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Collective Memory's Decline: Why We Have No Cultural Center


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This is a fascinating article about how cultural icons disappear over time. I was just thinking about this other day - how many people nowadays could identify, for example, who Frank Zappa is? In ten years, how many people will know who David Bowie or Prince is? People gave Billie Eilish crap for not knowing who Van Halen is, but the reality is that she's not alone by any means. Cultural identity becomes increasingly fleeting. Apparently, what matters to most people is The Now.

 

The article deals with much more than just collective memory, like how television has shaped us. It's a very, very interesting read.

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I read it. It took several short sessions, and I realized something that is probably obvious.

 

With the Interwebz becoming ubiquitous as a standard form of communication, the crappy rendition of text is probably subconciously directing all of us towards brevity.

In the same way that listening to crappy sounding mp3s can cause mental fatigue, looking at text represented by a relatively coarse dot matrix takes it's own toll on our patience and good humor.

 

I just went into Safari Preferences > Advanced > and changed the Font Size setting to "Never show any font smaller than 24 points. This is much less worse, should have done it a LONG time ago!!!! :laugh:

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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Should those who criticize Billie Eilish for not knowing who Van Halen is be held to task for not knowing who Sister Rosetta Tharpe is?

 

Cultural icons are a moving target. What is a cultural icon to one age group or one cultural group may not be to another.

 

Regardless, cultural icons and large events frequently fade with time. Each new generation has considerably more history to learn.

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Maybe it's just me, but while I enjoyed the early work of Van Halen, I never considered them to be "culturally iconic"....any more than, say, Whitesnake or the like.....I guess I'd feel differently if I played guitar. To me, "culturally iconic" would have to be something on the lines of The Beatles, or someone who sent the music of their time off on a different trajectory, like maybe Nirvana.......
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Eddie Van Halen made an enormous impact on hard rock/metal guitar players for sure. His impact should not be overstated. And for a time, they were enormous in the world of Western rock. But tVan Halen weren't like, say, Muhammad Ali or Michael Jackson or Kobe Bryant or Elvis Presley in this country. And they weren't like Umm Kulthum or Youssou N'Dour in other places.

 

But that's what I'm trying to say is that in one group of people, Van Halen might be huge. In another group, it's like "Who?" It's a big country, and it's an even larger world, all fiiled with people with different ages and different interests.

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But that's what I'm trying to say is that in one group of people, Van Halen might be huge. In another group, it's like "Who?" It's a big country, and it's an even larger world, all fiiled with people with different ages and different interests.

 

Nods head. Currently I am re-reading Julian by Gore Vidal. He was a very interesting Emperor of Rome.

Nobody knows (or cares) one crap about him or his history. So it goes.

It took a chunk of my life to get here and I am still not sure where "here" is.
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I remember watching Blazing Saddles and having to look up who Randolph Scott was. It was a bit of a running joke with me and my now wife about it, and she bought me a Randolph Scott movie. On VHS. (She never heard of him either.)

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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This one is simple. Everything leading up to the period of music I enjoyed the most was just the wind-up to Greatness. Everything since then has just been evidence of our decadent decline. Right? :/ Blame marketing, to some extent. If you play some great, mad thing from 1978 for a teenager, their eyes often bug out in astonishment and they ask for more. You can banish some decadence by pointing out the larger, often timeless body of The Good Stuff.

 

My input buffers have their limits. When you get older, your priorities change. So does your work load. You don't have time to be the same kind of fan you were at 20. I don't worry about the New Electronic Clatter. I simply take up enough of the tools to make (hopefully) creative use of every influence I've heard up until last night, actually.

 

I'll try to make a positive go of it, but I also won't apologize for being a product of my times while the ball is still in play. I probably should, in a few spots, but instead, I'm going to buy a soft-orchestra and then pretend that I at least half-know what to do with it. :whistle:

 "I want to be an intellectual, but I don't have the brainpower.
  The absent-mindedness, I've got that licked."
        ~ John Cleese

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I remember watching Blazing Saddles and having to look up who Randolph Scott was. It was a bit of a running joke with me and my now wife about it, and she bought me a Randolph Scott movie. On VHS. (She never heard of him either.)

 

I first became aware of Randolph Scott when as a kid, I heard him referenced on the minor Statler Bros hit "Whatever Happened To Randolph Scott", on my dad's radio. It was about how movies had gone to hell with sex and counterculture psychobabble. One line was "True Grit's the Only Movie I've Understood In Years". But what got my attention was the slammin' detuned saloon piano intro.

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This one is simple. Everything leading up to the period of music I enjoyed the most was just the wind-up to Greatness. Everything since then has just been evidence of our decadent decline. Right? :/ Blame marketing, to some extent. If you play some great, mad thing from 1978 for a teenager, their eyes often bug out in astonishment and they ask for more. You can banish some decadence by pointing out the larger, often timeless body of The Good Stuff.

 

My input buffers have their limits. When you get older, your priorities change. So does your work load. You don't have time to be the same kind of fan you were at 20. I don't worry about the New Electronic Clatter. I simply take up enough of the tools to make (hopefully) creative use of every influence I've heard up until last night, actually.

 

I'll try to make a positive go of it, but I also won't apologize for being a product of my times while the ball is still in play. I probably should, in a few spots, but instead, I'm going to buy a soft-orchestra and then pretend that I at least half-know what to do with it. :whistle:

 

Well that's a pretty rational approach. I'm kind of the same way - what I was isn't changing, but I'm adding to it all the time. There's a reason why my next album is called "Take Me Back to Tomorrow." :)

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There's a sort of "fame inequality" thing going on in recent decades. Markets that used to be local have gone global to a significant extent. So folks in Russia and Ghana know all about Billie Eilish and Thanos. The haves have more than ever and the have-nots are where they've always been. And it's not just money, but fame, media attention, and marketing on a huge variety of levels and platforms.

 

The real traditions to worry about I personally don't think are along the lines of Van Halen appreciation. The pop culture of adolescents is really not all that important on the big scale. Oh, it's super-important to me personally, but my own generation's adolescent obsessions are no more important than any other generation's obsessions. They are all equally important in forming grown-ups attitudes.

 

The traditions of science, of the justice system, of education, of social progress and improvements in quality of life, of the good side of the religious traditions, the arts as an institution and a heritage rather than a product and a trend, these are the big picture items (I may have missed one or a hundred).

 

I agree with the Beatle's self-assessment that they were a rockin' band, wrote some good songs, and became an excuse for everybody else to go wild. They will take their place - a paragraph or two - in the music history books with a handful of others. But in the big picture, that's just a medium-to-small ripple in the big lake of the really valuable traditions.

 

nat

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I agree with the Beatle's self-assessment that they were a rockin' band, wrote some good songs, and became an excuse for everybody else to go wild. They will take their place - a paragraph or two - in the music history books with a handful of others. But in the big picture, that's just a medium-to-small ripple in the big lake of the really valuable traditions.

 

True, but we know who Beethoven was. Same with Bach, Haydn, Mozart, etc. I'm sure that during their time there were trivial musicians as well that history has not treated kindly. I suppose one could make an argument that the music of the Beatles or Jimi Hendrix doesn't equal Bach, but in terms of historical context, the Beatles had a huge impact on society, and Hendrix completely re-defined the guitar as a musical instrument. Sure, in the grand scheme of things, I guess they don't matter. However, I feel there is value to knowing history, and sometimes, history is documented by art. Think of Picasso's Guernica, or Bob Dylan, for that matter.

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True, but we know who Beethoven was. Same with Bach, Haydn, Mozart, etc....I feel there is value to knowing history, and sometimes, history is documented by art. Think of Picasso's Guernica, or Bob Dylan, for that matter.

 

 

Absolutely - I do have my History Degree diploma from Univ of TX stuck up on a closet shelf somewhere around here.....

 

Myself, I'm 100% absorbed in the fascinations of history. Probably shoulda been a prof, but there was no market for academics when I graduated, so I wandered off after college to construction work and a dozen other activities I called "occupations but not what I'd call a living."

 

Interesting that you mentioned artists that had a protest element in some of their output. The intersection of history and art, in the long perspective, is more a thing of supporting the established order rather than critiquing it. The most ancient arts tend heavily toward war and other physical heroes, deified leaders, religious artifacts and expressions. Western medieval art - 75% celebrating religion, 20% celebrating Kings and Emperors and other establishment figures, and 5% misc. The Renaissance and Reformation - more diverse definitely, but the majority religious and/or political expressions. Bless the Dutch for their incredible contributions of scenes from home and town life as a sort of humanistic counter-statement. Still a very Protestant product, Vermeer, Rembrandt, etc.

 

It was with the Romantics that the artist as rebel got to be a thing. Can be traced from Beethoven straight to James Dean and the Punks and now, everyone just assumes that art = rebellion/subversiveness/anti-establishment, etc.

 

Except for Bob the TV painter :)

 

Myself - I have an aversion to mixing politics and art. It's a short step to a situation where art is judged on its political content. Like with literature - I took a lot of Lit Crit sorts of classes, but I always felt like saying, "if all you're interested in is politics, why are you teaching English Lit?"

 

We are now in an incredibly uptight, hyper-politicized era - may I live long enough to see this pass. Probably won't....:)

 

nat

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Myself - I have an aversion to mixing politics and art.

 

Same here, for me music is about entertaining, not preaching. Someone like Dylan managed to merge the two fairly successfully, but he was also a product of the times.

 

We are now in an incredibly uptight, hyper-politicized era

 

No we're not, you moron :)

 

Seriously, though, I chalk it up to selfishness. People think about what's in it for them, not what's in it for our society, culture, and future.

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Myself - I have an aversion to mixing politics and art. It's a short step to a situation where art is judged on its political content. Like with literature - I took a lot of Lit Crit sorts of classes, but I always felt like saying, "if all you're interested in is politics, why are you teaching English Lit?"

 

We are now in an incredibly uptight, hyper-politicized era - may I live long enough to see this pass. Probably won't....:)

 

nat

 

Some forces are doing their absolute best to have art judged on it's political content. That's what cancel culture is all about. What are seen as cultural icons, down the road, will depend on whether the cancel culturists win.

 

But even if they win, people will see that the body of artists, composers, writers etc. whose work is deemed acceptable (because of their political views and perceived moral purity), will rapidly shrink as more becomes known about the individuals' lives, and they don't make the cut. Until none but the most bland and forgettable remain.

 

So I despise cancel culture. And don't think government should be in the business of picking winners and losers in the art world.

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Some forces are doing their absolute best to have art judged on it's political content. That's what cancel culture is all about. What are seen as cultural icons, down the road, will depend on whether the cancel culturists win.

 

But even if they win, people will see that the body of artists, composers, writers etc. whose work is deemed acceptable (because of their political views and perceived moral purity), will rapidly shrink as more becomes known about the individuals' lives, and they don't make the cut. Until none but the most bland and forgettable remain.

 

So I despise cancel culture. And don't think government should be in the business of picking winners and losers in the art world.

 

Don't worry, it's just a fad and a distraction. In 90 days, there will be a new cause celebre. Look how fast #metoo, net neutrality, Edward Snowden, armed teachers, eminent domain, etc. fell off the popular radar. People have the attention span of a gnat.

 

Correction: of a gnat in heat :) Music has outlasted all of that BS.

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I have so many mixed feelings about the current era, they should name a drink with a 10,000 ingredients after me.

 

Everyone needs heroes. It's an ancient, ancient ritual for people who struggle to find, name, venerate, and eventually embellish and whitewash their heroes. As it's also an ancient, ancient ritual to demote, discredit, and destroy the heroes of opponents, applying 100% evilosity to "their" heroes.

 

It was a radical Protestant thing once long ago to take a big rock and heave it through the stained glass window of a Catholic church. How very punk those early Protestants could be! Iconoclasts have been around since about forever, about as long as there have been images or statues or icons that offend.

 

What revolution or reform or great change in attitudes was ever accomplished in a perfectly polite and moderate fashion? There are always, always, always, excesses and wrongdoings perpetrated by some of those fighting for what is ultimately a good cause.

 

And what established order can you name from any point in history that defended the rights and privileges and entitlements of the better-ofs without visiting some level of injustice and oppression along the way?

 

I've attended a lot of churces, know and have known a vast number of religious people. I know what self-righteousness looks like. It comes almost automatically with moral fervor, as a pitfall. It is very, very, very hard to have any deeply held beliefs and any strong moral fibre and fire, and not fall prey to self-righteousness. Why, you can even be self-righteous about having no moral beliefs at all!

 

So I applaud the current moral fervor for justice and equality, and deplore the attendant self-righteousness, and want to hold on to what I've got, and want other people to have a fair share, and I've known police brutality first-hand, and I value peace and order in the community, and I think some troublemakers are taking advantage, and I think not enough people are stirring things up enough, and I'm glad and proud and ashamed and appalled to be a U.S. citizen right now, all at the same time.

 

nat

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So I applaud the current moral fervor for justice and equality, and deplore the attendant self-righteousness, and want to hold on to what I've got, and want other people to have a fair share, and I've known police brutality first-hand, and I value peace and order in the community, and I think some troublemakers are taking advantage, and I think not enough people are stirring things up enough...

 

Yin, meet yang. :)

 

I had a friend who once said the universe was like two giant sumo wrestlers - one good, one evil. Sometimes one would get ahead, but over time, they always ended up fighting to a draw.

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Very wise insights, thanks. Where else could you get that other than MP.com and SSS?

 

Who would have ever thought that George Washington and the founding fathers would be targeted and discredited? Much less Dr. Seuss and Mark Twain. And when the last statue is toppled, they're coming for the songs. Someone at the KC forum thinks all of Southern rock should be cancelled. Why? Because supposedly, half the bands and 100% of the audience is racist.

 

All the self righteousness that used to be associated with religious people has been co-opted, jacked up on steroids and set on fire by the "woke", cancel culture crowd. There is nothing more dangerous than a fanatic on the verge of self-immolation with an all-consuming sense of their own holiness and moral infallibility. It's the crusades all over again.

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You can't force enlightenment. All you can do is educate people, and hope they run with it.

 

But don't put too much emphasis on the "cancel culture" and "woke" crowd. Most people don't give a flying f*ck. The "movement" is blown out of proportion because it helps fill the 24-hour news cycle and advance various agendas. It will go out of fashion as quickly as it went into fashion, once the media finds something else to get all riled up about.

 

For me the past is the past; what matters is what we do in the present, which lays the foundation for the future. I believe trying to pretend that certain parts of history didn't exist is stupid. Personally, I think it's a positive accomplishment for society to go from accepting slavery to rejecting it. We should be reminded that slavery existed, because it shows that it is possible to make positive changes.

 

I love Berlin, and I was trying to figure out why I love it so much. Then it hit me: It's a constant reminder that sometimes, the good guys win. There are remnants of the wall that remind us that once there was a wall. There are road signs to Dachau, where there are no longer concentration camps. Nazi buildings are now libraries. Seeing how the worst elements of the past were vanquished gives hope for the future...and that's a good thing.

 

Aside from having an historical perspective on how we got to where we are, it's not important to me that the president used to have slaves. What's important to me is that presidents no longer do. The more we celebrate progress, the more incentive there is to create progress.

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The more privileged classes in every era always feels like they've reached a pinnacle of human potential. And without fail, after a certain amount of time, any particular bygone era becomes thoroughly discredited by hindsight critics of the new priviledged class that feels like they've reached a pinnacle of human potential.

 

The criticism of the past and the hubris of the present are two sides of the same coin.

 

So where does that leave us? Well, in the same boat, clearly. When I say us, I mean us, all of us. Not just our contemporaries with whom we disagree while my crowd is somehow exempt.

 

In other words, the best of us right here and now believe and do things that future critics will damn and blast, and future jills and joes will scratch their heads and think, "how totally corrupt and hypocritical and morally blind and self-serving people were back then, circa 8/7/2020." Things we accept without a blink or a hitch or a second thought - the future will find us all naked emperors of our own realm of illusions.

 

And they will feel like they've reached a pinnacle of human potential.

 

So I forgive everyone who lived in the past for not having the point of view and identical moral and ethical framework that I have, that we have. How could they? The people in the past were all fish saying "what is this 'water' stuff you keep talking about?" And so are we.

 

What matters is how you negotiate the times you live in, not how these times stack up against past times. (cue the Gandalf clip.) There are exceptional people from great time to time, who seem to transcend the common moral vision and assumptions and self-satisfactions of the era they live in. I don't qualify for such a distinction. But I do try to reach a tiny bit upward and forward so that at least I live up to my better potential than otherwise. Sometimes I like to think I've done so to some small extent. And sometimes I feel that I've wasted a fortune of time and opportunity with small, selfish, bricked-in concerns.

 

But from any truly large perspective, the difference in heights between ants is not impressive.

 

nat

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There was a character on the old Laugh In show in the 60's called the Reverend from the Church of What's Happening Now. Who here knows that? Only us old farts in our 70's. There are plenty of folks on this forum in their 50's who don't know that show or the good Reverend either. They only know Woodstock as a reference in an old movie or article. Each generation has their own culture hero's the older generations know little about. SOP for the human race.

 

How many of us here understand the difference between TikTok and Instagram or Twitter? Why is that so important to gazillions of young people? I certainly have no idea but it's a big deal to them. Same with Facebook. Zuckerberg just became the third richest person in the world yet many of the older generation wear the mantra "I never use that POS Facebook!" like it's a badge of honor or something. I was literally amazed to find out the other day Facebook has close to 3 BILLION users. The population of the entire planet is about 9 billion. Talk about a worldwide cultural phenom. Absolutely incredible yet older people know little about it other than they think it's some stupid little fad by the kids that will soon pass. Ha, and what term did I just use? Fad. Do people under 30 ever use that word? Do they even know what it means? My ladyfriend is a retired teacher with a masters degree but like all of us is stuck in her era. She will see an article about new words that have been added to Websters Dictionary and thinks it's blasphemy. That's not English! Those are not real words! I try to break it to her, they are now but she will have none of it.

 

I think it's because many older people are fearful of becoming irrelevant, what they know or knew doesn't matter any more and by extension it makes their whole lives irrelevant. That's an exaggeration of course but I think there's some truth there. We used to be the authority figures, she was literally the teacher to hundreds of kids in her day but her kids are 50 or so now and if her kids don't understand what's happening now how can she or us be expected to have any clue at all? That's scary to a lot of folks I think. People cling to what they know because it represents security to them. Me? I don't have that kind of attachment to what others consider icons, never did. To me they're not icons, merely interesting. It's been fascinating over the years to see how emotionally attached people become to their icons. Not to be insulting to anybody but I think it's because they're leading shallow lives with little meaning so they latch onto external things. I've always been aware of course, of new fads or watched icons come and go and it had little to do with me, I'm just an outside observer. Now that I'm retired and living in a retirement community I'm constantly reminded that I'm pretty much alone with that attitude. I'm surrounded by people who live in a time warp like an episode of the Twilight Zone. Their way is the One True Way, that's who they are and damned if they're gonna change now.

 

I find that kind of depressing but I don't let it bother me. It was totally predictable and I knew it was coming because I've seen it my whole life.

 

Bob

Hammond SK1, Mojo 61, Kurzweil PC3, Korg Pa3x, Roland FA06, Band in a Box, Real Band, Studio One, too much stuff...
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But don't put too much emphasis on the "cancel culture" and "woke" crowd. Most people don't give a flying f*ck. The "movement" is blown out of proportion because it helps fill the 24-hour news cycle and advance various agendas. It will go out of fashion as quickly as it went into fashion, once the media finds something else to get all riled up about.

 

I hope you're right. There are already signs of a backlash building, not just from the right but from old school liberals, who remember the old days of "I may not agree with what you say but I will fight to the death to defend your right to say it".

 

Adding this link. What I said about when the last statue is toppled, they're coming for the songs.

 

https://www.savingcountrymusic.com/the-night-they-drove-old-dixie-down-needs-no-redemption/ (sorry, couldn't link to the offending RS article)

 

Here's a electrifying performance of that song by the racist Dobie Grey.

 

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