Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

["Ian Pace" <>]

Cage spoke and wrote often about his social/political views; it was hardly 
as if he was disengaged from debate. And on several occasions he made very 
explicit his opposition to active politics and protest movements, as with:

'I am interested in social ends, but not in political ends, because politics 
deals with power, and society deals with numbers of individuals; and I'm 
interested in both single individuals and large numbers or medium numbers or 
any kinds or numbers of individuals. In other words, I'm interested in 
society, not for purposes of power, but for purposes of cooperation and 
enjoyment. ' (Interview in Source (1969), cited in Richard Kostelanetz, 
Conversing with Cage, second edition (New York and London: Routledge, 2003), 
p. 274)

or

My notion of how to proceed in a society to bring change is not to protest 
the thing that is evil, but rather to let it die its own death. And I think 
we can state that the power structure is dying because it cannot make any 
inspiring statements about what it is doing.

I think that protests about these things, contrary to what has been said, 
will give it the kind of life that a fire is given when you fan it, and that 
it would be best to ignore it, put your attention elsewhere, take actions of 
another kind of positive nature, rather than continue to give life to the 
negative by negating it. (Cage, 'Diary: How to Improve the World (You Will 
Only Make Matters Worse) Continued 1968 (Revised)', in M; Writings '67-'72 
(Middletown, CN: Wesleyan University Press, 1969), p. 12)

or

'Protest movements could quite easily, ad despite themselves, lead in the 
opposite direction, to a reinforcement of law and order. There is in 
acceptance and non-violence an underestimated revolutionary force. but 
instead, protest is all too often absorbed into the flow of power, because 
it limits itself to reaching for the same old mechanisms of power, which is 
the worst way to challenge authority! We'll never get away from it that 
way!' (Interviewed by Daniel Charles, c. 1970, in For the Birds (London: 
Marion Boyars, 1981), p. 236)

The last comment in particular makes a lot of powerful points, but Cage's 
resignation (with respect to 'acceptance', non-violence is another matter) 
seems particularly casual in light of some of the achievements of protest in 
the years leading up to then. How would Rosa Parks have felt about this, 
say? The second quote I find actually quite crass when considering the vital 
work of human rights organisations or dissident groups in bringing to wider 
attention terrible human rights abuses in various regimes, and protesting 
these - I am pretty sure many such regimes would prefer Cage's option. With 
respect to lynchings, Jim Crow laws, etc., would it have been 'best to 
ignore it, put your attention elsewhere'?

If Cage simply had not had much to say about any form of politics, it would 
be one thing, but this was far from the case. As he had so much to say on 
this subject, it's only fair that these might be interrogated. If it is all 
right to cite them positively, as many writers on Cage have done, then it 
should be all right to look at them more critically as well.

Best,
Ian


--------------------------------------------------
From: "Sebastian Berweck" 
<>
Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2011 3:37 PM
To: 
<>
Subject: [silence] RE: RE: Re: Re: Re: Cage's prejudices

> Does this mean that there's an uncomfortable dimension of Cage on these
> issues? Or just that he decided to not take immediate action on them? That
> said: One could see the whole act of composing as a retreat and thus 
> follow
> Cardew's later route. But did that help? At least this Cage list is full 
> of
> discussions on zen, anarchy, politics. Almost 20 years later.
>
> I do sympathize with the portrait of him as someone who consciously
> positioned himself in his world and was aware of his chances though. That
> sounds much more humanoid than some portraits I've read.
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ian Pace 
> [mailto:]
> Sent: Dienstag, 21. Juni 2011 14:24
> To: Sebastian Berweck; 
>
> Subject: Re: [silence] RE: Re: Re: Re: Cage's prejudices
>
> Time has not yet permitted reading this dissertation (but I hope to do so
> soon), but I thought I might mention the argument on this type of issue 
> made
>
> in my paper and then article on Cage's anarchism. In a nutshell, that 
> Cage's
>
> disapproval of all protest movements - expressed most fervently at a time
> when protest movements were at their height - would involve dismissal of 
> the
>
> African-American civil rights movement, the Vietnam War protests, early
> protests from within modern feminism, Stonewall, later environmentalist
> protests, etc. And for all that none of the issues about which these 
> groups
> were protesting are in any sense wholly resolved right up into the present
> day, could one really say they did nothing but 'only make matters worse'?
> The USA (and many other developed countries) is still permeated by severe
> racism and discrimination, but it would be crass to dismiss such a matter 
> as
>
> the removal of all the major pre-civil rights obstacles to 
> African-Americans
>
> simply being able to vote, which was a very real achievement of the
> protests.
>
> Cage's particular form of anarchism strikes me as for the most part
> constituting a political retreat, which ultimately did little to upset the
> status quo, unlike the protestors of the 1960s.
>
> Best,
> Ian
>
> --------------------------------------------------
> From: "Sebastian Berweck" 
> <>
> Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2011 1:05 PM
> To: 
> <>
> Subject: [silence] RE: Re: Re: Re: Cage's prejudices
>
> > Hi Sara,
> >
> > I just read your PhD and would be interested to hear more about the 
> > "quite
> > uncomfortable racial dimension" in Cage's politics. I can see that Cage
> > didn't take part in any direct political action and I can see that this
> > could be criticized. What I can't see so far is where this personal
> > decision
> > and what you call his "overly abstract and naive" "utopian politics" of
> > his
> > amounts to a racial dimension, especially since he sort of states and
> > explains his discomfort in the interview with Nyffeler, which I 
> > understand
> > as a discomfort with the fact that the struggle for equality in a given
> > society does not change this society but rather strengthen a form of rule
> > which he rather would have liked to abolish.
> >
> > All the best
> > Sebastian
> >
> > PS: The quotation marks have no other quality than to indicate a more or
> > less direct quotation.
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Heimbecker, Sara 
> > [mailto:]
> > Sent: Montag, 20. Juni 2011 07:13
> > To: 
> >
> > Subject: [silence] Re: Re: Re: Cage's prejudices
> >
> > For those who are interested, I address a number of these issues in my
> > recent dissertation, John Cage's HPSCHD, (University of Illinois, 2011).
> > I
> > touch on the issues of Beethoven vs. Mozart, Cage's dislike of jazz, his
> > understanding of anarchy, etc., but perhaps most interestingly in this
> > context, I do make a case that there is a racial dimension to Cage's
> > politics that is quite uncomfortable.  Cage was staging an event that he
> > intended to represent an anarchic utopia in one of the most elitist 
> > arenas
> > of American life in 1968-69-the University.  (Please see chapter 4:  "The
> > Participatory Politics of HPSCHD.")
> >
> > Please note that David Patterson's letters were reprinted in the diss
> > without the proper permissions.  He does not wish to be associated with a
> > discussion of Cage and race.
> >
> > The document is available here and it is searchable:
> > https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/handle/2142/24332
> >
> > Best wishes,
> >
> > Sara Heimbecker
> >
> >
> >
> > On 6/19/11 5:28 PM, "Rob Haskins" 
> > <>
> >  wrote:
> >
> > Hi Ian,
> >
> > His remarks about Mozart are almost as odd as the ones about Beethoven. 
> > He
> > likes Mozart for his "quantity"--all the scales and passagework, the
> > chromaticism. It's bizarre.
> >
> > I believe that I remember your anarchism paper. I think the best source
> > for
> > understanding Cage's concept of anarchism--and I agree with you, pace 
> > Petr
> > Kotik, it was very serious and lasted to the end of his life--starts
> > properly with Men Against the State, by James Martin. Martin wrote about
> > the
> > American anarchist tradition, which was quite pacifistic in nature. (And
> > Martin was one of Cage's neighbors at Stony Point.) As for whether Cage's
> > anarchism falls within a theorized political tradition, I'm not so sure.
> > (I
> > remember Esther Ferrer's remark in a letter to Cage about anarchism:
> > "Anarchism does not fear contradictions, she is submerged in them.")
> >
> > Another little nugget that I haven't followed up on sufficiently: Andrew
> > Culver once wrote me, in response to my question to name the best source 
> > I
> > could consult on Cage's understanding of anarchism, "Bakunin." (Some
> > one-word responses are the best ones.) While I haven't read deeply
> > Bakunin's
> > work, I am not completely sure what he meant by that. I know Andrew reads
> > the Silence list; perhaps he might speak to this question.
> >
> > Lewis's article, as I recall, indeed brings a racial dimension to the
> > argument, and I tend to think that it's justified. Cage's remarks about
> > blacks, while few, are very odd. (For instance, his recollection that the
> > young black children "had no need of [him]" when he was teaching them
> > rhythm. I haven't read it in a long time, and initially I thought some of
> > it
> > was problematic. I have a feeling I'd find less of it problematic now.
> >
> > All best,
> > Rob
> >
> > On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 7:10 PM, Ian Pace 
> > <>
> >  wrote:
> > I'd be quite interested to know how anyone feels about how Cage's
> > (sort-of)
> > defence of Mozart fits into this picture as well - haven't got my texts 
> > to
> > hand at the moment, but I remember at least one occasion on which he made
> > a
> > case for Mozart as against Beethoven, mostly on account of the
> > Musikalisches
> > Würfelspiel but also concerning wider aspects of Mozart's approach.
> >
> > When writing my own piece critiquing Cage's anarchism around 5 years ago 
> > I
> > put together some material (not all used) on his relationship to various
> > key
> > anarchist thinkers, which I'll dig out and have a look at. I recall that
> > whilst he cites Mikhail Bakunin and Emma Goldman in the context of the
> > mesostic Anarchy and in the preference to that work, nonetheless he
> doesn't
> > appear to have engaged with either figure in any serious depth (unlike 
> > his
> > relationship with Thoreau), and Goldman's actions in terms of inciting
> > unemployed workers or distributing birth control literature would be
> > pretty
> > hard to reconcile with Cage's rather blanket disdain for serious 
> > political
> > activism. The term 'anarchism' is often used rather loosely in the 
> > context
> > of discussing Cage's work, whereas I do believe he, at least some of the
> > time, was quite serious about situating himself within one particular
> > strand
> > (not, to my mind, one of the more progressive varieties) of a theorised
> > political tradition.
> >
> > Should Cage's dislike for jazz be treated separately from his wider
> > dislike
> > of improvisation (of any type)? I haven't yet read Lewis's article (but
> > thanks for the pointer) - does he bring a racial dimension to the
> > argument,
> > and is this justified?
> >
> > best,
> > Ian Pace
> >
> > From: Rob Haskins 
> > <mailto:>
> > Sent: Sunday, June 19, 2011 10:57 PM
> > To: 
> >
> > Cc: 
> >
> > Subject: [silence] Re: Cage's prejudices
> >
> > The arguments in the Defense of Satie are less arguments against 
> > Beethoven
> > so much as they are Cage's own carving out a place for himself by
> > appealing
> > to other composer-forbears whose approach was more amenable to his own.
> > (And
> > not a little of the anti-Beethoven posturing had to do with the
> > circumstances surrounding its presentation at Black Mountain, then
> > dominated
> > by lots of people with pro-German musical sentiments including Albers and
> > Erwin Bodky.)
> >
> > My general feeling is that Satie's harmony is interesting and often plays
> > at
> > least a quasi structural role in his music (albeit that structure is much
> > different from Beethoven's). Likewise, I'm not sure that Cage's
> > description
> > of Webern is very satisfying other than as a(n admittedly interesting)
> > report of a surface impression.
> >
> > Cage's dislike of jazz is very well known and, in its way, about as off
> > the
> > mark as Adorno's view is. A good starting point for a nuanced critique
> > would
> > be George Lewis's article, "Improvised Music After 1950: Afrological and
> > Eurological Perspectives." Black Music Research Journal 16 (1996): 
> > 91-122.
> >
> > All best,
> > Rob
> > On Fri, Jun 17, 2011 at 4:20 PM, 
> > <>
> >  wrote:
> >
> > Cage  often spoke of his lack of likes and dislikes when given the 
> > chance,
> > but as we  all know there certainly existed a gulf between his point of
> > view
> > and things  such as jazz musics and Beethoven. I'd like to hear any of 
> > the
> > Silence  members' takes on these musical stances. For instance, he'd 
> > speak
> > of jazz  musicians as disparate members of a panel concurrently 
> > discussing
> > topics  oblivious to what each other might be saying, or referred to it 
> > as
>
> > a
> > political  noise, and he held Beethoven and Beethoven's music with equal
> > criticism. I've  never read his Defense of Satie, but could any of you
> > that
> > have read the essay  outline any of the more  convincing points Cage made
> > that stood pejoratively against Beethoven's music  and positively for
> > Satie's (other than Satie's music superficially organized  with time unit
> > as
> > opposed to Beethoven's frequency)? And how do Cage  enthusiasts interpret
> > his views on jazz music?