art an Enemy of the People

imitation, but as an explanation this is inadequate; there hadbeen many earlier, negro bands (many of them military) whqcould play the music straight. Improvisation is a feature ofWest African music, but we would be woodenly empiricist ifwe left it at that, i.e. one element that went into somemyster ious brew, brain-computer scramble etc. Improvisa-tion is, in terms of the background, a congealed possibility,but in the New World context it is a chosen possibility, as away, in the first instance, of dealing with the problematicalcontingencies of the work gang e.g. the passing of themessage. The improvisatory problem, in the context, is oneof working some new provocative element into a settled,acceptable format without disturbing the format's accept-ability. The skill is one of working it in. This is clearlybrought out by a J.M. Mckin wri t ing in 1862 and quoted inMarshal Sterns' The Story of Jazz:

I asked one of these blacks-one of the most intel l igent of them ...u ,here they go t these sor lgs . 'Day make 'em, sah! ' 'How do theymake them?'After a pause, evidently casting about for an explana-t ion , he sa id ' l ' l l te l l you , i t ' s d is way. My master ca l l me up , andorder me a short peck of corn and a hundred lash. My fr iends see i t ,and is sorry for me. When dey come to de praise-rneeting dat nightdey s ing about i t . Some's very good s ingers and know how; and deywork i t in . . . work i t in , you know, t i l l dey ge t i t r igh t ; and da t ' s deway.

In the early jazz the improvisat ion feeds off the melodyand i ts harmony. In this way the acceptable statement istransformed. European standards of str ict tempo are evaded,with the accents coming off the beat and the stressing ofweak beats. This produces a rnusic which is shi f ty and evasiverather than open and straightforrvard. I of ten feel thatmusicians brought up on classical music who, when trying toplay jatz, meet insuperable di f f icul t ies do so because theirtraining has been one of always try ing, honest ly and openly,to be in the r ight place at the r ight t ime. In a lot of jazz youhave got to let things sl ip a bi t only to redeem yourself at the


last moment, like the clown on the tightrope. The importantthing is, according to European standards, to be in the wrongplace, but to know how to get back in line (note how CharlieParker is revered for his extraordinary capacity for doingjust that). Here is the source of the sense of release that theearly jazz offers; i.e. a release from an on the go, goal-orientated, rule-bound, repressive consciousness. In this con-nection the attractions of primitive Africa and Africanrhythm seem more a cultural image surrounding the musicthan a feature of its intentional content. We have, in thernusic, the standards and the slipping from them, and for themusician, I am suggesting, the important thing is the livingout of the ambiguity.

This is how the blacks come into the American experience,frorn the othel end, so to speak. The two-faced negro is theAmerican negro. He is deeply embedded in the history. Theinrage of the negro passively accept ing Southern paternal ismis an obvious historical fallacy (see Negro in AmericanHistory, Director of Schools, New York City). Plantat iono\\'ners and their farnilies were of'ten the prey of their slaves.The history of the negro in America is ful l of minorrebel l ions, which are inevi tably fol iou,ed by savage repres-sion. But more than this, the negro is constant ly working atrrst one. He runs away, he appears to work but only does soat hal l pace, he feigns i l lness when he is healthy. We mightr r() te that ai l o i these dodges are commonplaces in ther.{)ntemporary l i fe of cynical sect ions of the Western proletar-i ; r t . Theob jec t o f the b lack l i fe i s to ' two t ime ' the wh i te , bossrace, or, i t is one of the objects, and i t is an object rvhichtransf 'orms the way in which al l other objects are sought andt hc way the seeking of them is l ived. This two-faced qual i ty isepparent just rvhere the negro is often thought to be at hisrnost straightforward and sincere, i .e. in rel ig ious devot ions.t{c l ig ious act iv i ty when permit ted was for the negro theacceptable context in which to be unacceptable: the contextin which to symbol ical iy rhrow off social and ideologicaltyranny. Rel igious act iv i ty in America provided simi lar

mI l0 Art an Enemy of the People

opportunities for migrating European proletarians (Shakers,etc.). The possibility of sincere, ingenuous response createdthe hesitation in white consciousness. which allowed blackreligious devotions to grow unimpeded. This possibility ismore than hinted at by the European traveller FredrikaBremer, when she visited a Methodist church attended byslaves (Blassingame).

The children of Africa may yet give us a form of divine worship inwhich invocation, supplication, and songs of praise may respond tothe inner l i fe of the fervent soul!

Moreover, the mocking, deadpan tone of the negro isevident in his religious activities. The mode of expression isnot just the song of del iverence. Compare ihe pomposity ofthe fol lowing European lyr ic, with the sharp send-up of thenegro version which fol lows i t .

Pra ise to the l i v ing GodAll praised be his nameWho was. and is . and is to beFor aye th ro ' the sameThe one Eterna l God.Ere aught that now appearsThe f i rs t , the las t beyond a l l thoughrsHis l ime less vears .

God is a GodGod don't ner"er changeGod is a GodAnd he a lwavs n i l l be God.

Of course, blacks could not enter into these white pract iceswithout cost. Just as black was affect ing white, so white wasaffect ing black. Whites were becoming black and blacks werebecoming white. Christ iani ty as a repressive ideology takesits tol l . Baldwin's novel Go Tel l i t on the Mountain is agraphic i l lustrat ion of this. Despite this, rel ig ious pract icewas for the negro a further opportunity for saying one thingbut meanins another.

A Warning on the Corruptive Influence of Art I I I

Just as the serious intention behind the whites' religion isevaded and sent up, so is the serious intent behind the wtriteman's band. This is underlined by the military associationswhich the band had for the negro. The negro gains, inAmerican history, a concept of freedom through militaryexperience. In the colonial war some measure of prestigeaccrued to the negro as a result of those instances where itbecame necessary to employ him for military ends. In thecivil war, a successful outcome for the Northern armiespromises the abolition of slavery. This prospect is concretelyresponded to by an estimated number of 186,000 negroesjoining the Northern forces, many of them defectors fromthe South. About a sixth of this number failed to survive theconf l ict . The North and the pol icy of abol i t ion come togetheras the war becomes protracted and difficult. It is realised thatthe economic strength of the South is heavi ly dependent onunwil l ing slave labour. Therefore, an al l iance with the eman-cipat ionist cause, on the part of the North, is a tact ic whichrundermines the securi ty of the Southern economy. Theinvi tat ion from the North to the Southern slave is to defect inrcturn for which the North promises emancipat ion ( i .e. wageiabour). The prornise of emancipat ion is carr ied into the5.rr-r th by the victor ious Northern army, much of u 'hich isionrposed of negroes. The victory is paraded and celebratedi. ;5 means of the exhibi t ionism of the mi l i tar l ' band. How-c,. cr, the promisc is a false one, for though slaver-v is"rhol ished the mater ial c ircumstances of the negroes' l i leir 'n)ain much as before. The concept of the band is thusaclclpted by the negro as a way o1' saying what ;-ou don'ti l rean. Neu,Orleans had a histor-v of rvhi te marching bands;t l re black marching bands therefore develop their parody ofi i re wh i te band.

fhere is one other very important predisposing factor forthe way in which the black response to white society shapesi lsc' l f in the l iv ing project of making jazz, and that is the factol ' the frequent making of music by black males for the sociali t i tcrcourse of white males and coloureC females. Manv

ll2 Art an Enemy of the People

books covering this period refer to black masculinity or'manliness' being under threat in the Southern social situa-t ion. I 'm not sure I real ly understand what this means, but,certainly, the subsidiary role of entertainer, at these func-t ions, would explain the product ion of a concealed, thoughribald irony. For reasons stated this ribald element was notunwelcome to the audience. Marothy provides a concretei l lustrat ion of this in discussing gl issandi or s lurs in jazz.

The gl issando effects (whose actual signif icance is natural ly notrestr icted to the comic) produced a unanimously conic impact onthe bourgeois audience, because here an excessive sentimentalexpressivity and also i ts reversal were clearly to be observed.

Marothy, here, helps to underl ine the double-edged qual i t -vo f th is mus ic .

The theme of jazz musicians passing ironic musical com-ment on the pre ludc to misceger ta t ion is one tha t ou t l i vc -s theNeu Or leans per iod . The Cot ton C lub u 'here E l l ing ton wasresidcnt for al l those years was based on the appeal of sexualf a n t a s l , s u r r o u n d i n g t h e ' c o u p l i n g o f b l a c k s a n d w ' h i t e s .N{arshal Slerne in The Stor,y' o.f Juzz, describes a tl 'picaltab ieau.

- I -hc l loor sho*s a l the C-o t ton C lub , i r 'h ich adnr r t ted on i l ' gangsrers ,

* h i te r and ncgro ie le b r i t ies , rvere an inc i cd ib le n r ishrnash o l t i i l cn ta i r i j t ; r rnscnse u h ich migh t i r ' r ' l l i a rc ina tc b t r th soc io lo .q i r t \ andpsye i r ia t r i s ts . I re ra l l one wherc a l igh t - i k innc t l and nragn i f i ccn t l l 'rnu :c led ncgro l ' r i t r ' : t th rouc .h a pap ic ' r rnacht l . i r rng le on to th r 'dancc1 loor . , : lad in an av ia to r ' : he ln rc t , gogg les and shor ts . t le hadohr io r rs l t 'been ' i i . r rcec l doun in darkes t A f r i ca ' , and in the ce 'n t rc o fthe l loor he car r rc upon a ' rvh i te 'goddcss c lad in long go lden t ressesanc l bc ' ing rvorsh innqc l b i 'a c i rc lc o f ' c r ing i r rg 'b lacks ' . I ) rodue ing abu l l *h ip f r t r r r r hc l rcn kncrus r rhcrc . the ar ia to r rescued thc h londeand the-v ' - d id an ero t ic dar rce . In thc backg lound, Bubber Mi lev ,Tr icky Sanr Nanton , and o thc ' r members o f the ' E l l ing ton bandgrowled, wheezed, and snorted obsccnely.

I es t imate I have sa id enoueh to ind ica te what I take to be

A Warning on the Corruptive Influence of Art I 13

the meaning of the formation and early proliferation of jazzin and around New Orleans. What I have tried to do is tosketch in the lived making and early spreading of thisprocess. As a methodology this is a departure from thestandard empiricist enquiry, which breaks down the fsitoccompli into easily managed elements (e.g. polyphony,polyrhythm, blue notes, improvisation etc.) and then seeks tofind something comparable in the pre-jazz background (e.g.African pentatonic scales, Anglo-Saxon hymns, etc.). Theempiricist enquiry gives fusion (i.e. natural process) pre-eminence over human project. At the same time as recom-mending a certain methodology, one which insists on render-ing the act iv i ty intel l ig ible as something intent ional, i t isnecessary to point out that the act iv i ty rendered is not s implytransparent intent ional i ty. The act iv i ty, because i t is real ,contains al l sorts of possibi l i t ies for new departures whichwere undreamt of in i ts or iginal formation. What newdepartures there are though, have st i l l to be rendered as l ivedac t iv i t y .

I am now in a position to declare my main point with moreobvious intel l ig ibi l i ty. To begin an explorat ion of jazz withthe presuppos i t ion tha t i t i s a r t , o r i s a mus ic o f 'h igh

aest lret ic value' ( the lat ter c laim is typical of books on jaz,z,i 'ef lect ing, I suspect, the actual borderl ine status of jaz.z)where one is committed to these values, prevents one fromi 'eel ing jazz, as host i le to oneself and a reject ion of oneself ,b l r t , a t the same t ime, fee l ing i t as an undermin ing o f onese l fbv being a release fronr onesel l . Prel ,ented from f inding thisinteract ion of object ives one fai ls to locate the u'hi te presencein early jazz. Early jazz. is as much made out of white,commercial demands of black musicianship as i t is made outo f b lack mus ic iansh ip i t se l f . Iazz . is a commerc ia l mus ic f ronrthe beginnings. l t is not as though the commercial isat ion of. iaz,z only gets under way with the Original Dixieland JazzBand and beyond. [ t is t rue that as the record and radioindustr ies develop so certain concepts of jazz are spread bythe abstract hand of capital ism, and that pr ior to this

ll4 Art an Enemy of the People

commercialisation is under more concrete control. This isn'tthe difference between folk and commercial music, any morethan the difference between the New Orlean's underworldand Capone's Chicago is the difference between folk cultureand muscular capitalism. Being a musician in New Orleanswas to have a trade, like cigar making or carpentry. If notfull-time it was a supplement to one's income. Even theplaying at funerals, for the various lodges and secret societ-ies, was on a commercial basis, and the music only became'lrot' (as they used to say of early jazz) after the band hadbeen paid and they were on their way back to town.

To think of jazz as art is to think of it as an ally. From thisstandpoint one abstracts from the particularity of the livedprocess those elements which are compatible with the stand-point. Jazzas a lived process, having a predorninant meaningthereby slips from view. As this happens a fantasy jazzemerges firmly within the grip of the aesthetics of Romantic-ism. Jazz is thereby seen as a clear, unambiguous, authenticexpression of black feeling. Sometimes the straightforwardexpression of an African vitality and at other times the ex-pression of suffer ing and the making of bi t ter i roniccomment. There are the feel ings, there is the vehicle and jazzis the communicat ion of these feel ings by means of thevehicle. In this way the jazzman is highi ighted as the art ist .This is to say that as long as his problem can be conceivedsimply as making the vehicle communicate his feel ings, thenhis status as an art ist is assured, even i f i t is a status as a lesserart ist ( folk art ist) . As soon as outside, commercial pressuresare thought to intrude, i .e. when jazz is seen as beingmarketed and rvheu whites are seen as playing a version of i tbecause i t is marketable ( this is the concept ion of the ensuingprocess that the theory gives us) then the status of jazz as artbecomes a complex problem: the problem of discr iminat ion.Whi le lost in the problem of discr iminat ion the meaning ofthe ensuing process is not explored. The ideology sets up themeaning ct pr ior i . Thus, the meaning becomes, who was andwho was not able to maintain themselves as authent ic


expressing artists against the tide of commercialism. Thehistory is read for this interpretation and nothing more. Oncethis is done all that is left is to detail what has been accepted.Detailing involves the gathering of anecdotes and the analysisof the evolving musical techniques. Typically, also, we getthe lament that the great jazz artists have not been rewardedfor their genius, although if in the money the jazzman isnormally thought of as being of questionable status e.g.Benny Goodman and Miles Davies (a similar process is to befound in pop-rock as a letter to the Sunday Times 12 Oct1975 pointed out of that newspaper's colour supplement pop-rock feature).

A better understanding of the spreading of the jazzexperience (especially concerning 20s and early 30s) comesfrom those who l iv ing with i ts spread took up a posit ion ofhostility towards it. Neil Leonard's book Jazz and the lAhiteAmericans catalogues some of the opposit ion. In l90l theAmerican Federat ion of Musicians condemned ragt ime, andrecommended that i ts members refrain from playing i t . Inl91l people found doing the Turkey Trot were taken to courtarrd subsequent ly lost their jobs. By 1922 there was a play onllroadway by Hartly Manners called National Anthem,rvhose theme was the moral debasement and degeneracybrouglr t about by . iazz. The New York Times of the periodu'as against i t - 'With music of the old style even the mostlrol ' ing, the l istener rvas seldom upset from his digni f iedp \ )S ture . '

J. l ) . Sousa objected on the grounds that jaz,z employedpr imi t i ve rhy ' thms wh ich exc i ted the bas ic human ins t inc ts .I" i i is at t i tude was expressed in greater detai l by a Dr El iotl {au' l ings, quoted by Leonard.

Jazz mus ic causes drunkeness by send ing a cont inuous wh i r l o fimpress ionab le s t imu la t ions to the bra in , p roduc ing thoughts andirnaginations which overporver the wil l" Rcason and ref lect ion arelos t and the ac t ion o f the nersons arc d i rec ted bv the s t roneer an ima lpass ions .

-f-


The Cstholic Telegraplz of Cincinnati continues the theme,

. . . the music is sensuous, the embracing of partners is absolutelyindecent, and the motions... they are such that as may not bedescribed in a family newspaper. Suffice it to say that there arecertain houses appropriate for such dances but those houses havebeen closed by law.

A Miss Alice Burrows publishing an article entitled 'OurJazz Spotted Middle West' in the Ladies Home Journal for1927 writes,

The nature of the music and the crowd psychology working togetherbring to many individuals an unwholesome excitement. Boy and gir lcouples leave the hal l in a state of dangerous disturbance. Anyworker who has gone into the night to gather the facts of act ivi t iesoutside the dance hal l is appalled, f i rst of al l perhaps, by the blatantdisregard of even the elementary rules of civi l izat ion. We mustexpect a f 'ew casualt ies in social intercourse, but the modern dance isproduc ing l i t t le shor t o f ho locaus t . The s ta t i s t i cs o f i l l eg i r imacy inth is count r l ' shou,a grea t inc rease in recenr years .

According to the Rev. Phi l l ip Yarrow the I l l inois Vigi lanceAssociat ion had discovered that for the year l92l-2 jazz hadcaused the 'downfa l l ' o f 1 ,000 g i r l s in Ch icago a lone. Theant i - rnovement was no t * ' i thou t i t s sense o f hunrour , as i seviderrced by art ic les bearing t i t les l ike 'Does Jazz,but the Sinin Syncopat ion ' .

N{i l ton Mezzrott , the 1az,z ciar inett ist , recal ls the off ic iales tab l i shment a t t i tude towards jazz . in the 20s : 'Our mus icwas cal led "nigger music" and "u'hore house music" and"n ice" peop lc tu rned up the i r noses a l i1 . '

Re l ig ious d ign i ta r ies saw the ,uv ider in rp l i car ions . A .W.Bcvan, a min is te r in Rochestc r , Ncw York i s quo led assay ing , ' l t has go t ten beyond the dance and the mus ic and isnow an att i tucle toward l i fe in general . We are aff l icted with amora l and sp i r i tua l anemia . '

Dr . J .R. S t re ton , a bapt is t c le rgy 'n tan in Nerv York sa id ,

A lVorning on the Corruptive Influence of Art ll7

I have no patience with this modern jazz-tendency, whether it be inmusic, science, social l i fe or rel igion. I t is part of the lawless spir i twhich is being manifested in many departments of life, endangeringour civilization in its general revolt against authority and establishedorder.

These outbursts against lazz were not confined to angryletters wri t ten to newspapers, but had pract ical impl icat ionsas wel l . I t needs to be remembered that these att i tudes werel inked to the att i tudes behind 'prohibi t ion' . In l92l theCeneral Federat ion of Women's Clubs with a membership of2,000,000 voted to 'annihi late' the new music. At the t ime ofprohibi t ion there was legislat ion agarnst jazz. The New Yorklcgislature passed the Cot i l lo Bi l l which empowered theCommissioner of Licences of New York City to regulate jazzand dancing. He banned both on Broadway after midnight.13y 1929, 60 communit ies including Cleveland, Detroi t ,Kansas City, Omaha and Phi ladelphia had regulat ions pro-i r ib i t ing jazz . in pub l i c dance ha l l s .- Ihe

opposit ion to 1az,z has to be rneasured against the.,1rrcacl ct i jazz, but by i tsel f i t underl ines the social meaningi r i . inzz . Adherents o f jazz , who v iew i t as par t i c ipa t ing in, . ' r c lna l aes the l i c ver i t ies , d ismiss th is oppos i t ion as reac t ion-r l r ' , . Ar rd b l inkcrec l , no t see ing tha l th is oppr )s i t ion is a: , ; i r t ie u la r re spon: ic to l t t t t as s ( )meth ing concre te . In, , \ i r i i l l - \ t . the i idhercn ts rcsponse is abs t rac t . The oppo,s i t ion\ i r c s \ c s i t s e ' l 1 ' n a i r e l l ' , b i r t m a n i ' o i i 1 - r p c l s i t i u n s h a r e b e e - n

i i : ' r ) . \e l l t rd u , i th rno |c soph is t i cn t ion ( i l - th is i s thought a v i r tuc ), i . , i l t )e-s. I 'or instance . Adorno (T. Adorno, Pri .st t t .s, 'Peren-

, r i ; r i l ras l r io r i ' ) . I a r r r vc rv mr rc l t aga ins t Adorno 's condenrna-r . . '11 91 ' . i r i zz b i - r t I a rn in agreernc 'n l r l ' i th much o f ] t rs ana ly 's is .

l t i s z r s t rangc erper ience t r ) agrec r .v i (h so muc l t tha t i s sa i r jr r i t Io bc so I 'undanrenta l l y op l t r l sed to the rvho le . C.ons ider .i i t c rc fo re , hou,Adorno 's l ' i eus present a more soph i : ; l i ca tedirpposi l ion to jat .z, rvhi lst paral lel ing marry fc: t tures of mYo,, ' , r t analy. 's is,

sT-I 18 Art an Enemy of the people

However little doubt there can be regarding the African elements inJazz, it is no less certain that everything unruly in it was from thevery beginning integrated into a strict scheme, that its rebelriousgestures are accompanied by the tendency to blind obeisance, muchlike the sado-masochist ic type described by analyt ic psychology, theperson who chafes against the father-figure while secretly admiringhim, who seeks to emulate him and in turn drives enjoyment fromthe subordination he overt ly detests.. . . I t is not as though scurri lousbusinessmen have corrupted the voice of nature by attacking i t fromwithout; jazz takes care of this all by itself.

He goes on,

Among rhe symptoms of the disintegration of culture anC education,not the least is the fact that the dist inct ion between autonomous'high' and commercial , l ighr ' art, however questionable i t may be, isneither cri t ical ly ref lected nor even noticed anymore. And now thatcertain cultural ly defeatist intel lectuals have pit ted rhe latter asainstthe fo rmer , the ph i l i s t ine champions o f the cu l tu re indus t ry .un .u .ntake pride. in the convict ion that they are marching in the vanguardof the Ze i rge is1 . . . . The leg i t imate d isconten t w i th cu l tu re p rou id . , apre tex t bur no t the s l ighres t jus t i f i ca t ion fo r the g lo r i f i ca t ion o f ah igh ly ra t iona i i zed secr ion o f mass produc t ion , one wr . r i ch debasesand betray'-s culture rvithout al al l transcending i t , as the dawn of anew wor ld sens ib i l i r l ' . o r fo r con fus ing i t rv i rh Cub ism, E l io r ' s poet ryand Joyce 's p rose . . . . Anvone who a l lows the growing respec tab i l i t yof rnass cr,r l ture r. seduce him i ' to eqr. iat irrg a poprrlar sorrg withmodern art becausc' of a ferr fulse rrrrtes squeaked h1.. a cl ir inet,s i r !one rv l ro n r is takcs a t r iac i s tL rdde i l u i th 'd i r ty ' nores ' fo r a lona l r ty ,has a l readr , cap i tu la ted to barbar ism.

Here, European N{arxism declares j tsel f as the cle fender ofthc- olc i cul turc. This is an i l r t i tude u'c f i r rd in N{ar.r ancl anatt i tude dcepl l ' entrenched in the sor, ' iet LJnio' . T-here is ac l i n g i n g t o t h e ' h i g h e r ' l i l c ' o f t h e b o u r g e . i s i e l s i t e ' o l v e dclur ing thc pcr iod of ' sett led bourgeois clominance. ' I .h is'h igher ' l i i e i s in oppos i r i ' n to the rea l mater ia l l i fe . f thebourgeo is ie .

' l -he rea l mater ia l l i f c ; r rodur :es the poss ib i l i t y o f

p ro le ta r ian l i fe -s tv les wh ich are an tagon is r ic to , anc l unas i im-i lab le in to the 'h ighcr ' l i fe . S ig r r i i ' i ca r ; r l y r \4arx i .sm sceks thedisaprlearance of the proletar iat , and n'hcre Marxisnt comes toterms rvi th jazz i t does so by denying the Adorno charge of

A Warning on the Corruptive Influence of Art I 19

barbarism; it sees jazz,rather, as art. This kind of identifica-tion is one Tom Wolfe goes in for. Wolfe is a heightenedexaggeration of the Adorno opponent, and one I doubtAdorno imagined possible when writing 'Perennial Fashion'.

. . . Nobody wil l even take a look at our incredible new nationalpastimes, things l ike srock car racing, drag racing, demoli t ionderbies, sports that attract five to ten million more spectators thanfootbal l , baseball and basket bal l each year. part of i t is an inbui l tclass bias. The educated classes in this country, as in every country,the people who grow to control visual and printed communicationmedia, are al l plugged into what is, when one gets down to i t , anancient, aristocratic aesthetic. Stock car racing, custom cars, and,for that matter, the jerk, the money, rock music . . . st i l l seem beneathserious consideration, st i l l the preserve of ratty people with ratty hairand dermatit is and corroded thoracic boxes and so forth. yet al lthese rancid people are creating new styles al l the t ime and changingthe l i fe of the whole country in ways that nobody ever seems tobother to record much less analyse. (T. Wolfe, Kandy KolouredTa n g,e r i n e Fla ke S t reo m I i n e Bab1t, Introduction)

Continuing his attack Adorno equates the special ist jazzi 'a r w i th log ica l pos i t i v is t ,

' f here is a s r r i k ing s imi la r i ry be twcen th is type o f jazz en thus ias t and

eny 'o f rhe voung d isc ip les o f log ica l pos i t i v ism, u ,ho th row o f fph i losoph ica l cu l ru re w i th the same zea l as jau fans d ispense w i tht h u l t i l i l i l i ( ) n o l ' , c I i ( r t i \ n t u \ t c .

I t rvou ld be in le resr ing to kno\ \ , ho* many log ica l pos i t i v -i \ ! \ were special ist jaz.z fans. I suspect qui te a few.

lry ing to accounr f 'or the mass basis of jazz, Adorno putslorr .r 'arcl an image that coinctdes with one I of fered earl ier,t ta rne ly the s tumbl ing c lown.

. lazz must pos less a 'mass bas js ' , the techn ique must l ink up u , i th arn( ) rncn t in the sub icc t -onc wh ich , o f course , in h im po in ts back tothe social structure and to typical confl icts between ego and society.What f i rs t comes to mind , in qLres t fo r tha t moment , i s the eccent r i c

r20 Art an Enemy of the people

clown or parallels with the early fi lm comics. Individual weakness isproclaimed and revoked in the same breath, stumbling is confirmedas a higher kind ofskil l . In rhe process of integraring tie asociat ia'converges wirh the equally standardised schimas ol tt. d;t;t i".nover and its offshoots,.which regurarly distort or unmask the worldso that asociarity and crime become the everyday norm, but *H.n-uithe same time charm away the seductive'and ominou, .t"l l ;;;through the inevitable triumph of order.

With the rise of the Nazi movement in Europe, Adornotook refuge in America. Judging from 'perennial'pashitnlAdorno appears to have integrated badly into Ameri.unsociety. He writes.

" ' To comprehend the mass basis of jazz one must take ful l accountof the taboo on arr ist ic expression in America, a taboo whichcontinues unabated despite the off icial art industry, and wtr ictr euenaf fec ts the express ive impu lses o f ch i ld ren ; . . . A l rhough rhe a . t i s t l sparrial ly tolerated,.part ial ly inregrated into the spheri of .onrurni-t ion as an ,enterrainer' ,

a funcrionary_l ike the better_paiO *ait ! ,subjecl to the demands or 'service'-the

stereotype ot the art istremains the introvert, the egocentr ic idiot, freqLiently the h;;;_sexual . . . A chi ld who prefers to l isten to serioui *rr i . oi p.o. i i . .rhe p iano ra ther rhan watch a baseba l l game or te le ' i s ion rv i l l ^have tosu f fe r as a ,s issy ' in h is c lass or in o ther g roups to * ,h ich he be longsand wh ich embodv more au thor i ty than-parents o r teacher .

Here vre har.e Adorno f'aced ,"r,ith theone a.spect of thc. making cl f ' rvhich ldetai l . His f inal verdict on jazz is thar' l am noth ing , I anr f i l th , no mat reri t serves me r igh t ' , and tha t , ' Jaz ,z i so f a r t . '

These di f ferent f ' rms of 'opposit ion br ing out !er\r r : learrythe vicw that jaz,z. as a r trass phenomenon was not an adiuncto f a r t and ' l r igh-cu l rL l re ' ,

bu t a repuc l ia t io 'o f i t . rh is i l c , ru ragree rvi th.- Ihe opposit ion rvas in response to the spreacr ofjazz, it was a response to thc. real thieat posed by, the jazzexperience. This threar kept re-emerging in jaz.z, or in c." ioseof lshoots of jazz, up unt i l the closuie of tn. bop/trad era.

A Worning on the Corruptive Influence of Art l}l

The different forms of threat were accompanied by differentforms of opposition. From the end of the bop/trad erasimilar repudiations and threats emerged from cultural formswhich sprang from the same roots as jazz but which constitu-ted a distinct and separate branch e.g. Rock n' Roll. Thesedevelopments carried with them their own forms of opposi_tion, which have been depressingly similar to the forms ofopposition I have just been exploring. on this evidence aloneAdorno's concept of static revolution seems appropriate.

The reoccuring fact of jazz as threat, as repudiation, in thehistory of jazz, has to be set alongside the fact of jazz fallingwithin the confines of art. The perceptton of jazz as art is notsomething separate from the history of jazz.; it is a veryimportant part of its history. In other words, the misinter_pretat ions of jazz history have been part of jazz history andthey have entered deeply into jazz in its entirety. To eiplorethis theme i t is necessary to explain the history of jazz as i tfol lows on from the early period. Clearly, this is a vasterproblem than that posed by the early history of jazz. lnresponse to this larger problem I shal l of fer no more than adetai led sketch, which wi l l t ry ro account for the phenome_non of ' jazz. as art ' , i .e. account ior i t as a dist inct socialphenomenon.

The spread of jazz is conneciecl rv i th the expressed, bur'cpressed need u,hich White America had for things of thatkind ( things which had the same sociar signi f icanie as jazzhad developed during i ts formationl . Jazz was not sought outds an area of knowledge, nor as an area in which to displaycxpert ise. For the mass of Americans i t was a very abstractsign, to be in the proximity of which was to signi fy one,s ownfree, urrrepressed, undiscipl ined individual i ty. Jazz enabled amass of people lo signi fy this because as a sign, at a veryobvious level, i t chal lenged an accepted sense of authori tyand discipl ine. However, those caught up in the spread of

American experiencehar e been t ry ing toi ts subject expresses,whar they do to methc l 'a lse l i t lu ida t ion


jazz do not make real contact with an already evolved formof life. Those musicians who leave New Orleans to play inChicago and New York lead a very self-enclosed, hermeti-cally sealed-off existence. They do not in themselves spreadthe New Orleans life-style. Jazz entered the White Americanworld as a fashionable, rude word ( the word , jazz,, at thistime had, clear, but repressed associations with ,fucking',just like 'rock n' roll ' does at a later time) and as a pretext fbrand inducement to (syncopation itself was sufficient toinduce) what the New York Times would have seen asundignif ied posture and movement in dancing. In otherwords, for the consumers, the jazz experience has the samesignificance as it had for Europeans in New Orleans, only ithas this significance in diluted form. Just as the New Orleans,consumer could not assimi late what he took to be an orgiast icmeaning without disguising the fact f rom himself , so evenmore so is th is t rue o f the Amer icans o f the , jazz age 'andbeyond. To be in a context bearing the label , jazz, was reallysuff ic ient, i t was not necessary to encounter jazz NewOrleans style; in fact to do so was, often, to take on morethan was bargained for. For instance, Louis Armstrong'sf i rst appearance in Bri tain at rhe London pal ladiurn *,ai asel l -out, but the packed audience, when confronted bvArmst rong the persp i r ing negro cons tan t ly mopp ing h i : b rou .with a handkerchief, lef t in dror,es. The,v had come becausethe event bore the label ' jaz.z ' , they lef t because i t rvent toofar; i t was more than they were ready for.

The jazz l i fe widens through a manipulat ion of ' the label;the labe l o f len accompany ing mus ic th in ly re la ted to rhein i t ia l s t i r r ings o f jazz . Jazz mus ic , i t se l f , was spread main lyby white imitators, black jazzmen being employed more inareas tvhere the tendencies in society were at their mostextreme. For exampie, two of the most important inf luencesin spreading jazz were the al l white bands, The OriginalD ix ie fand JazzBand ( th is band v is i ted Eng land in l9 l9 ) andthe Nerv Orleans Rhythnr Kings, wherea.s black jazzmenoperated in underworld haunts where America's uppercrust


came to soil itself. Milton Mezzrow testifies to this latterpoint in Leonard's book,

It struck me funny how the top and bottom crusts in society werealways getting together during the prohibition era. In this swankyclub, which was run by members of the notorious Purple Cang,Detroit 's blue bloods used to congregate-the Grosse Pointe mob onthe slumming kick, rubbing elbows with Louis the Wop's mob. ThatPurpleGangwas a hard lot of guys ... and Detroit 's snooty set usedto feel it was really l iving to talk to them hoodlums.

Mezzrow's notion of 'really l iving' is important; it under-l ines what the identif ication with the jazz experience wasabout. However, the 'really l iving' was ever transformed bymoderating influences. This occurred in many ways.

A huge, advanced, capi ta l is t industry was able to growaround a marketable concept of ' real ly l iv ing ' . By 1921,100.000,000 records were manufactured in America and(with fluctuations surrounding the Depression) by 1942record sales reached 127,000,000.(ibid.) Throughout thisperiod the sales of popular music far outstrip the market forclassical music. By 1939 the sales proport ions are 9: l infavour of popular music.( ibid) Throughout the period radioand cinema are expanding at the same explosive rate. Forinstance, by 192'/ four-fifths of the American populationattended the cinema at least once a week.( ibid.) Thesecontexts, plus the simi lar ly expanding dance hal l businesswere the contexts in which popular music expanded and wasexpanded. The not ion of popular music at this t ime cannotbe separated from a general sense of jazz. The music thepubl ic required had to be' jazzy' , or 'syncopated' or 'swing'

music. Jazz musicians themselves (now full professionalscompared with their forbears in New Orleans), whether blackor white, earned their l iv ing out of playing this kind of music.For instance, the revered Coleman Hawkins was to be foundduring the depression playing for the, at the time famous,now forgotten, Jack Hylton dance band. The prof i teer ingwhich motivated the distr ibut ion of the concept of ' real ly


living', became a monopolistic enterprise. The radio stationsbought up the phonograph companies, and the film compan-ies the music publishing businesses. Against the backgroundof commercial monopoly there was strong pressure to sellmusic that both excited (stimulated the demand) and did notoffend; the object was to sell to the greatest possible number.The music, therefore, had to be new, fashionable, 'really

living', but at the same time refined.Various musical forms answer to this demand, ranging

through White Dixieland, Symphonic Jazz and certain typesof Swing. White Dixieland, for instance, traded off thesymbols of the South, the negro, the authentic savage, butpresented them as the parts of a tropical island idyll. Atypical example of this is the 1928 recordings by the FrankieTrumbauer orchestra with Bix Beiderbecke on cornet. Here,a young Bing Crosby sings about nat ives in Borneo, and'darkies' who can make music simply by beat ing their feet onthe'N4ississippi mud'. The music 's style is jazzy, but dist in-guishable from Black New Orleans jazz. In comparison themusic is not raucous, loud or orgiast ic but i t retains anerpressive element of l iberat ion. The pieces of music do notpropagandise enrol lment in an) ' social order or project, norin any' way celebrate a form of social organisat ion; theiroveral l expressive conteni is onc- of expressing freedom fromthe subl imatron of sel f in some larger social dest iny.

' fhe

posit ive side of this is the celebrat ion of individual ism, butthe ind iv idua l i sm ce lebra ted is o f a par t i cu la r k ind . I tconcerns ind i r idua i sexua l fu l f i l rnent . p resenr ing i t se l f in thedisguised form of 'carnal rornance, and a personal goodt ime,a kind of happy individual ism (rvhat Beiderbecke, himself ,stood for as a social symbol). As for the rest of experience, i tis ignr-rred. The jazz st-v- le reinforces the sense of l iberat ion. Ini tsel f i t is an act ive reject ion of older forms of musicalorganisat ion. Moreover, i t has clustered around i t a set ofrecent ly acquired social associat ions, which vaguely gesturetowards the wi lder l i fe of a pr imit ive idyl l . Features of rheearl ier music, which do nor seem to be present, and which


point to the transformations which have taken place, are acontagious, rebellious hysteria, a sense of send-up ormockery and an exhibitionist eroticism. The modifications inTrumbauer's music are individualism. fun and romance. TheTrumbauer music is not negative, it positively constructsprivate dreams, which are presented as realisable dreams forall of America, certainly for all of White America; but thisAmerican dream has to be realised atomistically or separat-ely. The music suggests that a happy, individualised, fun-existence is possible for all, and that this possibility is achallenge to all that is stuffy and restrained. It is this imagewhich is commercially exploited and, therefore, in terms ofthe American publ ic exploi table. Jazz was a convenient,pre-existing form for the expression of this image. 'Really

l iv ing' , in this commercial sett ing, is not at the point ofinterconnect ion between slaves and masters, or hoodlumsand blue bloods. but its attractions can be related to what wassought in these other conjunct ions.

The modification of the 'really living' experience was notiust a commercial stratagem relat ing i tsel f to the threshold ofsocial consciousness. I t also sprang from the intent ions ofsome o f thosc ' who made the mus ic . For ins tance, Pau lWhitc 'rnan (set up as the King of Jazz by the media at thet ime) accepted jazz as a release from repressive mechanisms.

In Amer ica , jazz is a t once a revo l t and a re lease. Through i t we ge tback to a sirr.rple, to a sa\/age, i f you l ikc, joy in being al ive. \ [ 'hi le wearc danc ing or s ing ing ( ) r evc 'n l i s ten ing to ja t t , a l l the ar t i f i c ia lres l ra in t : i t re gone. We are rh1 ' thmic . we are emot iona l , we arenatural. ( lbir l . )

At the same t ime th is re lease is accepted , by Whi teman, ina rcpressed form. As he wrote of his Aeol ian Flal l concert in1923,

My idea for the concerl was to shor" skeptical people the advanccwhich had t leen made in popu lar mus ic f rom the davs o f thed iscordant ear lv iazz to the melod ious fo rm o f the oresent . I be l ieve


that most of them had grown so accustomed to condemning the'Livery Stable Blues' sort of thing, that they went on flaying modernjazz without realizing that it was different from the crude earlyattempts .. . My task was to reveal the change and try to show thatjazzhad come to stay and deserved recognition.(ibld.)

Whiteman's notion of modern jazzinthis quotation has tobe understood in terms of pieces like Gershwin's 'Rhapsody

in Blue'. In fact George Gershwin's attitude was very similarto Whiteman's. He is quoted in Leonard's book as havingsaid of jazz,

Certain types of i t are in bad taste, but I do think i t has certainelements which can be developed. I do not know whether i t wi l l bejazz when i t is f inished.

This attitude was quite general and represents the firstconceptual coupl ing of jazz and art as made by individualshaving some social prest ige. The cr i t ic Osgood wrote in theMusical Courier of his experience on first hearing 'sym-phonic jazz' ,

Before the f irst sixteen bars were over the re'",elat ion of new jazzhaddescended upon me. By the end o f the tunc I rvas a happy r .onver t . . . .These gent lenren made mus ic ; langu ish ing , c roon ing mus ic , rudene i ther in sound nor tempo, mus ic tha t soo thed and ye t , w i thins inuar ing rhy thms, ear - t i ck l ing melod l and ingen ious decora t ions ,s t i r red me w i th in . . . Whi le I had been go ing abour , w , i th m) nose inthe a i r , * i th pa t ron is i r rg ignorance, somebody had pu t mus ic in toJaz.z.

B-v this time the New York Times was prepared to concedeas much.

. . . arranged and played by experts [sy'mphonic jazz] has much abouti t o f in te res t and even o l va lue , and a l l un j te in conc iemning theinexpert and over enthusiastic disturbers of the peace.

An important factor in determining the modifying inl luence

A Warning on the Corruptive In"fluences of Art 127

and the form it took sprang from the American college andhigh school audience making jazz something of its own. Jazzas a'flash', new, social sign born of a concealed debasementof the European was converted, saved by means of amarriage with the latest, allegedly revolutionary floweringsof European culture, as they appeared, transplanted inteenage American higher education. The names of Debussy,Ravel and Milhaud represented avant-garde 'serious music'for many jazzmen of the period. They attended concerts of'serious music', they received musical instruction fromfamous teachers in the classical tradition. and some of themopenly experimented with the possibilities of symphonic jazz.The 'serious music' influence did not penetrate very deeplyinto the music, but i t was there, through a commitment to thernelodic, and a very conscious concentrat ion on harmonieswhich take a long t ime to resolve themselves or remainunresolved. Music showing this inf luence is ful l of 'h ighs'

and ' lows' . The music of Beiderbecke and Hoagy Carmichaelis of this kind. The t i t les of their composit ions ref lect therno<-rd, for example, ' In a Mist ' and 'Stardust ' . In thesepieces we are at some distance from Louis Armstrong singing.

'Nou ' I a in ' t rough and I don ' t b i t ,But thc \ \ 'ornan that gets me got to treat me r ight. '

Many negro band leaders of ' the period were graduates ort-&rr le f rom prosperous middie-class backgrounds. forcrample, L,unceford, Henderson and El l ington. Manv of[ : l l i r rg ton 's compos i t ions exh ib i t the harmr t t t i c p reoccupa-i ions I have ju -s t beer t men i iou ing . 'H ighs ' and ' lows ' a re verycr ident in pieces l ike ' ln a Sent inrental Nlocld' and 'Sophist i -

i ; r ted Ladv' , ancl a conscior is concern with rvanCeringharmon ies is ever p resent : a s t rong example o f th is occurs inbars 23 and 24 of -Sophist icated Lady' where El l ington goeslh rough the chord changes G, D d im, Cm, Eb7, D7 wh i ls t themelody l ine plunges frorn B above N{C to MC and thenascends to E, one octave up, before plunging again, this t imeto F sharp .

r28 Art an Enemy of the People

Where, then, the jazz experience in society involves takingup jazz music, the process involved, is not only one ofwatering down in accordance with commercial dictates; it is,also, a positive conception of transformation. The excite-ment of the depraved is entered into by containing it. Thecontainment is achieved not by abolitionist tendencies, norby imposing on it a traditional sense of order, but by allyingit with a specific sense of the bohemian and avant-garde.There was reverence for the art experience amongst manyjazzmen. The clarinettist, Pee Wee Russell, provides a tellingi l lustrat ion of this, when describing, in Hentoff 's book. howhe felt when, at a Carnegie Hall concert, in a box paid for byPaul Whiteman, one of his fel low musicians kept fal l ing offhis seat in a drunken stupor. 'You see, we were ashamed andwere conscious of the other people at the concert . '

I t may be doubted whether New Orleans' Buddy Boldenwould, in simi lar c ircumstances, have been as shame-faced.\ I le are deal ing with a social group which is a ,cut above' the'proletai ' ian rabble' and ol ' ten there is a trai l i t ion of c lassjcalmus ic in the background. For ins tance, Pau l Whi temanFrla5,sc1 l ' io l in in both t i re Denver and San Francisco Sym-phony Orchestras and Beidebeckc's parents had anibi t ionslo r h im as a cor rcer t p ian is t (an ear ly in f luence he never qu i teIos t dcsp i tc h is p r i tu 'es : ' on the corne t ) . The mi l ieu fo r thenrusic ' ,vas ver! ' muclr l r igh school and carnpus gigs. TheArrst in High School Gang f i rst l iearcl i ts jazz noi at fhel )euces ( { .h icago lon , d ivc ) bur ihc Snoon and St rau ' ( i ce-c fca l i l par lour ) , l i s ten ing to reco . rd j b -v the Nerv Or leansIt l r -r ' lhrn Kings. Cooclntarr, t i rorrgh r l r , ) t i ' ;6yi11 a w'ealthy back-gr r rund h i rnse l f " p la l ' s , as a t r -e r iager . lo r s tudents a t Ch icagoUnivers i t l ' ;u rd Nor - th Wcstc r i t Un iver . i t l ' " ( in iac t . t .he rvho leCootiman success stor 1, l ras t .o be nreasurecl againstr {hegro l { ' t l i i n Anrc r ican t i ighcr educat ion a l td i t s p roduc t ion o f ,t r . r i : t l cg rec , a r )c \ t 'au lon( ) lnous socr t i g r ( )up . ' l -hc g lo l i th o f( , ioot1rnan, Art ic Shaw erc. ancl Su, ing rclales tr : j i t t r : rbuggi i rg,{ mcrican t eL:nagers and, lnore in f ' lueirr i a l ly, teenal lc r ic l t i ng).

We havc loca t rd , t l re r r . a cc r ta i r r cohcs ivc g roup, l l ' i rh in the

A Warning on the Corruptive Influence of Art r29

history of jazz, involved in playing iazz, which is composedof white, middle class youngsters who have some respect for'high culture' and some knowledge of the tradition ofclassical music and contemporary European serious music.However, the social milieu is only a third of the story, for ithas to be related both to the commercial growth of jazz andthe excitement of American low life. It is in the latter settingthat the coloured jazzmen often find their environment,scratching out a living between these engagements (often verytemporary in character) and the making of the specialcategory of 'race records' (records exclusively bought bycoloured purchasers). This is not to say that jazz by thecoloured jazzman is all of a piece. There is a real distinctionbetween the coloured player meeting commercial demandsand the coloured player playing on a more pr ivate basis. Thiscontrast const i tutes the real i ty of the black jazzman, and i trelates to earl ier ambiguit ies within jazz experience; i l relatesto theln as a fragmentat ion of them. But more of this a l i t t lel ; r ter, for what is being explored, now, is hou' the whiteAmeri tran, micldle, lower middle class jazz sett ing relates tothis other sett ing for jaz.z. What is c lear is that the two, ict t ings are separate. T'his is test i f ied to b1' t rvo facts. First l -v,i t is test i f ied to b-v the resentment fel t br* black musiciat ts { 'ori vha t thev cons idered to be wh i te im i ta to rs ; the wh i te jazz-lurcn werL- comntcrcial ly ' more fortunate in having r.r ' idercornmerc ia I ou t le ts . Second ly . i t i s tes t i f ied to by the d i f f i cu l -t ics which be se-t rnixcd. jazz groups on 1.he road. For instance.rhe d i f f i cu l l ies e rper ienced by B i l l i e l {o l ida l 'on the road w ' i th. ,rhi te bancls, or thc di f f icul t ies often erperienced b.v- Benny'( ioodman in tak ing I lampton and Wi lson rv i th h im. For ther.rhi te jazzman then, jazz u'as concretel-v- present within thetotal American environmenl as a feature of low l i fe (or l i le' r 'eal ly ' l i r . 'cd') . To be involved with lazt was to be on thef r iuges of u 'hat passed for exci tement in American Society.ln this way jaz.z was not only something to be saved andbrought within the conf ines of 'good music ' (by coat ing i twith a thin vencer of 'exci t ing' musical modernism; thus not

130 Art on Enemy of the people

negating it as something signifying excitement) but it wasalso, in its turn, sought as exciting salvation or as giving thefeeling of this. Jimmy McPartland of the Austin High SchoolGang makes this clear in Hentoff's Heer me Tatking to ya.

It was lucky for me I got in with that gang, because as a boy downthere on the West Side, I might easily have been mixed up with adif ferent kind of mob.

So for me, and perhaps other Austin guys that got the music bug,jazz supplied the excitement we might otherwise have looked foramong the i l legat act ivi t ies which f lourished then in the neishbour-hood.

For the white, middle class, lower middle class youngster(e.g. McPart land's farher was a music teacher) who was toenter the jazz world as a performer, and in the processenlarge the dimensions of that world, jazz presented i tsel f asa complex phenomenon. There was jazz as a form of musichaving a history. This was known about but not known indept lr . In this context there was a sense of jazz const i tut ing agenuine, indigenor.rs folk music, and something which, inaccordance with recognised pract ices in ser ious music, couldbe ut i l ised to produce a unique American music ( i .e. i t couldbe ut i l ised once rnodif ied). There was jazz as a universal isedracy value, which the whoie of the post war Capital ist worldwas in on.

' fhere was jazz music, as something being spread

by White Dixieland and irs offshoots, the process -beine

mecl iated by records and the radio. There u,as jaz,z musicp layed by b lack mus ic ians , wh ich o f fe red i rse l f in two fo rms,the commercial form and the jam session, both forms ar is ingfor the most part in a gangster dominated, night- l i fe scene.There was jazzmusic as symphonic jazz. These variousaspects of jazz, l ike the total , social concept ion of jazz,presented themselves as l iberat ion and exci tement, as unre-pressed ' real ly l iv ing' . ' ro measure this i t helps to contrast i twi th the social s igni f icance of jazz today.

Jazz as an act iv i ty for a smal l coter ie of acldicts, no doubt.is st i l l thought of as ' real l iv ing' but this would nor be i ts

A Warning on the Corruptive Influence of Art l3l

general social significance. It is to this general, social signifi-

cance that the white, potential jazz musician of the 20s and

30s responded; the response being channelled through some

or all of jazz's various interconnected and sometimes discon-

nected, evolving forms. What I wish to suggest is that all

these living layers of jazz experience duplicate structurally(i.e. in the way the layers relate to each other) the original

structure of New Orleans jazz (a less fragmented set of

experiences) and that the lived, personal ambiguities in the

New Orleans scene are lived out later as the social contrastsbetween the different layers (the layers themselves having

associated with overlapping but differentiatable social group-

ings). The objective of the present line of discussion is to

describe the modifying, repressive impulses of those makingjazz, fromthe spreadingiazz of the twenties up to the end ofthe Swing era, but this is something extremely complex to

describe because of having to relate individuals to theproi i ferat ion of so many di f ferent but connected forms.

I t makes sense to say that the early iazz was a socialpresentation of disguised orgy (sought out as debasing and,therefore, experienced as l iberat ing). For reasons I have notgone into, Americans of the Jazz Age and beyond, were opento a general proliferation of some such experience. Jazz asmusic, dance and fashion was an appropriate vehicle for sucha prol i ferat ion. However, the forms of disguise had to

convince the var ious thresholds of social consciousnessthroughout America, and from this viewpoint i t rvas as i fNew Orleans Jazz was naked orgy ( total ly unexpurgatecf i l th). In general the taboo on social thought and act ions wereso great that to call any social event a jazz. evenl, as long as itwas not too obviously not a jazz event ' was suff ic ient for

commercial success (e.g. Al Jolson in the 'Jazz Singer ') .Horvever, there were other responses. There was the responseof saving jazz, as naked orgy, by incorporat ing what were

deemed i ts best elements into a thin concept ion of sym-phonic, orchestrated music. Social ly this was a responsehaving important repercussions because a great number of

132 Art sn Enemy of the People

commercially successful ballroom orchestras, throughout theWestern world, were modelled on orchestras like the White-man orchestra. Such orchestras might include a 'hot' music-ian for a few well-mannered jazz breaks, just as the White-man orchestra incorporated Beiderbecke for this purpose. Inthis music there was a concession to the American fear(already documented) of the corrupting influence of jazz.The musical form into which the jazz elements were slotted(one major transformative ingredient was light syncopation)was largely derived from nineteenth century, romantic,'ser ious' , ' l ight ser ious' music. Another response was torecreate the original music only in sweetened form, or byemphasising i ts 'sweet ' as opposed to 'hot ' elements. Thiswas a more open flirtation with the 'naked orgy' value of themusic, but what was already disguised was further disguised.Finkelstein, in his excellent book Jazz: a people's Music,shows how the 'sweet ' , 'hot ' contrast permeated NewOrleans jazz and, thereby, adds weight to my argumentabout New Or leans iazz .

One of the characterist ics of New Orleans music, contr ibutinglargely to i ts variety and beauty is the mixture of dif lerent musicallanguage, the interplay of the 'hot ' and 'sweet' , blue and non-blue.This fazes the theorists of pure-blues jazz, who either ignore themix tu re o r assume tha t the non-b lue e lements were ,subconsc ious ly '

assimilated and immediately 'blued' or ,Afr icanised' by the per-fo rmers . l r revea ls , ra ther , tha t the in te rp lay o l the t$ .o languageswas a n tos t scns i t i ve , h igh ly consc ious mus ica l opera t ion , and i t i sp r c c i s e l l ' t h e a r t i s l u h o i s m o s t , f o l k ' ( o r r n u s i c a l l . v - , p u r e ' a s t h ethc 'o r l goes) , who w i l l o f ten p la1 ,a non-b luc 'n ie lod_v- s t ra igh t ancwi rh g rear p leasr . r re in i t .

ln rvhi te Dixieland the 'blued' elements are .s$,eetened',

but the exci tement is st i l l there through the act ive workingupon the contrasts (rementber the contrast adds up to thefeel ing of the dc'bauching of white values, and exci tement isgenerated simply by playing with the contrasts). WhiteDixieland is a jaz.zy music for having a 'good t ime', but i t hasa more in te l lec tua l s ide as we l l . I t a t t rac ts in to i t young, wh i te


Americans who are in, or have connections with, highereducation. Here, we have backgrounds that make for somecommitment to 'serious' music (the €litist European tradi-tion). However. the kind of individuals of this order, who aredrawn into jazz, tend, in serious music, to identify with theavant-garde music, the music which selfconsciously breakswith a settled tradition in European 'serious' music. Thisavant-garde European music is not only taken up becatrse ofi ts bohemian exci tement, but also because of i ts conscious-ness of jazz, empl,oying as it does some miniscule jazz

inf luences in i ts composit ions. This jazz t inge is one of i tsexci t ing propert ies. A passing and respectful knowledge ofthe revolut ionary happenings in 'ser ious' music inf luencesthe kind of jazz that certain jazz musicians produce' In this,then, exci tement results from taking up the or iginal valuejazz at some close proximity to i ts roots, and saving i t , andoneself , by imposing certain ref inentents upon i t , but impos-ing the ref inements is, in i tsel f , an exci tement not onlybecause of u 'hat is bein-e ref ined by them, but also becausethe veneer, though being moral l -v upr ight (connected with'art ' ) is nerv and revolut ionary and a break from whatu,ould have been regarded as European stuff iness. In thisway one saves oneself f rom the temptat ion of total immer-sion in American low-l i fe (never a real psychological possibi l -i t l ' for most of t l tose who fel t themselves exposed to thetempta f ion) anc l a t the same t ime one redeems the low l i fe , bya presenta t ion o f i t th rough a respec tab le ( the ar t connect ion)bu t ch ic (ne \ \ , uns tu f fy ) veneer , l i ke s t r ipp ing down an o ldrvooden cha i r , and coat i t tg i t in a re ry 'modern , bu t tas te fu llacquer . The ne t e f fec t o f such a l i fe , l i ved by mus ic ians ' wasto p roduce t l te sense tha t one was ' rea l l y l i v ing ' , where ' rea l l y

l i v ing ' was ach ieved by hover ing benveen seamy Amer ica andarl .

Beiderbecke is t l ,p ical of this. He l i r , 'es the dreamy otherr i 'or ldly l i fe of the art ist at the same t ime as the dissolr-r tegoocl- t ime l i fe o1' the jaz.z age. However, in descr ibing thispart icular mode of modify ing the jazz tradi t ion (and this

134 Art qn Enemy of the people

contribution to its evolution) certain strands stil l need to bewoven into the account. Thus, the musicians I am describingdid not singly look back to New Orleans jazz and, set aboutmodifying it. Jazz was an ongoing set of experiences, and itwas a set of experiences having a pronounced commercialexpression. The commercial expression was itself (as alreadydiscussed) a modification of original jazz or, perhaps better,a utilisation of some of its elements as racy modifiiations intheir own right, of a popular idiom (popular classics simpli_fied, and derivatives). Therefore, the jazz musicians I amdescribing operated in a market which demanded such aproduct. Their modifying inclinations were, then, exercisedupon an already highly modified jazz (in fact mosr of it nowwould not be regarded as jazz, though at the time it certainlvwas) . On top o f a l l these in te rac t ions was the in te rac t inepresence of black jazz. Black jazz as orgy was not simply anact ively recal led debauched Arcadia, which had taken placein New Orleans in a mythical past, i t was more import int lyfor those in the know an exist ing ,hot ' , sexy rnui i . to beIocated in the night l i fe of the underrvor ld. I t was a 'sweeten-ing' of this that many white musicians were drawn into. Tobe part of that rvor ld but be apart f rom ir . Of course,di l ' ferent musicians responcled di f ferent ly and some weremore incl ined to be a part of , than bc- apart f rom (e .g. EddieC'ondon).

what I have tr ied to explain so far is horv the prol i ferat ionsof jaz,z occurred in 'srveetened', c leaned up ind thereforehighly modif ied form, and hor.r this process answerecl thedemands and desires of a white audience and rvhi te musicianswho rvanted to be jazzmen. Whar I have been trying torunderi ine in this account is that the value ya;; loomingbeneath al l the modif icat ions, was the infecr ious qual i tv. TIthink of oneself as a jaz,onan, to cla.ce tct jazz, to 'be part ofthe jazz age, this was the contagion, which appearecl in manydisguises dependc-nt upon the repressive needi of the part ic i-pants. Horve'er, jazz was, despitc ' i ts being a general isedttot ion, none the less a more specif ic social ident i f icat ion of a


value than the more general, though still socially identifiable,objective of 'debauchery' upon which the seeking of the iazzexperience was dependent. In rime iazz, as a value, was towane, whereas, the more general objective was slowly butcontinuously pursued, feedng off other things.

Jazz, then, is a presence, which is continuously surfacingin the various forms of commercial music of the period. It isa subterranean, unthinkable excitement which is revealedthrough its concealment. It is a deep flowing, foul river andthe various forms of concealmenl are its artificially construc-ted irrigation ditches. Of course, it was not necessary thatthere should be some actual. deep base to the jazz-flavouredfrol ics of the period, this is to say i t was not necessary tothere being an act ive not ion of i t . However, such a largeprocess in society, manifest ing i tsel f in a spectrum of at t i tu-des, did give rise to an actual social fornt, which was easilyinterpretable, by those u'ho sought such a base, as therequired deep base for the total social experience of jazz. Bythis I mean therc' was locatable, in the depths of society, adist inct stratum which was black jazz. I t is this which norvrequires descr ipt ion.

In the dept irs rve do not f ind unantbiguous sordidness. Inorder to achiei 'e understanding i t is necessary to rethink, fora rnorr lent. t l re signi f icattce of the early ' iaz.z. for the biackman. I t r l 'as t l re project of not t t ieaning what otte tvtrs saying,anrJ at the setnre t ime i lnply ' ing an t tndernt ining rneaningw hicl i or ie did not sav. T- l i is w'as the sigir i f icance of Ihe rnusicfor blacks. f {owever, whcn we move on to ihe spreading ofthe . iazz experience througttoul the capital ist world, we f indthe jazz, rcqurrecl of the black man comntercial l l ' , leavesscant sparrc for the posit ive act of rv i thdrawing from meaningwhat i s sard . T 'h is d i f t ' i cu l r -v i s no t exper icnced; r l l a t once, bu ti t is a gradrial l -v changing pract ice which is not of fset social l i 'by commerciai iy acceptable examples of scat s inging (e.9"Armst rong) o f mater in l i r r the popu la l id ionr . T 'he b lackmusicians i 'u l f i l the or iginal structure of the music by divid-ing i t r ip, by a fragmentat ion of i t .

- fhe l ragmentat ion is not

136 Art an Enemy of the People A Warning on the Corruptive Influence of Art 137

present through social f ragmentat ion. The jam session is notwhat it is all about except in the sense that the jam session iscreated explicitly to mean this is what it is all about, this iswhat is done for real and not the other thing.

Gene Roney provides a tel l ing i l lustrat ion of this inReisner 's book on Parker,

They were jam sessions held every morning. The ones Bird and I

attended faithful ly were held at the Reno Club, where Count Basiewas playing. Basie had a nine piece band and they worked a toughschedule-from 8.30 to 5.00 in the morning. After that the jam

sessions would begin. (R.eisner, Bird: The Legend of Charlie Parker).

l 'o think oneself into this si tuat ion, as audience, is to feelthe insult . Having paid for the exci tement of jazz one f indsthat the musicians are hanging around wait ing for you to go,lvhereupon the real thing gets underway. I t 's l ike going to aparty lvhere everyone is wait ing for you to leave so that theycan get on with the real party.

Wha( ac tua l l v happens, in the jam se .ss ion , i s d is t ingu ish-able from Nerv Orleans jaz.z in so far as the music beingr.r 'orked upon has di f ferent signi f icances. Thus, whi ie, com-nrercial music is jazzt- (what that impl ied, at the t ime, I havea l ready ' t r ied to spec i fv ) and i t i s concerned w i th , what ear l ie rI ca l led , carna l romance.

' Ihe looser , somewhat less up t igh t ,

rvh i te soc ie t f i s competed aga ins l in the jam sess ion : theneqro ou t -seduces t l re wh i te c rooner and tu r r rs the qu icks tepin to o rgy . tsu t the mean ing is no t jus l seduc t ion and theorg ias t ic , i t i s ra ther the compet i t i ve mean ing . The who lepo in t , rvhen Les ter Yout tg o r Co leman Hawk ins b low'L- .mbraceab le You ' , i s tha t compared w i th s tandard ' wh i terend i t ions o l ' the nuntber the i r seduc t i 'n 'eness is so n luch moreerpress ive . Th is , a t the t in te , i s no t obv ious l l ' apparent torvhi te ears because seduct ive overtures could only bc tolera-ted u'here there was the safety of restraint.

The competing against white society was not real isedwithin the black musicians' world as a col lect iv ised, groupproject. The element of competi t ion involved, also, the

so much one of dividing up a given and determinate musicalstyle, as one of, in one context saying the acceptable meaningwhilst constructing (the inventive side) another context,which takes away the acceptable meaning as meant. Theacceptable meaning is, of course, for whites the liberationfrom repressive ideology, though this meaning is for otherforces in white society unacceptable ( the threai to the socialfabric). However, this acceptable meaning cannot satisfyblack consciousness, for i ts problem is not one of achievingI iberat ion from i ts own, anachronist ic ( i .e. economical lv)repressive ideology. I ts problem is one of gett ing back aiwhite society without gert ing beat for i t . I t can hirdly gainsat isfact ion from what gives white society i ts k icks. Theirvocontrasts are concretely specif ied by the commercial gig(whatever and whenever, though most often on the fr inges ofwhite social experience) and the jam session. The jam sissionis a way of saying that as a professional musician the negrojazz musician is not for real . However, the janr sesslonis no more important than the gig because the two feedoff each other. The point of the jam session is to pointto the gig as not being for real . I t is for this reason that, rvhathas been seen as the puzzl ing phenomenon of the negromusician taking up t fre commercial music of his day as a bisisfor jazz, becomes expl icable. Thus, i t has been al leeed(F inke ls te in ) tha t a lo t o f f ine mus ica l n ra te r ia l i s u r i l i s r .d inNer , , Or leans jazz (e .g . 'Panama' ) and tha t the sam.r canno lbe sa id o i ' mater ia l u t i l i sec i in la te r 1az-z (e"g . ,Embraceab leYou') .

' I 'he reason often offel .ed for the change arouncl is

co lnmerc ia l p ressure , bu t th is by i t se l f does no t exp la in thein t 'us ion o f wh i te , commerc ia l n ru i i c in ro the ja rn sess ion . I ti : ' r vhen the jam sess ion is l inked to the commerc ia l se t t inqtha t the ' \ c o f wh i te , cornr 'e rc ia l mus ic bccomr 's c lcar lyintel l ig ible. l t is w,hen what jaz,z is rs l iv ing to imply thecontrast between the contexts that the dropping of ear l ierslandarcls ( i .e. standard numbers) can be underraken l ight ly.The ambiguity, which was rvr i t ten into one and the samemus ic in New Or leans , la te r , i s no less present , bu t i t i s


internal relarionship within black, jazz music. The individualobjective was to achieve ruccesi in being ugurnrl *t it.society. This did not mean refusing to identify *tn unv *t it.objectives or social goars. white society was itserf internailygripped by economic competitiveness both on a pe.sonal undsocial basis. To seek the trappings (ail the negromusician orthe period was at all l ikely to get) of weaith (..g. .nurt,,clothes, money to throw around on girls etc.) was bottr toidentify with the system of white, American society una, utthe same time, compete against individual whites. tt *as airo,howerrer, to compete against other negroes. To be successfulin white society 's terms was, also, to be successful incompeting against rvhites, and to be successful at this rvas tobe successful as a negro. The ' f lash' negro then, with an urtraseduct ive style, was the competi t ive negro. The more seduc_t ire were one's choruses the mor. on. outcr id white socieryand the more one succeeded, against other blacks,

- iu- ' i f r .

black pro;ect of ourdoing whites. What I am tryi i rg-toemphasise is the fact that there is, on the parr oi b-iackjazzmen, a deep enter ing into the romantic sent imc.ntal i iv

"rthe c.mrnercial music of the period. ' I 'he not io ' that ' the

music of the peric ld was simply used by coloured pla1,ers, as avehicle for the tracing of musical arub.rqu.r, does not i tancl{p Io the rea l i ry o f a co loured mus ic ian so lo ing (e ._q . BenWebster). To al lorv, however, for the fact of an ente. i ig iniothe sp i r i t o l ' the mus ic i s ro t to s i tua te the b lack mus ic ia i as agu l l ib le absorber o f wh i te commerc ia r isnr in mus ic . The brackmus ic ian competes a t the leve l o f the mus ic ,s s ign i f i cance tothe consumer ( i .e . in the area o f i t s l ibera t ing mean ing) . T .h isis a side to the music missed in a disrnissiue musicJiug,.ult rearment . I t i s t rue there is a tu rn i .g away f rom the s t ra lgh t -forward, melodl, l ine of the pieces played, a'd that the ; i ; . ; ,are often used as a pattern of chord changes, but the styleremai,s one of dispraying seduct i 'e technique. The discaid-ing of the melody and the fastening onto the chord patter; i ; ,I .am suggest ing, part of the g.n.ral project rvhereby there is adisassociar io ' f rom the acceptable. White, comnrercial tunes


are played but not played, and in not playing them they arerendered more seductive or more orgiastic. Between thecommercial performance and the jam session we find thecontrast between the acceptable and the unacceptable dis-proportionately exhibiting itself, depending upon how com-mercial, or how free and open the context. Of course, thecontexts themselves, especially the commercially viable ones,are determined by them being contexts in which blackmusicians are accepted. The music demanded by these con-texts is, then, already, by the general standards of Americancommercial music, unacceptable. It is the deep base againstwhich all other jazz experiences measure themsel'res. How-ever, its reality, as I have tried to indicate, does not comparewith how, as a measure, i t is used. As a measure i t representsobscene excess, in real i ty ( i .e. for the negro) i t is an ambigu-ous expression signifying competitive but sarcastic com-pliance. Horvever, in so far as it is a movement whicltelaborates a reject ion of the white, musical form, and isthereby a rejection of what that form means socially, then itgathers to i tsel f potent ial exci tement for those intent ional lyrejected by the movement. The most exci t ing party is the one) 'ou are not al lo led to go to.

To this point I have tr ied to sketch in the development ofjazz up unt i l the middle of the 1930s. I t is c lear that by thet ime we reach the 1930s, iazz , is a d is t ingu ishab le phenome-norr f rom the early jaz,zin and around New Orleans, thoughit is something l inked to what was earl ier. Vly object ives inspecifv ing this development have been various.

First ly. there has been a methodological object ive, namelytha t o f ind ica t ing the complex i ty , and the k ind o f complex i t -vi t is, which has to be described. There has not been someessent ial rhing, rvhich is jazz, rvhich has been described. Anaccount which seeks jazz in this way works from a preferreddef ini t ion as to what jazz. is. In contrast, i t seems to mepreferablc ' in specify ing what jazz is, and was, to del ineatewhat at di f ferent t imes social consciousness has designated asjazz. When this is done, for the period in quest ion, we f ind a

i


number of distinguishable social processes exhibiting similarstructures and all of them interacting with each other in amultiplicity of ways. As this complex has emerged it has beenmy intention, and is my recommendation, not to reduce thiscomplexity to some systematic formula, but rather to allow itto unfold as something lived by so many different individualsin many different ways. In a way, the methodology has beena rejection of method, and an insistence on the fact thatwhat is lived and concrete is so tangled that it cannot berendered by a point by point (a), (b), (c) sort of formula. Thisis not to say i t cannot be known, but the knowing, which ispossible, is not a def ini te knowledge, i t is instead, animaginative reliving of what was lived, and this leaves onewith as many loose ends and dissat isfact ions as the l i fe l ivedand, therefore, known. However, this is not to excuse anysparsi ty of detai l in the present account, this is excuseddif ferent ly by the scope of the enquiry. What I have tr ied toindicate is the way a more ample account should be conducted.

The second object ive, which relates to the thematic centreof this essay, has concerned br inging into focus the f i rstactual social processes in which a relat ionship between jazzand art gets posited. I think i t is c lear that this posi t ing isquite distant f rom the di f ferent, sometimes opposed, strandswi th in what , by the mid 1950s, has becorne the or thodoxywithin jazz i .e. that jazz is an art form. By the 1950s, aconsciousness of jazz as art includes the bel ief that jazz is anart mo! 'ement with an unrecognised (certainly by the generalpub l i c and a lso by the es tab l i shed ar t f ra rern i ty ) h is ro ry . lnth is movement , the h is to ry o f jazz is be ing s i f ted l i ke someancient civ i l izat ion for i ts great works of art , and involve-ment in the movement includes, as a competi t ive rnot ive, thedes i re to accumula te eso ter ic knowledge. The most s t ra igh t -forward i l lustrat ion of this is the growth of discography, as i tconcerns jazz, (a grorvth which had been taking place sincethe midd le o f the 1930s) a l though rhe mor ive has a morecomplicated and more social ly di f fuse nature. The earl ierappraisal of jazz as art was much more the view that iazz was


a possible ortform, or that lazzcould be turned into art' The

subsequent view was not the locating of successful attempts

at achleving objectives prescribed by the earlier view' The

earlier view was not, then, the sudden realisation that what

lay all around one, namely iazz music' was, in fact' as yet

unrecognised art music, rather it was the view that jazz was a

music that could be turned into art by the creative efforts of

schooled musicians. This view did not result from deep,

aesthetic deliberations as to what could, or could not count

as art ; rather, for certain groups of people, i t was a view

which fitted what was specific to their position in society'

Jazzis a form of life having a deep base, and the deep base,

const i tut ing the most authent ic area of iazz as art , was not

within the l imits of the social consciousness which f i rst drew

the concepts of jazz and art together. In terms of this f i rst

view of jazz and ar:, iazz moved into art as it moved away

from the deep base, and moved towards (as a set of musical

techniques i . i . techniques formal ly def inable) the world of

a r l as normal ly cons t i tu ted . Th is . lhen , as a movement , i s no t

one which part icular ly involves the coloured player ' ' Ihe

cgloured player, as someone conf ined to the deep base, is

obv ious l l enough no t en t iced by th is movement in to a

consc iousness o f h is ac t i v i t y as a r t .A third object ive in sett ing up the account, as i t has

proceedecl thus far, fol lou's on from having specif ied the f i rst

i t i r r ings of the art movement in jazz. Thus, we can see that

the tradi t ion, of regarding jazz as art , does not proceed, in

the l i rst place, from c'rpert interpretat ion of a phenomenon

which , un t i l tha t t ime, had e luded in te l l igen t assessment 'Whether one agrees with my general account of jaz'z or not '

no-one today would accept t l ' te jazz/art v ierv which predom-

inated in Anter ica clur ing the 20s and early 30s. In fact most

of what \ \ 'as al that t ime produced under the jazz/art banner,

would toclay count neither as art nor Jazz. I have argued that

later interpretat ions, of jazz aS art , const i tute misinterpreta-

t ions of the actual jazz movement as social experience. Thus,

the evidence accuntuiates for the view that the interpretat ions

t42 Art an Enemy of the People

of jazz as art do not function as true knowledge of jazz(which is their ideological stance) but rather they function asunconscious, justifying disguises for entry into jazz experi-ence (itself mtrltifarious in nature and constantly changing)from various social bases. ln time, as I shall try to indicate,the interpretation of jazz as art, though various in nature.takes over the reality of jazz, so that for those who make jazzand those who listen to it (and those for that matter who sellit) to be in jazz is to be concerned with art experience. Asthis becomes the prevailing conception of jazz, so jazz ceasesto be a popular idiom and instead becomes increasinglycomplex and inaccessible. This is not to say that the valuejazz had to previous generations disappears. There is nofundamental structural change affecting society which coin-cides with the immersion of jazz in art. The value jazzhad toprevious generat ions is st i l l present, though appearing nowunder the label of Rhythm and Blues and i ts offshoots andderivat ives, or rather R and B const i tutes the deep baseagainst which the popular idioms measure themselves. Ai thispaint jaz.z as the value i t was dies. This viewpoint on jazz iswe l l re f lec ted in Ph i l ip Lark in 's in t roduc t ion to h is A t t WhatJaz.z. (P. l -arkin Al l LYhat Jazz, London, 1970, pp. l3-14).

By this t ime I wa-s quite ccrtarn that jazz hacl ceased to be produced.The society thar had engenciered i t had gone, and would not return.Yer sr-rrcl l al l that e'nerg.v ai id del ight coulcl not vanish as conrpletel l .as i l camct l ook ing round, i t C idn ' t take long to d iscover u ,ha t wasde l igh t ing the ' " 'o r r rh o l rhe s ix r ies as jaz .z . had c le l igh ted the i r fa thers ;indeed, one cou ld hard ly ask t t re ques t ion fo r the deafen ing racket o fl i re g rou ; , : , , the s lamming, thudd ing , whang i l rg cu l t . f bea t mus icr l ra l t le r i ' c :d s t ra igh t f r . rn ihc Negr t> c lubs on Ch icago 's sourh S ide ,a n r rs ic so pr r - rpu la r t l ra t i t s p rac t i t ioncrs fo rmed a new ar is tocracyth : i t rv : r ; ihc ln . , ,1 ,o t e l l u 'ho behc ld rhem, suppor teC by the i r ownr ; t d i ( ) s t a t i { r n s t h r o r r g h o r r t t l t r n o r l c l ' s w a k i n g h o u r s .

i t seems io me that the nert substant ial and inf luent ialdel 'e iopment in jaz.z, which is concerned with the ident i f ica-t ion of jazz as art , has a European base. This is a process thatI have found urore di f f icul t to research. One of the reasons

A Worning on the Corntptive Influence of Art t43

for this stems from the fact that jazz research is, arguably,the important contribution made by Europeans to the jazz

tradition, and that, therefore, its function has been one ofspotlighting something other than itself. Therefore, as far assecondary sources are concerned, it is difficult to findmaterial on the history of the European experience andcriticism of jazz, apart that is from the odd account, here andthere, by people in jazz of what it was like, throughout the30s, 40s and 50s, to get involved in jazz (e.g. HumphreyLyttelton's I Ptay {ts I Please and Second Chorus). As I amaware, therefore, the recepticn of jazz in Europe is an arearequiring investigation. What would be uncovered by suchresearch would, no doubt, show some set ol 'overal l s imi lar i t -ies between different national experiences of iazz whilst alsoshorving interesting national variations. What suctr researchrvould neeci to show is how the European reception of jazz',

despite some general popular respc\nse akin to wltat one f inclsin America, gaYc r ise t( ] a concept ion ot ' ' real jazz' as thatcoinciding with rvhat has beeu referred to as the deep base. Inclearer terms what has to be explained is holv sorne Euro-peans took up iaz.z, as rnade b1' coiot l t 'ed musicians, and heldi t u p a s ' t e a l j a z z ' a s o p p o s e d t o a n ( ) t h c r c ' t r t t e c l ; l t m a r r a t i n gfrom Europe (the cotnntercial use ot ' j i izz techniqr ies) andhon'. further, t i le ' real jazz' , as i t rvas establ ished as treing,was not onl-v held to be ' rezr i

. iazz. ' but m()re than t i r is musicu'clr th-v of ser ior. ls musical cot- ls iderai icrn i .e. ; ln art tbrt l i " Oncs imp le exp lanat ion o i t f r i s uoLt ld bc tha t cc - r ta i t l I t t ropeansjust san' that this was so. [Jorvever. as I l tarc si l t i l t 'n, seclr l i ; ,that srrmething is art ha-\ ner, 'er been a nlat l rr oi secing th:r iscrnte fact r . las the case, i ike seeing th;r t an objctr t posse.rsed

some clearly ident i f iable property. 'Therciore' i r is l ikel ,-v to bc

more pro f i tab le to seek an cxp lana l ion in t i rs genera l soc ia l

background, than in some presumecl, but i rnpossibL' , pcrcei l -

t i o n o f t r u t h .As i t has been traced through, the jazz fecl ing in America

has sh t lun i t se l f to co inc idc r , r i th a scnse o l bc i r rg Arner ican .l ) c s p i t e ' o p p o s i t i o n t o . i a t z . i n A m c r i c a n s o c i c t y ' t h e

T-144 Art an Enemy of the people

predominant trend was towards the proliferation of iazzvalues. The being American, in this sense, has to be under_stood alongside what it was not, namely, being European orhaving European aspirations. This sense of European valueswas not mythical, although the realisation of these values inthe American context was a variation on a tradition whichwas, anyway, variously expressed in Europe itself. Againstthis background, then, it is not surprising to find stitfe.European resistance to jazzmusic (meant in ihe loosest sense)in Europe than in America. By resistance, here, is meant notjust propagandised opposition from groups that would havenothing to do with jazz music, but also resistance bv thosewho used it and often profited from it. American iopularmusic, as we have seen, uses the ini t ia l jazz elements in highlymodified form. European popular music becomes a modlfieaform of American popular music, where American becomesthe exci t ing contrast which is al lowed to inf i l t rate undercensorship into European social experience. The rernotenessof coloured jazzfrom popular music in the States is extenua-ted in Europe, al though, where European opposit ion is at i tsmost repressive, so ident i f icat ion of coloured elements, as anobscene e lement , i s made. Some i l lus t ra t ions o f th is . InBri tain the BBC has a str ik ing record of banning at one t imewhat, at a later t ime, i t a l lows to be play,ed acl nausean. Inthe 30s the BBC, in i t s repress ive dr i 'e aga ins t what i r took tobe the excesses o f popu lar mus ic , s ing led ou t , fo r censorsh ip ,the specif ical ly negro features of the jazz,- t inged poprla, ancidance music of the peri .d. Thus, no-one broadcast ing wasa l lowed to re fc - r to dance mus ic as be ing ,ho t ' , .ho t jazz ,be ing very much negro jazz . Moreover ,sca t ' s ing ing , u ,perforrned by Nat Gonel la in homage to Louis A.mst ions.hi- . ic lol , was banned also.

In Gerntany the Fascist regime was more expl ic i t . I t wasmade an offence for Cermans to play dance music containingnegro elements. The negro elements were specif ical ly ident i_f ied both in terms of what they were as technical i tems, andas being negro. As a consequence, such effects as the lone


drawn out off beat. and the inclusion of riffs, were banned. Isuspect that for the mass European mind the idea of therebeing a negro content, in anything other than an idyllic form,to jazz or 'syncopated music' (as it was known) would havebeen quite unthinkable as something to identify with. Therepressed i tem in the experience was what was taken to beAmerican (i.e. an item thinkable, but repressed). Thus, thespread of jazz-flavoured, popular music in Europe takesplace without a capitulation to American music makers.

In Britain, for instance, the focus of musical attention ison Bri t ish dance bands. I t is instruct ive, in this connect ion, toinspect the Melody Maker's publication to celebrate its 50years of covering popular music. This publication contains adetai led review of the Melody Maker 's headl ines over theyears. Throughout the period I have been discussing atten-t ion is concentrated upon Bri t ish dance bands (Jack Hylton,Jack Payne, Geraldo etc.) . What const i tutes for us, now, themain developments within the history of popular music onlyf igure marginal ly in the Melody Maker 's coverage of thet imes. As one reads through the celebrat ion copy one has asense of the compi ler ransacking the pages of past Nlelody,N{akers to f ind i tems that coincide rvi th the accepted historyof popular music (a history which does not i tsel f coincidewith rvhzrt w'as popular in i ts t ime). The dance bands of theperiod play in hotels and they play for bal l room dancing. InBr i t i i i n the top bands are a l l engaged by top London Hote ls ,and i t i -q l rom these bases tha t they- b roadcas t . The Londonscene is mirrored in t l tc prol ' inces where ever;- hotel has i tsresiclent dance bancl. The bal l rooms are open to the publ ic,and thus for the patrons the sante sort of contrast as in NewOrlcans Clonde Street lJal l room obtains, al though in highlyr locl i f ied t"orm. The r ' r 'or ld they enter is fhe world of hotell i fc, a rJontcxl u 'hich for most of thenr is elevated and beyondthe i r norn ia l reach, wh i l : ' t the mus ic they 'conte 1 'o r , and thein t imate one to one danc ing they go in fo r , has the rum- te-tum o l ' syncopat ion .

' fhe exc i tement o f syncopat ion , how-

ever , i s rendered acceptab le by the 'h igh c lass ' se t t ing in

v

146 Art an Enemy of the People A Warning on the Corruptive Influence of Art t47

dance. Their leaders were national celebrities, and had regular timeon the radio: five-fifteen to six in the afternoon, for instance, andhalf-past ten to midnight. They were in almost no sense 'jazz' bands,but about every sixth piece they made a 'hot' number, in which theone or two men in the band who could play jazz would be heard. The

classic 'hot number' was Tiger Rag: it had that kind of nationalanthem status that When The Saints Go Marching 1n had in thefi f t ies. Harry Roy had a band-within-a-band cal led The Tiger-Ragamuff ins. Nat Conella's stage show had a toy t iger lying on thegrand piano. Trombonists and tuba players became adept at produc-

ing the tradit ional t iger growl. I found these hot numbers so excit ingthat I would l isten to hours of dance music in order to catch themwhen they came.... (All What Jazz, Larkin)

In Europe there are odd examples of bands playing whatwould now be recognised as jazz music, but they do notconst i tute a signi f icant enough social nexus for a generaidirect possibi l i ty of making the music.

' fhe few bands thereare perform in remote social areas, l ike the universi t ies, and,i t needs to be remembered, the erpansion in higher e'ducat ionin Europe is s lower than in Amer ica , thus such exper iencesare not general ly avai lable.

'Thcrefore l istening to what is to

be set up as ' real jazz. ' is mediated by' the 78 rpnt record orforeign radio stat iol ls. Ho$ever, such records are not readi lvavai labie, the ntain bulk of recorcis arai lable being b,v Bri t rshmus ic ians or impor ts o1 ' Amer ican co lumerc ia l mus ic . T ' l ierecords sotrglr t by jazz hr"r f is are largei l ' ' i 'ace records' ar lc lthese are no t tha l c 'as ) . ' to ob ta i r t by rvh i tes c ren in Amer ica .The rea l i sa t ions o t ' the des i re to l i : ; ten lo such tnus ic p roc l t t -ces , there fore , e , \o te r ic minor i ty co ter lcs . - fh ts does n( lLnece-ssar i l t ' run aga i t rs i the de-s i res c l f t l tose r ,vhc ; c l l te r l l t i snr inor- i ty u 'or ld. l t is, ol cot l ls ' : . 1- ' r ; t t ' t of t l ie [ . t t t t lpcan 1l-r t- 'or1'abcrut 1az-z Ihat i t is a i 'ornl of r t t i t . i r - n 'hi ; l t is r iunt i" icat: tenough lor everyone to attend to. brt l nctnctheless, l - tgps i - \ i1' r 'ay out 'sal isfact ion about the fact that vcry t 'cu' , i t l f 'aci ,bo ther rv i th i t .

P h i l i p I a r k i n a - a a i n m a k c s i h c p o i n t :

which it takes place and also by the interspersing of waltzes,which, by allowing the patrons to indulge themselves inemotional wallowing, inspire a sense of being cleansed, ormade pure, by the seeming sincerity of the feelings indulgedin. The excitement of syncopation was the excitement o1 aminiscule throwing off of dignified posture, as prescribed byofficial European values; it was, also, the excitement ofidentifying with the fashionable, latest, American experien_ces as they were conveyed to Europe largely by means of thespread of cinema.

It is against this popular orthodoxy that certain Europeansbegin to talk of ' real jazz' and to taik of , real jazz, being art .Clearly, to art iculate in this way presupposes some kind ofintel lectual background. France is an inf luent ial centre in thisconnect ion in the shape of cr i t i r -s and discographers l ikePanassi6 and Delaunay. I suspect the individuals involved arecounterparts to the young people who, in America, coupledjazz and art . The di l ference is that in America rhere wis acont inu ing t rad i t ion o f p lay ing to jo rn , whereas in Europe, inthe f i rs t ins tance, i t was more na tura l to l j s tcn than p lay .Against the real i ty of man1, di l ' f 'erent forms of jazz beir igplayecl (al l at di f fercnt corrrmercial ievels) i t w:rs pr lssibie toframe the project ol- turning iaz,r i i r tc l art by nlaying i tt l i rorrgh sc.tr l re sct of nroci i f icat iorrs. ln Iurope. i r i the f i rstplace. t l r t : rc ar e thc clarrr : i - bani. is g; lai ' i r rg rr ioci i i ' icat iorrs ofAmer ican pcpu l : r r - inus ic . I -hcse b ,a r r r i s f ronr r i r r i l , t c r t imeini : l r -rde a 'hOt ' r tuint icr, r i r a 'hr) t ' r r t t rs i . - i ;u l re, i r<-r i lce asior i i l l ly,rn i l ke l ; : i ' ho{ 'h reak , } io r .a l iu rg . t i rne . io r } -J r t ropeans, th is i it h c n e a r e s f t t r e l c ; i n g r l l t ( f h e ; r r i n g t i r c ' l i r e ' ( a p l r r f f r c l moccasional ,Anr. :r ic;rn vis i t , , v, , i i i r :h ! \ .er, t cur iai l , : .d trv t jn ionl - ' a n t i i t i i t ) l j . l l J ( . 1 { . ' l r g : i i l r ; l i r , } i i i . l i r \ n i c r i c a r i p r ) f r 6 l 3 1 r l u s i c{ e l t l c i t t - l l t , . : r , n ! i ' i r r t l r l \ i l t } c . i s l " i t . c s i i : t : l l .

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r r r g t ) { ) : r ' i r \ i ( l \ L , ) : ' 1 . ' l r r l L \ ' i ! J r l r r , . , . { l i r t r l l l r r J e n t i U l r l l V t r n i f O r r t r e d )l l t J l $ .1 \ r ' t tp l l r t . i b1 i I t r r r - . i g i rc : . ,12 !L i r i i l ) t s i l tha l i t s pa t r r ) l ] s eou ld

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In the thirt ies i t lazzl was a fugit ive minority interest, a record heardby chance from a foreign station, a chorus between two vocals, oneman in an orherwise dul l band. No one you knew t iked i t . ( tDtd.)

On what basis, therefore, may we suppose that the desireto hear 'hot jazz' originated? For what social needs did thismusic seem an appropriate object? I suspect that the kind ofindividuals who get caughr up in i t (al though my evidence forthis is not well-researched) are both anti-American andagainst commercial popularism, and yet open to whatever is' rvay out ' , chal lenging, ' real ly l iv i i rg ' . They do not capitulateto American-style popular music and the reason is because ofa real background commitment to the art concept, which,ideological ly, sets up a divide between behavioural formsrequired by the highly commercial music and those forms ofbehaviour and att i tude required by art . However, the com_mitment to art is, quest ionably, open to the interpretat ion ofeffeminacy and obedience to the values of the social system(e.9. succeeding in rhe higher reaches of educarion, by doingwhat one is told to do, in order to be held to ha'e understoodthe history of the art t radi t ion). To show, then, a commit_ment to jazz music, as i t appears within what is the deep baseto the r , r 'ho le soc ia l jazz e rper ience. as par t o l 'one ' r conrmi t_ment to art is to offset this interpretat ion. To be interesred in'hor jazz' is to bc- interested in what goes beyond thethresho ld o f e rcess as comprehenc led bv the most dash ing ,ph i l i s t i ' e r rend ies o f rhe per iod . t -a rk in resr i f ies to the fa i tthat he, as an academical l l 'successful ) ,oung man, \ \ ,as clrawnlo jazz music because ol i ts ,bod reputat ion' . I t is also thecase that in ident i f f ing with American, dcep-base jazz i l . reE,uropean w'as ident i fy ing u, i th that, in America, , , ,hi .1l *u,in ten t iona l l y an t i -Amer ican ( i .e . scorn fu l c le r is ion o l ' wh i te ,commercial ly successful society) and that n,hich was ant i_Ar.er ican, in being a moral l l ' -conclemnatory' erar 'plc ot ' theharsh inequal i t ies that American, brash, cornmercial societvlcd to . Moreover , to ident i f y th is aspec t o f Amer ican soc ie tyas ar t was to makc onese l f seem ant i_Amer ican. fo r the


American ethos as understood by Europe's €lites stood forphilistine commercialism, and commodity production overagainst real values (i.e. traditional European values as theywere understood). The Adorno position looked into earlier isindicative of this attitude, although for him jazz does nothave the special art-status. These particular facets of theanti-American attitude, which certain forms of iazz musicwere able to satisfy, were facets appealing to individualshaving leftist inclinations (e.g. the attack on racial inequality,and the hostility to the proliferation of American stylecapitalism).

These then are some of the strands which, I suspect, makeup the early European based commitment to certain forms ofjazzbeing art . In due course, this minori ty European com-mitment becomes an orthodoxy about jazz both in Europeand America, so that what is accepted as jazz is that which isin accordance with these preferred forms' This movementsets up the requisi te European pract ice, which leads even-tual ly to the possibi l i ty of European iazz. The fact that themovement is populated by those connected in var ious wayswith Europe's var ious social €l i tes makes i t not at al lsurpr is ing, as the media at the t ime was often unable to see,that jazz in Europe was not made by Europe's 'proletar ian

rabble' but by individuals having some social status' Forinstance, in the days of Lyttel ton's prominence in popular

culture, the press could not get over the fact that here was anold Etonian ex-Guards off icer and blue blood who spent hist ime playing jazz. What I am suggest ing is that, gi t 'en thebackground to lazz experience in Europe, t t is not surpr is ing,and is what one might expec t .

What needs to be examined next is how this interpretat ionof jazz as art , u 'hich as we have seen leads to a misunder-standing of what lazzmen were up to, becomes the conta-g ious , de termin ing in f luence.

A number of s igni f icant events and developments coales-ced so as to provide the explanat ion. There is the develop-ment of swing, as a white big-band phenomenon, rvhich

150 Art on Enemy of the people

involves mass teenage hysteria and considerable commercialrewards for tho.se perpetrating the music. There u.. it.American musical contacts with Europe brought about bythe specialist European interest in certain formslf ameii.unmusic. and also by the war. There is the development ;fBopand the associated cultural experiences. There is the strort-lived revivalist era and its associated cultural forms.

Because of what America stood for to the establishment inEurope (Henry James, novels contain i l lustrat ion, oi ' , " f rut fmean in its earlier forms), and because America contains,despite i ts reputat ion, those who aspire to Europe,s turt . unOevaluations, it is not surprising thai the European inter;s; insomething specif ical ly American, as being worthy of , . . iou,European interest ' exci tes a sympathet ic react ion in America.This is not surpr is ing, but ut iheium. t ime there is an elementof farce in the situation. Negro jazz, which I, tt. ,.nO_up ofthe European presence in whire-American society, is recom_mended to Americans by Europeans as b.eing i;";;;;;;;.wi th the highest European standards, and on-this , . .o^rn.ndat ion is accepted by Americans as being so. This , .nr. ofEuropean approval produces in Americi individuali *rrostand to what is now emerging social ly as ,real jazz, as Oo theEuropea l r . non-p lay ing o f f i cLnados. Connect ions are es tab_l ished between the European and American areas of . r , t l . " fact iv i t l , ' . This, rhen, is one way, in which th. ; i ; ; ; i ;European orthocloxy gains grouni.

, This vierv of jazz, this special sense of , jazz,, whichrbecomes what jazz is, also - ik", inroads inro ihe *ortJ otcoloured players. The great popular and comme.. iur ,u. . . i iof srving is conf ined to whi ie pract i r ioners, a. ipir . - t f , .b ig-band techniques bei 'g taken'over from ir- , . t ro. io oicoloured music. The white band.s make ful l emotional ; ; . ; ir i f f 's, they incorporate the jam session as a special , theatr icalevent wit l r in their programme.s, s igni fy ing thereby where theparty real ly is at , and they cover numbers put out by colouredbands (e.g. Goodman cov,er ing Basie's dne o,clocf. l "*piIn other words the success of s*, ing is based on a commercial


use (therefore necessarily, at the time, a white use) of theelements within the deep base. Following on from the firstwhite assimi lat ion of lazz experience, white consciousness isby this time prepared for a more thorough-going capitulationto the orgiast ic, a more thorough-going dismantl ing ofrepressive upt ightness. I t is this American att i tude which isresponded to with some awe by Europeans when they ( ' theYanks') come to Europe during the Second World War.Europe feels the Americans are freer, looser than Europeans,that they 'don' t give a damn'. Their ul t i rnate ant i thesis inEurope is the style of the Cerman master-race society. Thereis a feel ing that the Americans ought not to win bccause theyseem to lack discipl ine and organisat ion, but i t is, at the sametime, fel t they are unbeatable because they are al l hoods orcowboys, rvho wi l l knuckle down and shou' their toughpedigrec when the crunch comes. This is, I suggest, howEuropean popular cor.rsciousness responds to the gum-cherving GI 's. C)n this basis the GI 's are also ident i f ied byEurope's females as being very rexy ( i .e. unst i f f , l iberated).Within the coloured jazz rvor ld there is a general resentmenttha t th is moven len t ( i .e . the Srv ing Era) , so obv ious ly depen-dent upon att i tudes and techniques evolved bl ' colouredplavers. passes them bt ' * ' i tholr t much recognit ion or remun-erat ion. The style of the new music derives from the fra-emen-tat ion of not rneaning rvhat one says ( i .e. part icular ly the jamsession). Fr-rr the coloured JazznTan the idea of hav' ing aprivatc 'black u'or ld in rvhich to negate the demands of whitesoc ie t -v i s assa i led b l ' the comnrerc ia l use o f ' the s ty le o f th ispr ivacl ' . \ loreover, in a musical context which is becomingincrea-singly ' conscior"rs of i ts ident i ty and history (becau.se of 'the grow'th of cr i t ical act iv i t l ' ) , there is the possible recogni-t ion, for the black perfornrer, that the ntusical experience heand his forebears have created is constant ly being stolen fromhinr . The growth in c r i t i ca l ac t i v i t y , a lso , makes i t poss ib lefor the black performer to view himself as an art ist ; apercept ion which, ior al l the cul tural reasons I have beenerplaining, woLrld have been total ly al ien to most black

152 Art an Enemy of the peopte

musicians. What European connections there are help tounderline these possibilities. For instance, Bill ie uolidaymeets this attitude in Europe and accordingly has her con-sciousness of herself, and the music she is iisociated with,transformed by it.

They've got respect for music over there (Europe). I t 's culture tothem and art, and i t doesn't matter whether i ts Beethoven or charrieParker, they got respect. I f a kid of theirs comes into the world andsays he wants to play they don't act l ike he was a freak because hewants to be a jazz musician. They st ick a horn in his mouth and theysee thar he gets some lessons. (Bi l l ie Holiday Lady sings the Brues)

This she contrasts with the state of play in the States:

We're supposed to have made so much progress, but most of thepeople who have any respect for lazz in this country are those whocan make a buck ou t o f i r . ( ib id . )

For the black musician the l i fe dedicated to ambisuitvcannot be l ived simply. This is ro say i t cannor ue lueiwithout cosr. whar is lost in the two-faced l i fe is a sense ofapprovable ident i ty. Therefore, social experiences whichprovide a perspect ive to$'arcls an ident i ty are seduct ive. TheEuropean-style consciousness of jaz-z introduces colouredjazz musicians to the idea of themselves as art ists. The artclassi f icat ion is in a sense Europe's revenge on jazz as thedebasement of European culture. I - Iere, then. is a verva e c e p t a b l e i d e n t i t y r o a s s u m e . I n u h i t e c o n s c i o r r s n c s s t h e r e i . sthe recognit ion of the art ist as i ts highest expression, yet artsels up the art ist as badly integratecl into the society. t t r is is atotal ly acceptable image for the segregated black musiciarrseeking a relevant ident i t -v. I t is, moreover, an ident i ty whichal lows the player to cont inue the attack on white ,o. i . t i .However, i t is an ident i ty which breeds a new conf ic lence andstraightforwardness, even i f i t is expressed in a style whichhas grown out of a more shi f ty, two_faced existence. Theart ist image, and the audience's conferment of this imaeeupon the musician al lows him to go on stage, turn his baikon the devotees , and b low ,sh i t ' .


Anyone who thinks that an Archie ( 'America's done me a lot of

wrong') Shepp record is anything but two fingers extended from 1bunched fist at him personally cannot have much appreciation of

what he is hearing (P. Larkin All What Jazz).

This straightforward aggressiveness in the jazz setting is

symptomatic of more general change in black consciousnessin American society. Developments in the jazz world are of

the same type as negroes seeking identity through Africa and

the Black Muslims, and going on from a base of identity-

security to launch black protest. The art status of jazz is,

from the beginning of Bop and on through the developmentsin modern jazz, assured. The perception of jazz as art also

builds itself into Revivalism, which is a belated attempt to

honour the early iazzas art. Only the old-time musicians andthe non-intellectual members of Revivalism's short-lived,

mass audience fail to grasp the significance of the perception'

Even the American establ ishment takes jazzup, support ing i t

as America's unique contr ibut ion to the arts ' However, this

capture of jaz,z by the art t radi t ion brought about the decl ine

in jazz as popular experience, f or jaz'z was changed by the

new out look of i ts players. In other words, the supposedly

detached percept ion of what had been going on as a yet

unrecognised art ist ic act iv i ty did not leave i ts object s imply

uncoverecl , l ike the results of an archeologicai dig ' The

cri t ical perspect ive becante an act ive pract ice, whereby thejazznten, convinced by themselves as art ists, sought to inte-gra te the i r mus ic in to the t rad i t ion o f a r t . Th is i s to say tha t ,

a l though there was the b lo rv ing o f ' sh i t ' (a bourgeo is , an t i -

bourgeois teature of 'h igh-art ' i tsel t) , there was also an

erperimenlat ion with the ful l - range of techniques offered by

rrrodeln art music (rvhich iazz now was). As the music began

to take on these forms so i t lost i ts popular base' However,

there rvere other aspects to black music in the Statc 's (aspects

e.r ist ing pr ivately to blacks) which the cr i t icai concentrat ion

on jazz overlooked, and i t was these that were to go on

ieeding the repet i t ious, control led rebel l iossness of capital ist

-..--


society, just as the many sides of jazz had done. 'Ihe jazztradition, however, as something to be integrated with abourgeois, art-tradition, was, as can be seen from theaccount that has been given, a nonsensical project. The styleof the art tradition, even at its most modern and revolution-ary, reflected a moral concern, an attitude of caring, a desireto organise the world better, but the style of the jazz traditionwas ' I don' f give a fuck' and , I ain ' t for real ' and ul t imatelv' l 'm an ar t i s t man. so pay fo r my d inner ' . The jazzman hasexperienced this merger as a great difficulty. In Beneath theUnderdog Mingus laments the fact that he cannot be like amember of the Jui l l iard Str ing euartet ( i .e. nameless andsimply concerned with music), that he cannot in jazz ful f i lh imself as a composer ( 'art ist ' ) . Jazz has, he says, too manystrangl ing qual i t ies, i t ' leaves room for too much fool ingt.(Charles Mingus, Beneath the Underdctg, p.340). In falt,s ince being absorbed into the fr inges of the art l i fe in society,lazz has not developed. There is the ,shi t ' , there are t l ieattempts to preserve revered sectors of the past, there is theplaying oi modern, ser ious, art music under the label of jazz,and, i rr a fcw'cases, there are lazzmen funct ioning in the rockworld whi lsr prescrving a jazz feel .

* * *

fhc a i rn in u ' r i t ing th is chaprc . r has been ro cu t th rough theabsf ract quest ion ' ls

1az,z. art? ' and to suggest that the basewhich al lorvs the c1r_iest ion 1o be asked is u,hat gives t l reques t ion s ign i f i cancc , ra f her than the ques t ion as contempla_ted I i teral ly. ' rhe

social percept i 'ns ol jazz as art have beenvar ious bo th in loca t ion and mot ive . ln t ry ing to bes towtronours on jatz they have fai led, as far as prel ious forms ofjazz mus lc a re concenred, to unders tand i t s in ten t iona lpract ice and {hus i ts signi f icance in i ts own social conrext. ol 'course, as I have tr ied to sugge: j t , the appl icat ion of artic leology to lazt has often taken place on the basis ofscl f -decept ic l ' . The descript ion 'art ' has often been the cloak


under which jazz has been contemplated for its actualsignificances. However, again for various reasons' theseactual significances have undergone large transformationsthrough contact with the theoretical practices of bourgeoissociety. The net effect has been the absorption of jazz and itshistory into the fringes of the art process in society. Perhapsthe fact that the history of iazz has been anti-European,anti-white, anti-bourgeois, anti-art accounts for its periph-

eral rather than central position (i.e. as something difficult tointegrate into the art tradition). With the absorption of jazz

into the art process has come the decreasing significance ofjazz as a catalyst for popular, mass experience. Moreover,through the identification the jazz process has run itself intoa cul-de-sac. The art interpretation has not sprung from theclear perceptions of unprejudiced, morally sympatheticminds, but has grown out of the social needs of specif ic socialgroups and from the way these needs have meshed together.I t has proffered misunclerstandings and misinterpretat ions ofjazz, and has led to the death of jazz as popular experienceand to i ts decl ine as any kind of developing social process. Inother words there were other possibi l i t ies for the jazz

process. I ts route has been a chosen route, i t has beennothing other than the pract ice of persons. The choices madeare expl icable and intel l ig ible, but, I venture, i t rvould havebeen belter for the life of iazz, tf rhe jazzman's 'piss off'response to the 'cu l tu ra l ' in te res t in rvhat he was do ing hadbeen meant rather than assumed as a theatr ical pose withinthe 'cu l tu ra l con tex t ' . Ar t i s a va lu t ' the masses shou ld res is t ,no t jus t ignore .

Documents

Roger Taylor. Art an Enemy of the People. 1978