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Any American Prog Experts?
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gogmagog
176 posts

Edited Nov 27, 2008, 11:18
Re: Prog, Marx and Elitism
Nov 27, 2008, 11:12
Couldn't agree more. Much of that Leftist snobbery can be traced to the "Frankfurt School" of Marxist writing in the thirties and forties - particualrly Adorno, but also Horkheimer and Eisler as well (Adorno's little lap dog)

One popular criticism of these guys was that - Adorno, in particular - castiagted the whole of the "be-bop" movement in jazz in one fell swoop as "overtly populist" without ever really listening to any (when he was pressed he noted he heard "some") - and, thus, not being privvy to its pioneering experimentalism - albeit in a populist context. But for me that's the point!

It reeks of aesthetic elitism - what, if we all knew what was good for us - as Adorno and Eisler would have it - we be listening to Schoenberg, Webern and Berg 24 hours a day - and dreaming of some false radicalised utopia - whereby avant-garde art would rupture the very fabric of capitlaism - I think not!!!

Those Marxists have a problem with anything remotely populist - but often the greatest art renders the antagonisms between populism and avant-gardism - I've said this before somewhere else - but - this is why Penderecki's St Luke Passion works better than his Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, for example.

Its also why Yes's Relayer is better than Henry Cow!!

If, like me, your are of a slight socialist persuasion, but like populist art as much as experimental art - its better to read your post-Marxist, revisionist thinkers like SLAVOJ ZIZEK.

regards Gogmagog,

Np Judge Judy!
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