tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post5705120146696849393..comments2024-03-27T23:06:03.736-05:00Comments on The Music Salon: What They're Telling Us NowBryan Townsendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-13642300573289016202018-04-22T16:09:49.583-05:002018-04-22T16:09:49.583-05:00I wasn't even attempting to defend Donald Trum...I wasn't even attempting to defend Donald Trump! And I don't think I was offering a schoolyard argument that everyone is doing it. What I see is that there is very, very little objective moral judgement being exercised. Trump's supporters believe that he is being attacked on all sides, unfairly. Comey believes that he is a lonely moral exemplar. What we have, in fact, are warring nexuses of power, as I was saying. I'm not worried about Donald Trump. I'm worried that when there is enough widespread ignoring of the rule of law, then there will be some serious rents in the social fabric.Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-77653547341085892552018-04-22T14:53:33.643-05:002018-04-22T14:53:33.643-05:00Your defense of Donald Trump sounds like the kid c...Your defense of Donald Trump sounds like the kid caught misbehaving who claims 'But EVERYBODY is doing it!'. Sorry, but not everybody is doing it, and especially not to the same extent. People all have varying degrees of 'moral clarity' and the spectrum is pretty large. I don't think anyone would deny that James Comey has seriously messed up but from what I've seen he seems to have a moral and ethical compass that he struggles to respect. He clearly tried to do the right thing however clumsily. No one is totally objective. The everybody is the same, everybody is equally dishonest argument just doesn't hold up to scrutiny. But don't worry about Donald Trump. If he's innocent as he claims he is he'll be just fine. And let's hope he is because if there is one thing the country doesn't need right now it's another Watergate type mess.Christine Lacroixhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02006109075551438090noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-44992806363170291822018-04-22T07:11:45.190-05:002018-04-22T07:11:45.190-05:00Thanks, all, for some very insightful comments.
C...Thanks, all, for some very insightful comments.<br /><br />Christine, thanks especially for pushing back on my brief political comment. I do need to elaborate a bit. What I was trying to express was my sense that we seem to be living in a time of warring nexuses of power that are blurring or even erasing moral clarity. That so many, like James Comey, are claiming to have moral clarity is simply not credible. The "patterns of deliberate dishonesty" that you mention are found in the behaviour of Donald Trump, probably, but also, most certainly, in the behaviour of Bill and Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Bernie Sanders and his wife, numerous highly-placed officials in the FBI and on and on. I just finished reading The Big Short by Michael Lewis in which he sketches out patterns of deliberate dishonesty mixed with disingenuous naïveté and cultivated ignorance in virtually the entirety of Wall Street AND its regulatory bodies. I look at the case of Conrad Black and see a justice system entirely out of control, demonstrating that unaccountable prosecutors can put anyone, ANYONE, in jail.<br /><br />I don't think this is going to end well.Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-13795861039906113402018-04-22T06:22:34.750-05:002018-04-22T06:22:34.750-05:00Musicians or politicians who are able to produce m...Musicians or politicians who are able to produce music or rhetoric that taps powerfully into the fleeting mood of the moment seem to be richly rewarded these days. <br /><br />As for your comments on the power nexus victimizing Donald Trump, it seems a stretch to put Martha Stewart, Richard Nixon and Donald Trump in the same category. Martha Stewart, from the little I know of her, strikes me as a fundamentally honest person who did something dumb in a moment of panic. Putting myself in her place I can imagine she had no idea of the implications of her actions. On the other hand, both Richard Nixon and Donald Trump are known for patterns of deliberate dishonesty. You said 'Yes, there can be accountability, but often it is simply one power nexus taking temporary advantage of another. This is how I understand the conviction of Martha Stewart, the impeachment of Richard Nixon and the current battle between Donald Trump and his own Department of Justice'. I missed out on a lot of the Watergate saga since I was living in France but apparently, Nixon was guilty as charged. If you wiretap your opponents and get caught it's bad luck but can you claim you were being taken advantage of by another power nexus? As for Donald Trump if he's innocent he'll be more than vindicated if he lets the FBI do their job. Christine Lacroixhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02006109075551438090noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-4173545903051659562018-04-20T11:55:03.689-05:002018-04-20T11:55:03.689-05:00Read this post after the FM one. Now I think I nee...Read this post after the FM one. Now I think I need not listen at all to Kendrick Lamar. If I had copious and always-increasing amounts of free time, I could see making a point to listen to something of these celebrity musicians but until that happy day arrives, am planning on sticking in my own narrow rut.Marc in Eugenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04331547981498637474noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-19397800110180014112018-04-19T16:24:42.211-05:002018-04-19T16:24:42.211-05:00I agree with everything Patrick said. No matter h...I agree with everything Patrick said. No matter how vulgar and banal are the pop and politically-correct versions of music at any moment, genuine art will survive and stand tall when all the din of our day has been replaced by a new din. I never did pay attention to prizes or critics or opinion trends. I judge the work for myself, I don't want to know anything about the artist nor about what other people think of the work.Will Wilkinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01997868915978439364noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-12726261665521369302018-04-19T11:48:01.947-05:002018-04-19T11:48:01.947-05:00We can only hope that the quality of the music we ...We can only hope that the quality of the music we love will help it outlast momentary incidents such as the awarding this year of the Pulitzer in music. Mozart, Haydn, and the entire millennium of Western 'classical' music are still performed, recorded and vital due to only one thing - the extraordinary quality of the music. Certainly not to prizes awarded. In this sense, we should see our participation (by playing, listening, attending concerts) in the classical community as a way for future generations to have this genre enrich and touch their lives. Thanks, Bryan, for your wonderful blog, which is also helpful.Patricknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-31996492614705080562018-04-19T06:37:21.021-05:002018-04-19T06:37:21.021-05:00Thanks, Jives. I write what I hope will be an inci...Thanks, Jives. I write what I hope will be an incisive criticism and along comes a commentator to point out that I likely haven't gone far enough!Bryan Townsendhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09482696991279345516noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8827040061563065922.post-20349139664490441482018-04-18T20:15:27.852-05:002018-04-18T20:15:27.852-05:00I find the whole Beyoncé spectacle to be downright...I find the whole Beyoncé spectacle to be downright fascistic in it's pummeling aggression. She's approaching cult figure status here. There's something unsettling about the large group of people on stage moving in lockstep. I kind of got the same queasy feeling from the opening of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, with the hundreds of drummers pounding away in eerie unison. Impressive, but unnerving. Your comparison to the mass entertainments of the French Revolution is well drawn. <br /><br />As to the Pulitzer, they just recently awarded it to Become Ocean, and Anthracite Fields, both of which I detested, so...unsurprising I guess. Jiveshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02430049896063808671noreply@blogger.com