Culture mod and pop music linked? I am not sure at all.

My brother - firmly established in singapore and just as well since recent rainless weather is almost certainly where Melbourne will be forever headed - sent me today an article by "Elliott Wave" that aims to show how popular culture is related closely to swinging economic fortunes, based on a 2009 study by USA Today.

The argument is that the angry mood of the late 1970s "punk revolution" reflected the way in which markets were collapsing due to stagflation, and the same with the Bush Senior Era's rap revolution.

On the other side, the "Oh, wow, I feel great and I love everybody" sentiment of the 1960s is seen as reflecting the long boom since World War II. Author Susan C. Walker even extends her idea before rock even existed, arguing that the atonal music of Bartok reflected the downturn from World War I and the Great Depression. To me, that is unlikely; rather atonal music - which is wrongly seen as rebellious I think - may reflect the highly sensual culture found in developed sectors of the Enriched World during the 1920s. "The Waste Land", with hindsight, was a reaction against the materialistic excesses that some saw as philosophically responsible for the colonial struggles crucial for producing World War I. (The same is basically true of, say Patti Smith's decadent mysticism in the late 1970s which combines almost-religious tones with extremely sensual poetry). Another big problem is when they say:

Some darker rock bands even get back together when the mood sours. AC/DC hit No. 1 on the Billboard charts in 2008, and The Sex Pistols returned to the concert circuit after the Dow peaked in 2007.

they fail like so many to recognise how AC/DC and the Sex Pistols were anything but dark. Rather, they were about trying to eliminate all rationale for restrictions on hedonistic pleasure as hand existed in Western culture since Christianity. Their music was celebratory like no other bands before: to the point of celebrating violence. It is more likely that the period between punk and the Bush Senior Era reflects the rise of the Baby Boom Generation and its frequently hedonistic and extremely selfish attitudes. If these have been repressed by commercial radio since the Bush Senior radicals faded, they could come back if later generations are equally selfish and not because of economic factors.

Are people in agreement with me about music?

As a whole, I have always found it tough to agree with what the public says about music, even though I have been a music listener for a long time.

When in 1995 I heard of Triple J being a major source fo new Australian music, I was suspicious because I hated the aggressive noises which formed a wrongly and badly stereotyped vision of "alternative rock" for me for almost a decade.

10. 4 Non-Blondes, "What's Up?"
I have never liked this one: its drearily annoying lyrics and syrupy hard rock sound really stands as terrible

9. Right Said Fred, "I'm Too Sexy"
Have no definite recollections of this song at all, but cannot imagine it beging great after the techno/dance style music of the 1990s I did hear

8. Baha Men, "Who Let The Dogs Out?"
If I recall correctly, I would have to agree with this one even more than the previous two

7. Celine Dion, "My Heart Will Go On"
Not as offensive, perhaps, as the others, but even more syrupy.

6. Hanson, "MMMBop"
Not as bad as the previous four, to be frank, and not as bad as songs by Corona or The Real McCoy I did hear, but still has no substance at all

5. Chumbawamba, "Tubthumping"
This is one I never recognised from its title in the day but now do see as an utterly awful song, distinctly worse than any of the previous five. Despite having an interest in anarchism myself, I do not see any message exept partying here.

4. Vanilla Ice, "Ice Ice Baby"
Though it became awfully unfashionable soon after ceasing to be a hit and I have not a single memory of it on the readio thereafter, I do not find this one as bad as the previous two - which does not mean it's remotely good or has redeeming qualities!

3. Billy Ray Cyrus, "Achy Breaky Heart"
If anything, I would say this huge it is worse than what Vanilla Ice did the previous year. Though in the cloistered suburbs I saw nothing of the Bush Senior era cultural revolution, I never liked "Achy Breaky Heart".

2. Los Del Rio, "Macarena"
Now we have an utterly awful song! Probably the line "return of the Mac" was the single song that had the most decisive effect in turning me awya from contemporary hits even before I was seriously exposed to songs that I though went "I kill you"/"What's that gonna change" which in an environment where people nearly murdered me with a heavy rock naturally made me think of as awfully dangerous to young kids who at times confessed to watching Double Dragon, saying "Double Dragon is rated R"!

1. Aqua, 'Barbie Girl'
It's hard for me to say this is nearly the worst song I have ever heard, but it really is rather childish and, as my mother once said when she thought Triple J played songs saying "you must have big (expletive)" and that Triple J was designed for 11- or 12-year-olds, I cannot sympathise with the message.

However, I feel as if Rolling Stone's readers have not recalled a few songs at least that were worse than most of those here:

1. TISM "Shut Up, The Footy's One The Radio" - one of the most awfully noisy songs trying to commercialise a sport that had no need for it
2. Corona, "Rhythm of the Night" and The Real McCoy "Love and Devotion" - the most utterly tuneless noise for a spoiled generation (of course I'm much worse so maybe it makes no difference)

The odd thing is how I hate every song listed by music listeners whose experience since I first read Joe S. Harrington a decade ago a so vastly different! It's as if, even if I had no understanding of music history and saw no seriousness in listening as I hope I do now, I still could see something even in the 1990s!

How costly will climate change in the Enriched World be?

Although for years I have emphasised the cost of man-made global warming in the fragile environment of Australia and the dreadful failure for the past thirty years of Australia’s ruling classes to act as if they were interested in maintaining the value of Australia’s environment by preventing greenhouse emissions with a rigid one hundred percent renewable energy policy, I have always thought the impacts on the Enriched World (and even the Tropical World) would not be of any importance.

However, Time this year has shown that the effects of climate change even in the robust environments of North America have the potential to be serious. Last month, when there was still hope for good rains that have been quashed by a bone-dry spell in Victoria that I would rather believe will last forever, Time published an article about drought in the American South and Southwest that made me suspect climate change’s effects could be felt in areas with greatly higher runoff ratios and essentially zero (as against 200-400mm in southern Australia) runoff thresholds. Evidence of extreme patterns of dryness and wetness in the US, as can be seen from last “year”’s rainfall data by state and district, is as with Australia in recent years proof that carbon emissions are chnging the climate immensely.

The way in which the eastern part of the affected region has been affected by a hurricane and flooding is perhaps a suggestion that in the future the American South may acquire the rainfall variability of a tropical region, which as those who understand Central Queensland (which does not even include people in southern Australia) will know, can have drastic effects. At the same time it is these very regions (actually in the hottest parts of the Enriched World) which are gaining people through their more hospitable (less masculinised) cultures as regions further north lose people to high living costs, big government and glaciation-generated lack of mineral resources. A potential problem in these regions is that as hotter regions become drier or harsher, market reforms in cooler regions (which invariably have little land and hence no economic agriculture) could force more production onto hot regions that have even less water than before anthropogenic global warming.

Such a change could make global warming even worse if hotter regions resort to coal-based desalination, since they will either lose soil nutrients from erratic tropical rainfall or become even drier and have to irrigate more with less – and there are limits to what can be done here because crops cannot withstand heat above a certain point. This gives a good reason to try to farm in cooler regions for the future and to try to get around the huge governments: it could mean a lot for the world if sustainable demographics return in cooler regions even without the extreme living standards.

Anti-elitism does not mean anti-competitiveness; Human Events wrong again

No. 232 of 365

Pick a fight with a liberal on:
ELITISM.

Liberals believe in egalitarianism. They don't often get called on it, though, because no one bothers to defend elitism—but you should. Ask a liberal, “So you really disapprove of competition and hierarchy and achievement and want everything to be equal do you? Well, answer me this, if you were president and you needed a handful of troops to do a delicate, dangerous job, who would you turn to—a unit of racially and sexually and disability diverse troops or the elite: Special Forces, Navy Seals, Delta Force? When you watch football, assuming you're willing to watch something so violent and competitive, do you want to watch the elite, the best of the best, the professionals who made it to the NFL on the basis of their talent and training, or a United Nations coordinated rainbow coalition of teams drawn from men and women from around the world to make it a truly global unisex game? Or suppose you needed serious surgery, would you prefer the operation to be done by a surgeon with years of practice behind him, drawn from the elite of the medical profession, or by a deserving recent immigrant, selected for the task as a result of the new Obamafair™ social justice program designed to boost the self-esteem of low-skill workers while simultaneously combating society's sexist, racist, elitist hegemony?”

This is a familiar argument from the Right against the radical egalitarianism of the Left which they think so consistently undermines all incentive for achievement. The case study is problematic in an odd kind of way: whilst the Left really want equality of outcome, they equally love competition in the most aggressive manner possible.

The relationship between these goals is at first sight hard to see, since equality of outcome would rule out activities where one gender and some races (e.g. Asian-Americans and Native Americans, owing to their light bones) are at the most extreme disadvantage. However, even before the radical masculinisation of the Enriched World during the 1970s and 1980s, it is noteworthy how the most violent sports, like ice hockey and gridiron, were popular in the most socialistic and egalitarian regions like Scandinavia and the Pacific Northwest. This does suggest that aggression, even hypermasculinity could be inherent in the whole idea of socialism - and if you believe Hans Hoppe, in democracy itself.

The whole idea of showing the world that America is the best or the biggest seems to attract the attention of liberal leftists. At least showing that America can equal Europe and East Asia in environmental sustainability and income equality seems to be a goal.

The problem with this whole idea is the very notion that most people are attracted by these things. In fact, the government spending and taxation required for these things, especially in a country which is fairly well-endowed with coal and other fossil fuels does not attract migrants or investment. Russia’s restrictive government in its resource-rich Far East is a good example. Trying to encourage noncompetitiveness and harmony, which require a limited government, actually is much more conservative than the reverse.

Understanding the British riots and the decay they symbolise

Ross Douthat, a commentator I have had links to for some time but have not seriously read until now, has recently provided a devastating critique of the welfare state culture that has swamped almost all of the Enriched World over the past ninety-five years.

He argues quite strangely but not unrealistically that even those who see the riots as a logical response to government austerity programmes à la Green Left Weekly or Socialist Worker: they are not defending government programmes, but are arguing instead by rioting that they fear that the specialty goods they seem desire greatly to symbolise their individualism may not be available if the government cuts welfare spending.

The quote:

“A street of shuttered shops, locked playgrounds and closed clinics, a street patrolled by citizens armed with knives and bats, is not a place to build a life”

tells exactly the same story as Richard Nisbett does about culture of honour in the inner city. As I have emphasised before, an industrial Britain has the key pre-requisites for a culture of honour if government is absent:

1. glaciation of most of Britain has deprived it of the essential mineral resources
• fossil laterites in glaciated areas suggest strongly that before the ice sheets came northern Europe had essential industrial minerals but soils akin to the infertile soils of Australia and Southern Africa today
  
2. mineral resources (or at least their products like cars and so many technological gadgets) tend to be portable so that theft is not difficult. This is especially true of the electronics and boutique clothing that angry masses tend to target as Victor Davis Hanson shows.
   
3. without government or with the police ineffective the masses would have to regulate law themselves, and with scarcity of resources prevalent the prevailing means of doing so is by force

Both these viewpoints suggest that they key issue is that the masses of Britons really care about little more than having the most fashionable goods - a tale on instant gratification gone beserk that explains why long-term stability has been confined to the isolated suburbs of Australia and to a decreasing extent Red America where the influences of the radical individualism preached by businessmen is least.