From: Arlo J. Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Mon Mar 28 2005 - 16:57:00 BST
Matt, Everyone Else,
Platt wrote:
> Someone: There are many roots of degeneracy in America. Rock is just one. The
largest root Pirsig describes in detail in Chapter 24 of Lila -- the amorality
of SOM..
Poot:
> This really, really peeves me. When a generalizing statement like this is
made, it is said in the assumption that there is "correctness" to this view.
It's a talk radio tactic. Assume your generalizations are "sound", repeat them
ad nauseum, refuse to enter into any critical dialogue. Platt assumes if he
just says it over and over and over again, and each time act like no critical
challenges were ever made, that everyone will just begin to accept his
"argument".
I had called Platt "Rigel" a while back. Over the weekend, while rereading ZMM
(in preparation for riding season), I've been rethinking this. In many ways
Platt is more like the Chairman. He loves to pontificate, is not interested in
seeking anything beyond what he already "believes" to be right, and is annoyed
by critical questions to his superior sensibilities.
You can challenge Platt that you find Pink Flyod or Yes to be "not degenerate",
or even socially affirmative, but Platt will only respond that he has a
superior ability to detect "sex" in music, even if you are too naive or
inferior to see it. He is BETTER than you, Matt, I hate to say it, but that's
where he is coming from in this dialogue.
If you look at Platt's exchange with Erin, you'll see he is trying to pull off a
big rhetorical maneuver. He has evaded the questions challenging "rock" as
"degenerate", and has moved the dialogue into the general, saying, "capitalism
is a Dynamic institution in that it allows people maximum freedom to produce
and exchange goods and services by "preventing static economic patterns for
setting in and stagnating economic growth." But with the Dynamic freedom of
capitalism comes the freedom to be bad as well as good."
From this not-so-subtle rhetorical shift, he also puts forth yet another
erroneous dichotomy. He says, "From today's postmodern intellectuals who preach
relativism we're not getting any help. When everything is tolerated,
indifference to degeneration is the inevitable result." You see, in Platt's
mind, if you disagree with him that "all rock is degenerate", the only other
option is uncritical relativism.
From here, since he presupposes "the bad" to be "all rock", he can control the
dialogue without being bothered by pesky critical questions. The question
SHOULD be: even if Dynamic systems generate "bad" along with "good", and even
if we should be critical of "what's bad", this says absolutely nothing against
your underlying assumption that "what's bad" is "rock".
That is where we need to force Platt to remain until he can provide at least
some semblance of thought.
But take a closer look at his combined statements. At the top of this post, he
makes the explicit claim that "rock causes degeneracy". Although, as I've
stated, this is as idiotic as stating "classical music causes non-degeneracy",
notice how in his talk on capitalism, and how it produces some bad along with
all the good it does, he doesn't mention poverty, alienation,
disenfranchisement, etc. Indeed, he has repeatedly stated in the past that
these were ACCEPTABLE and moral outcomes of capitalism. But the true "bad" that
capitalism leaves in its wake is "rock music".
Do you see the idiocy of such a statement? He says we should be critical of the
"bad" created by capitalism, but not poverty, alienation, disenfranchisment, by
God no! THOSE things are perfectly acceptable outcomes of capitalism. But rock!
We must rally against it!
Platt asked Erin (conflating his belief that "rock is pornographic" with
promoting Dynamic freedom): Can you imagine they would be more dynamic with
more pornography?
Can you imagine they would be more dynamic with more censorship?
Up until now, Platt has been exclusively tying the degenercy of rock to "sex".
In his latest statement, he says: To the extent that rock
sanctions unbridled sex and incites the overthrow of existing social
protections of freedom (such as capitalism), it is a form of degeneracy."
Since "all rock is degenerate", this means now that all rock is either all about
unbridled sex or overthowing social protections of freedom. Vapid claims, to be
sure, but notice how Platt is trying to conflate "incites the overthrow of"
with "raise any critical voice against or in opposition". Music, then, should
only ever reify and promote static social patterns, it should never be critical
of them.
If capitalism causes poverty and strife, we shouldn't be allowed to sing about
it. If "entrepreneurs" in 70s London exploit disenfranchised youth for profit,
we shouldn't sing about it. If there are people starving in Mexico or Africa,
don't sing about it! We should only sing about how wonderful and glorious our
static social patterns are!
As for the "unbridled sex" nonsense, well, since he has left all previous
critical challenges to this go, I doubt anything I can say now will prompt an
answer. But, since Peggy Lee's Fever prompted a lot of "unbridled sex", and yet
its "artistic superiority" excempts it from concern, I can only state again
that its not about "sex", it is more about Victorian sexual repression, but it
is really about "what Platt likes". The charges of sex and all this other stuff
are thrown on after the fact to try to add "proof" to what amounts to nothing
more than an answer the question:
"And what is well written, and what badly -- need we ask Lysias, or any other
poet or orator, who ever wrote or will write either a political or any other
work, in metre or out of metre, poet or prose writer, to teach us this?"
Platt answers: Yes, you need to ask me.
Arlo
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