CZ discussed the role of 'new concert music' as a gesture of resistance, as a countercultural push, as an act of defiance. This was the great revelation of the Frankfurt school — the notion and belief that art and music can resist mass(ed) culture. But rather than focusing on our critical positions as listeners to and/or consumers of music, I would be interested in considering with some detail the critical implications of our actions as makers of music, and the ways in which presenting organizations can provide an infrastructure of and for resistance. To borrow a concept from Hal Taussig, perhaps what we need is to find strategies of "artful resistance." { from Taussig's October 6, 2005 Union Day address to the Union Theological Seminary }
As an example, the 'Bigmouths' concert project that this site is discussing, and supposedly advertising, is fundamentally, essentially pluralistic; if we accept that modernism approaches to that pluralism are problematic, then what approaches to pluralism might aid us in the very concrete task of presenting this concert? In short, assuming that pluralism is real and relevant, how does this truth affect us as artists?
This series of questions, in fact, mirrors William James' formulation of the fundamental Pragmatic question: assuming that X is true, what are the ways in which that truth affects us? { see "Pragmatism's Conception of Truth" in Pragmatism (1907) } If we are looking for other conceptual and philosophical frames for engaging with questions of aesthetic and cultural pluralism, it might be worth remembering that Pragmatism as a movement has been working on pluralism for decades, indeed since its inception. As a fairly typical example of the modern Pragmatist view of pluralism, let's consider the following quote from Richard J. Bernstein, Vera List Professor of Philosophy at The New School For Social Research:
"For there is a danger of a fragmenting pluralism where the centrifugal forces become so strong that we are only able to communicate with the small group that already shares our own biases, and no longer even experience the need to talk with others outside of this circle. There is a flabby pluralism where our borrowings from different orientations are little more than glib superficial poaching. There is polemical pluralism where the appeal to pluralism doesn't signify a genuine willingness to listen and learn from others, but becomes rather an ideological weapon to advance one's own orientation. There is defensive pluralism, a form of tokenism, where we pay lip service to others "doing their own thing" but are already convinced that there is nothing important to be learned from them."The type of pluralism that represents what is best in our pragmatic tradition is an engaged fallibilistic pluralism. Such a pluralistic ethos places new responsibilities upon each of us. For it means taking our own fallibility seriously, resolving that however much we are committed to our own styles of thinking, we are willing to listen to others without denying or suppressing the otherness of the other. It means being vigilant against the dual temptations of simply dismissing what others are saying by falling back on one of those standard defensive ploys where we condemn it as obscure, wholly, or trivial, or thinking we can always easily translate what is alien into our own entrenched vocabularies." - Richard J. Bernstein, "Pragmatism, Pluralism, and the Healing of Wounds" from The New Constellation: The Ethical-Political Horizons of Modernity/Postmodernity, p. 232-39.
While Bernstein is talking more about schools of philosophy and/or political factions, the connections between that domain and the realm of the arts are quite tantalizing. Also tantalizing is the phylogenic relation between this modern Pragmatic approach to pluralism and the work of thinkers like Nattiez, Molino and others engaged in semiotic analyses of music, as much of their work is predicated upon the insights of Peirce from the end of the 19th century. A future posting will consider the extent to which engaged, fallibilistic pluralism rests upon a more open conception of the ontology of music, as well as the extent to which a reconceptualization of music as a symbolic form obligates us to an engaged fallibilistic pluralist outlook.
But even without a more detailed exploration, it seems clear that a richer understanding of the nature of pluralism would help us as artists and audiences resist the variegated monotony of mass(ed) culture. A pluralism of esthesis is already here, at the very least in the oft sited iPod culture and its associated electronic bazaar of music and culture, but Bernstein is there clearly proposing something which retains, within its liberal pose of acceptance, a critical relationship to its environment, a manner of being which allows people to retain some agency within our roles in the cultural economy.
What might a project within the domain of musical poiesis which espouses Bernstein's notion of engage fallibilistic pluralism look like? A basic assumption in this discussion is that it would resist mass(ed) culture, but a few other properties seem likely. This list is hardly, nor is it intended to be, even remotely complete, and each of these themes will return in future posts to this site.
1) The project might be trans-stylistic, but would not necessarily be polystylistic in any particular instance. At the same time, Bernstein's analysis makes it clear that polystylism would not demonstrate engage fallibilistic pluralism. Polystylism is neither necessary nor sufficient, but seems likely.
2) The project might not be bounded by time. Middleton, in his critique of Adorno's aesthetics, points out that one can find traces of the struggle of resistance in all historical periods. A project could deal with music from multiple periods, as a special, chronological case of the trans-stylism mentioned above. This could also, more interestingly, mean that the project itself exists in discontinuous time periods, and, more interestingly, that people working a project may not be aware of it as a continuation/reemergence of an early project.
3) The project would likely not fit into the paradigms and economic frameworks espoused/allowed by the mass(ed) culture. That poor fit could present itself as economic difficulties (failure to map into standard marketing strategies), difficulties in mounting/producing (perhaps in the need for new technologies, such as the predicament of Varèse), or even in difficulty in completion (artists themselves not having the skills to complete a particular project). It should be noted, though, that the project might exhibit none of these attributes; resistance could include subversion.
4) As a result of (3), the project might appear in multiple forms and configurations. Since contemporary musical culture essentially treats traces of a musical symbolic form as discrete (at the very least in terms of economic exchanges), it would appear to straddle functional categories. Considering the difficulty of building new infrastructures which fit better, the project would likely find partnership with like minded organizations, even if the organizations do not notionally share methods or perhaps even obvious goals. { see point (2) }
5) Most importantly, the project would change. Any project which takes its own fallibility seriously must be willing to transform and correct itself. The need for flexibility would likely limit the size of the project, or more precisely, would place a premium on fiscal and practical efficiency, which would tend to produce smaller organizations
The implications of even this incomplete and somewhat aphoristic list of likely properties are legion. Economically, limits on size and an encouragement of flexibility opposes the gigantism and fetishization of the growth-model of most American arts institutions, while oblique infrastructures and partnerships could allow for an impact disproportionate to conventional measures of success. Artistically, a sophisticated approach to poly-stylism, more radical than simple 'canon-busting' would problematize overly simplistic discussions of 'style,' and perhaps focus attention on the ways music is actually used in the culture as a more meaningful and useful path of discussion. In particular, this revisiting of the notion of style would represent a serious challenge to current pedagogical methodologies operating in the universities and conservatories. Such transformations of pedagogical systems are always political in the end, especially those which encourage students to consider autonomy, evidence and argument, and the impact of action on society and culture.
Perhaps the most radical characteristic of such a committed and critical approach to pluralism would be that it would not insult the intelligence of its audience; if the goal is artful resistance, it is better to make more resisters