Scholarly discussion of the music of John Cage.

["Sebastian Berweck" <>]

Dear Sara and everybody

to mis-quote somebody similarly controversial when it comes to direct
action: "Cage gegen seine Liebhaber verteidigen". In this little essay in
"Prismen" Adorno de-sanctifies Bach and aren't we glad. If this is the
impetus for the discussion I guess it's a good one. 

But Cage: He obviously had more Zen in his little finger than I will have
three lifes on and his spirituality seems hippiesk to me.  But is he
"guilty" of an "uncomfortable racial dimension" because he didn't take
direct action on this topic just as he never did? And when the explanation
he gave is consistent with his view on the world, however flawed it was? I
don't know. That sounds like you have to take off your clothes for PETA in
order to be a good vegetarian.

In any case, Sara, IMHO this is a great study and I thoroughly enjoyed
reading it. Well, I scanned it first, now I'm reading every word.

All the best
Sebastian



-----Original Message-----
From: Heimbecker, Sara 
[mailto:]
 
Sent: Mittwoch, 22. Juni 2011 17:19
To: Rob Haskins; Stefano Pocci
Cc: Ian Pace; Sebastian Berweck; 

Subject: [silence] Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: RE: Re: Re: Re: Cage's prejudices

Two quick thoughts:


  1.  Cage's political thinking changes quite a bit over the span of his
life, as one would expect.  He does not always hold what Stefano called an
"acceptance position" and at the end of his life what looks like
"retreat/defeat" may really be that.  (More "retreat" than "defeat.")  I
think we need to be really specific about contextualizing the debate.
  2.  I think it helps to put this critique of Cage that Rob, Ian and I have
been proposing into context as well.  It seems a little unfair to place
today's standards on a now historical figure.  However, Christian Wolff said
that Cage always fancied himself on the cutting edge politically and
socially, but by the end of the 1960s he was really surprised to be "left
behind" by artists just a bit younger who were much more politically active.
Wolff admitted that there was indeed something strange about Cage's
politics.  It's not just our retrospective eye that is making this
"politically correct" observation.  Cage's younger contemporaries were
making this critique of him as well-quietly and respectfully.  (Well, except
for Cardew!)

Rob, perhaps the list is springing to life because he finally have a little
time to think about these interesting topics!

Sara




On 6/22/11 9:00 AM, "Rob Haskins" 
<>
 wrote:

Wow, the Silence list remains dormant, almost nonexistent, for months and
then this burst of activity happens. Lovely.

I think there's been a tendency, especially in musicology, to try to keep
the music value free: to discuss music and music, art for art's sake. That's
begun to break down (has been for some time, since the 1980s). Cage is ripe
for the kind of interrogation Ian proposes. And while I sympathize with
Stefano's view--that he pointed toward the problem in a way that invited
people to look at it anew with the hope of solving it--I wish he could have
been a little more proactive about it himself. His beliefs in anarchism
prevented him, for instance, from signing on to protest anything one way or
the other, because (I think) he feared that speaking in support for it might
have coerced others who could not think as clearly or carefully into taking
on that belief or cause inauthentically.  The subtle power structures that
exist today can easily appropriate and subvert this kind of thinking.

best,
Rob

On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 5:10 AM, Stefano Pocci 
<>
wrote:

 On 06/21/2011 07:42 PM, Ian Pace wrote:
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







 Great discussion, thanks a lot to everyone involved.


 I'd like to quote Satie as Cage did in his lecture for the French composer
when the latter says:

 "Personally, I am neither good nor bad. I sway, if one may say that.
Actually I have never done anyone any harm - or good either."

 or Buckminster Fuller when he said that "he was working to make the
existent system obsolete". (I think) I can see why Cage mentioned these
lines or why he was so into Duchamp's works which were not a matter of
"being bad or good" but something beyond this uninteresting polar situation.
It's the same thread (to me) that ties the anarchy and politics issues and
the way he treated them. Or maybe re-treated them:-)

 Ian anticipated me with a couple of appropriate quotations such as:
"protesting it's like throwing gas over a fire" or "protest is being
absorbed by the power forces". Cage would rather continue without a qualm on
his path (emptiness-silence) following his strict principles (which don't
imply contradiction with anarchy as I had wrongly thought so far) as that's
the way to forge ahead (citing his "living on water" mesostic here). I feel
like the reason why these statements still generate this kind of discussions
must be found both in a more critical (and fairer) view of Cage's opinions
and in his being outside any kind of model we try to place him in.

 Of course the real troubles (racism, poverty, wars, political climate, etc)
he was surrounded by remained, which is why his acceptance position was
sometimes valued as a retreat/defeat and therefore inserted again in the
cause-effect scheme such acceptance refused. But even if we state that his
thoughts weren't practical/concrete enough, had the remedies then devised
proved to work so far? At least Cage offers a different (I should have said
"outside") point of view that (hopefully) compels us to think of a new kind
of solution.

 Ian is right when he says that "...With respect to lynchings, Jim Crow
laws, etc., would it have been 'best to ignore it, put your attention
elsewhere'?". Of course not. But (I think) Cage was pointing at the root of
the issue. WHY those things happened and HOW TO prevent them to happen
again. We need a long-term solution as well as a immediate one for present
troubles, that's the big challenge.