Philosophers should listen to punk rock. Though largely ignored in analytic aesthetics, punk can shed light on the nature, limits, and value of art. Here, I will begin with an overview of punk aesthetics and then extrapolate two lessons. First, punk intentionally violates widely held aesthetic norms, thus raising questions about the plasticity of taste. Second, punk music is associated with accompanying visual styles, fashion, and attitudes; this points to a relationship between art (...) and identity. Together, these lessons suggest that art appreciation is not just about finding beauty or aesthetic worth but is also about constructing a self. (shrink)

A Review of Heter & Greene's Punk Rock and Philosophy: Research and Destroy (Carus Books).

In the small but growing literature on the philosophy of country music, the question of how we ought to understand the genre’s notion of authenticity has emerged as one of the central questions. Many country music scholars argue that authenticity claims track attributions of cultural standing or artistic self-expression. However, careful attention to the history of the genre reveals that these claims are simply factually wrong. On the basis of this, we have grounds for dismissing these attributions. Here, (...) I argue for an alternative model of authenticity in which we take claims about the relative authenticity of country music to be evidence of ‘country’ being a dual character concept in the same way that it has been suggested of punk rock and hip-hop. Authentic country music is country music that embodies the core value commitments of the genre. These values form the basis of country artists’ and audiences’ practical identities. Part of country music’s aesthetic practice is that audiences reconnect with, reify, and revise this common practical identity through identification with artists and works that manifest these values. We should then think of authenticity discourse within country music as a kind of game within the genre’s practice of shaping and maintaining this practical identity. (shrink)

Post-Punk and Philosophy is a collection of twenty chapters by philosophers who are also post-punk fans, discussing many different aspects of the Post-Punk phenomenon. When does simplicity become too simple? Was punk a white proletarian movement? Are the best post-punk bands really pre-punk? Does technological innovation guarantee musical or artistic innovation? Does rock have a future? Post-Punk and Philosophy is a worthy follow-up to Punk Rock and Philosophy (2022), also edited (...) by Heter and Greene, hailed as "a really fascinating book reflecting diverse points of view: thought-provoking, intelligent, and controversial" (John Holmstrom, founding Editor-in-Chief of PUNK magazine). (shrink)

An outline topography of musical accessibility. What is musical accessibility? ; Society, atonality, psychology -- Accessibility discourse in rock, and cultural change. Case study 1 : 'Prog' rock/punk rock : sophistication, directness and shock ; Zeitgeist : accessibility in flux -- A valiant failure? : new art music and the people. Case study 2 : Vaughan Williams' national music in context ; Art music, vernacular music and accessibility -- Accessibility, identity and social (...) action. Case study 3a : Accessibility in action : Bahia, Brazil ; 3b : Samba in Wales : how is adopted music accessible? -- Part five. Themes. Some key concepts. (shrink)

Hardcore increases the speed, intensity, and contradictions of punk rock. Considering prevailing theories of rock music ontologies in the light of hardcore art practices provides reasons to rethink what we thought. Hardcore shows how recording-centered ontologies, underemphasizing what goes into playback, miss the materiality of some recording artworks. Hardcore art practices also show how performance-centered ontologies force us to divorce the played music from its full, embodied performanced artwork. In both cases, I highlight hardcore art (...) practices and how they conceive of artworks in a more multi-faceted fashion than either predominant view can fully capture. (shrink)

En 1976, mientras Milton Friedman recoge el Premio Nobel de Economía por sus logros en los campos del análisis del consumo y la teoría monetaria, el punk expande su mensaje de disonancia empujando los límites de lo decible hacia espacios hasta entonces poco conocidos. En ese mismo momento bandas como Iron Maiden comienzan a generar imaginarios extraños que canalizan algunas tendencias sociales; las pistas de baile exploran nuevas formas de relación cultural, y el espíritu nihilista de Iggy Pop flota (...) en el ambiente. La década de 1970 es la década del extrañamiento, en la que el sueño económico de la posguerra se deshace provocando la aparición en el horizonte de una “nueva” forma de revisar la construcción de la vida cotidiana: el neoliberalismo. En paralelo a este proceso, y en dirección opuesta, existe una búsqueda de respuestas a nivel cultural. Respuestas que no pretenden salvar nada, sino ahondar en la miseria de ese mismo tiempo. Ahí aparecen el punk y otros movimientos que pronto son devorados por el mercado. Pero ¿desde dónde se nos ha contado esta historia de derrotas? ¿Hemos aceptado que la historia de nuestras derrotas culturales sea narrada por la maquinaria neoliberal? Quizá debamos plantarnos y pensar otras formas de narrar una década, la de los setenta, en cuya estela seguimos. Este libro es un intento radical y novedoso de explorar este periodo donde cultura y política se cruzan a través de la música"--Publisher's description. (shrink)

The image of jazz in Ukrainian pop music is reproduced, the subcultures that dominate its modern manifestations are shown: African music, Irish-European melodies and rhythms, the interaction between pop music and folklore, a diametrically symmetrical structure, the appropriate composition of variable phrases (voice-instrument), various combinations of timbre acoustic electronics, a fusion of Ukrainian folklore and rock music. But, first of all, it is a harmonious combination of Afro-European traditions with Ukrainian folklore, its best examples. The (...) article also talks about the leading masters of Ukrainian jazz who managed to do this - Leonid Goldshtein and Igor Zhuromskyi, for whom the processing of folklore materials - household and African) with a predominance of appeals to the traditional folkloric Ukrainian musical stratum is characteristic. The aim. To reveal the image of jazz in Ukrainian pop music and its significance in the subculture. The tasks of the research are the analysis of the constituent subcultures in the modern representation of the art of Ukraine and their significance for the world artistic treasury. Research methodology. The methodology of the author’s research is based on the paradigmatic method, which allows determining the priority of artistic paradigms, the ratio of traditionally established and non-traditional vision of Ukrainian jazz culture. Reconstruction was also used - to reproduce the main milestones of the development of art of the 20th century within the scope of the research. Also, the methodology is based on a transdisciplinary approach, thanks to which we can study jazz not only in an art-historical aspect, but as a structure of European life of the given period. Research results: The results are as follows - it is 1) a feature of rock music style, such as heavy metal, punk rock, rock and roll, instrumental composition, the use of distinctive fans and unique sounding productions and vocals Intonation technology. 2) Saxophone melodies are built according to the Hutsul system with a characteristic degree of saxophone. 3) Official use of colomous rhythm in the voice. 4) Application of antique blues harmonic sequence. 5) Use of bluesy principles of questions and answers when alternating statements and instrumental episodes. 6) For vocal improvisation. Conclusion.So, we analyzed the interaction of Ukrainian modern pop and real folklore and jazz. Jazz, rock and pop styles were found, which are ideal for interpenetration with various Ukrainian subcultures, jazz-rock, free jazz, alternative music, rock and roll, blues-rock, trip-hop, pop ballad, disco music. The characteristics of the processing of folklore materials (domestic and African) are, first of all, an appeal to the traditional folklore layer, the method of performance (expressed by a real saxophone), the use of folk instruments or their tones. Depending on the genre that created jazz, rock and pop groups, the composition can be divided into folk songs and original compositions based on folklore. Popular music quotes folk and jazz material from pop music. (shrink)

Music and noise seem to be mutually exclusive. Music is generally considered as an ordered arrangement of sounds pleasing to the ear and noise as its opposite: chaotic, ugly, aggressive, sometimes even deafening. When presented in a musical context, noise can thus act as a tool to express resistance to predominant cultural values, to society, or to socioeconomic structures (including those of the music industry). The oppositional stance confirms current notions of noise as something which is destructive, (...) a belief not only cherished by hard-core rock bands but also shared by engineers and companies developing devices to suppress or reduce noise in our daily environment. In contrast to the common opinions on noise just described, this volume seeks to explore the constructive potential of noise in contemporary musical practices. Rather than viewing noise as a 'defect', this volume aims at studying its aesthetic and cultural potential. Within the noise music study field, most recent publications focus on subgenres such as psychedelic post-rock, industrial, hard-core punk, trash or rave, as they developed from rock and popular music. This book includes work on avant-garde music developed in the domain of classical music as well. In addition to already well-established (social) historical and aesthetical perspectives on noise and noise music, this volume also offers contributions by music analysts. (shrink)

Sogo/Gakuryu Ishii is one of the pioneers of the punk/cyberpunk movement in Japanese cinema. Though his style changed throughout his career, his early films have been a great influence to filmmakers around the world. His unique filmic style presents questions, observations and interpretations regarding the role of violence as normalized in the daily lives of heavily marginalized punk youth portrayed in an amplified and stylized cyberpunk Japan. What is so captivating about Ishii's style and motivation is that he (...) was not only a filmmaker interested in making embellished political or social commentary, Ishii was also part of the emerging punk movement in Japan and several musicians of punk rock bands were also involved in his films. My main aim in my inquiry into Ishil's early films involves two parts regarding the same concept. The first is the ethical issues that arise both with portrayal of violence in films as well as the intention of such an endeavor in general. The second part is the way in which violence is made to be part of the film in terms of form and style. This may be interpreted as either glorifying and stylizing violence or showing that violence is nothing but a destructive force that the outcasts of society may not be able to escape. To the last statement Ishii seems to be silent but very active. What I mean by this is that the simplistic plot-lines of his early films are contrasted by heavy punk music, fast editing, constant moving camera and rage, fear and disappointment in the faces of the anti-heroes. (shrink)

I like punk rock. I like girls with weird eyes. I like drugs but my body and mind won’t allow me to take them. I like passion. I like things that are built well. I like innocence. I like and am grateful for the blue collar worker whos existence allows Artists to not have to work at menial jobs. I like killing gluttony. I like playing my cards wrong. I like various styles of music. I like making (...) fun of musicians who I feel pladgerise or offend music as art by exploiting their embarrassingly, pathetic versions of their work. I like to write poetry. I like to ignore others poetry. I like vinyl. I like nature and animals. I like to swim. I like to be with my friends. I like to be by myself. I like to feel guilty for.. (shrink)

Punk Rock Yoga Manifesto: Look, Work, Accept, Transcend. The Punk Rock Yoga style was born in 2003 and has flowed across North America and into Europe. This book articulates the style's philosophy, where you will explore the teachings of yoga through a modern lens and discover how to employ its wisdom in your daily life. You will learn about Yoga with a capital "Y"-moving beyond the poses, into the realm of personal transformation. The Punk (...) class='Hi'>Rock Yoga Manifesto takes a direct and pragmatic approach to yoga philosophy, discussing behavioral guidelines, personal temperaments, meditation practices, energy centers, and the role of poses and breath work. This book inspires self-reflection and challenges you to look at, work on, accept, and ultimately transcend everything that restrains you from personal evolution. (shrink)

Punk Pedagogies: Music, Culture and Learning brings together a collection of international authors to explore the possibilities, practices and implications that emerge from the union of punk and pedagogy. The punk ethos--a notoriously evasive and multifaceted beast--offers unique applications in music education and beyond, and this volume presents a breadth of interdisciplinary perspectives to challenge current thinking on how, why and where the subculture influences teaching and learning. As (punk) educators and artists, contributing authors (...) grapple with punk's historicity, its pervasiveness, its (dis)functionality and its messiness, making Punk Pedagogies relevant and motivating to both instructors and students with proven pedagogical practices. (shrink)

Alison Jaggar, in her treatment of feminist discourse ethics, expresses worries about using “idealized and imaginary communities” as elucidatory tools for discursive ethics. In response, this paper presents the history of 924 Gilman (an all-ages punk rock collective in the San Francisco Bay area) as a case study of a non-imagined and real discursive community. While the example of 924 Gilman, with its overtly feminist agenda and democratic ethos, bolsters Jaggar’s claims about the need for “closed communities” within (...) discourse ethics, it also challenges some of her basic assumptions and raises important pragmatic and theoretical criticisms against discourse ethics. (shrink)

continent. 2.1 (2012): 6–21. The French philosopher and novelist Tristan Garcia was born in Toulouse in 1981. This makes him rather young to have written such an imaginative work of systematic philosophy as Forme et objet , 1 the latest entry in the MétaphysiqueS series at Presses universitaires de France. But this reference to Garcia’s youthfulness is not a form of condescension: by publishing a complete system of philosophy in the grand style, he has already done what none of us (...) in the older generation of speculative realists has done so far. His book is sophisticated, erudite, rigorous, imaginatively rich, and abundant in worldly wisdom– despite the author’s conclusion that wisdom does not exist. The quality and scope of Forme et objet took few observers by surprise, since Garcia has been treated as an emerging philosopher to watch across half a decade of Parisian oral tradition. But Garcia was not just the subject of rumor, being already well known to the French public as a writer of fiction. His debut novel, La meilleure part des hommes , 2 was awarded the 2008 Prix de Flore 3 and has already appeared in English as Hate: A Romance . 4 His follow-up novel, Mémoires de la jungle , 5 made clever use of a chimpanzee narrator. Nor was Garcia only published as a novelist before last November: his philosophical study L’Image 6 had already appeared when the author was just twenty-six, a year before he was crowned by the muses at the historic Café de Flore. And then in 2011, just months before the appearance of Forme et objet , Garcia published a widely distributed work entitled Nous, animaux et humains , 7 with its focus on Jeremy Bentham’s ideas about animals. Given this prolific and versatile track record, an optimistic scenario might envisage the young Garcia as one of those combined literary/philosophical talents who appear intermittently in France across the centuries: Jean-Paul Sartre is merely the most famous recent case. While more time is needed to see how Garcia will channel his impressive mental energies, Forme et objet displays such breadth of insight that its author has a good chance to emerge as one of the leading philosophers of his generation. If we accept Aristotle’s dictum that the peak mental age is fifty-one, then to read Garcia’s massive book is to gain some idea of what European philosophy might look like in the futuristic-sounding 2030’s. The present article is confined to Forme et objet . At 486 pages, the work is obviously daunting in size. Indeed, it is even longer than it sounds, given that many of its early sections are printed in a smaller typeface to designate them as supplemental commentary to the main flow of the argument. But while the length of the book reportedly led to delays in French publication, and will probably slow the inevitable appearance of an English translation, the length of the book should not deter interested readers– much of it results from Garcia’s teacherly writing style. Whereas Quentin Meillassoux’s prose displays an arctic economy of means, Garcia’s style is reminiscent of the repeated lessons of oral classroom proceedings. Rarely is the reader given fewer than three or four chances to master an idea before the author moves on to the next. In practice, the style feels welcoming rather than long-winded. Otherwise, the structure of Forme et objet is surprisingly simple. There is a useful Introduction of less than twenty pages. Then comes Book I: Formally , running to approximately 135 pages. Here Garcia outlines the most basic features of a thing “no matter what it is,” or n’importe quoi , an everyday phrase that Garcia shapes into a technical term. This part of the book feels at times like a more amiable version of Hegel’s Science of Logic , a parallel emphasized further by the threefold articulation of its theme: 1. Thing; 2. Thing and World; 3. Being and Understanding. This is followed by the much longer Book II: Objectively , totaling more than 300 pages. It contains sixteen essay-like meditations on specific kinds of objects—including time, animals, humans, history, gender, and death. Here each chapter rolls smoothly into the next, making this second part of the book feel more like a different work of Hegel: The Phenomenology of Spirit . But these are merely analogies. Garcia is no Hegelian, even if the book contains a few dialectical flourishes that seem to reflect his early enthusiasm for the Frankfurt School. Forme et objet ends with a six-page Coda, followed by the usual page of acknowledgments. In what follows, I will briefly summarize each of these four parts of the book before ending with some more general remarks. Before doing so, it will be useful to situate Garcia biographically (as much as I am able) and philosophically. Though Toulouse is his native city, his formative years were spent largely in Algeria, where his family has deep roots. During our sole private conversation, Garcia mentioned that his parents are professors of literature. 8 As a student of philosopher Garcia flourished so early that many of his current ideas date to his teenaged years: “There are sentences in Forme et objet that I wrote when I was seventeen,” he said in response to a question on that cold night on the Canal St.-Martin. I recalled that remark when reading his brilliant account, late in the book, of the central role of adolescence in contemporary culture. While many prodigies blow through their formal academic training without serious obstruction, Garcia’s student memories are rich in tales of isolation and struggle, though equally rich in gratitude for a half-dozen or so exceptional teachers who provided the intellectual space he needed: Meillassoux and Alain Badiou are simply two of the most prominent figures on that list. Though there are many points of agreement between Garcia’s philosophical position and my own, he not only reached his position years before reading my work, 9 he arrived along a rather different path: not through phenomenology, but via the Frankfurt School, which may be one of the reasons for his profound fascination with aesthetics. Garcia’s cultural background is as broad as one could wish: he is no less informed about punk rock and European football leagues than about the spiritualist roots of Bergson’s philosophy. Curious about everything and contemptuous towards nothing, Garcia can be expected to write insightfully on dozens of topics in the years to come. Given that his philosophy is so personally tantalizing in its agreements and disagreements with my own, and given the great internal richness of Forme et objet itself, the present review is no better than a first effort at coming to terms with the challenges posed by this minstrel from the rising generation. This is especially intriguing for older Generation X’ers like me, since confrontation with the younger generation is one of the many themes treated insightfully in Garcia’s book. 1. Introduction Garcia begins in defense of a so-called “flat ontology,” in which all things are equally things. While Roy Bhaskar 10 used this term pejoratively to refer to anti-realist philosophies that flatten everything onto an epistemic plane of human access, Manuel DeLanda 11 (an admirer of Bhaskar) reversed it into the positive principle that all realities are equally realities. Similar notions can be found in the “absistence” of Alexius Meinong, 12 the “irreduction” of Bruno Latour, 13 and my own critique 14 of the undermining/overmining pair. Also noteworthy is Levi Bryant’s use of the term “flat ontology” throughout The Democracy of Objects 15 and his earlier essay “The Ontic Principle.” 16 But for Garcia, flatness is only one face of the cosmos, and one that he ultimately declares to be rather impoverished. Even so, he always remains an advocate of a flat ontology. Insofar as everything is equally something, no matter what it is ( n’importe qui ), everything is equally a thing, equally solitary in its relation with world. This is why his book abounds in those long lists of random, ontologically equivalent entities that Ian Bogost has playfully termed “Latour Litanies.” 17 The first litany in Garcia’s book runs as follows: “We live in this world of things, where a cutting of acacia, a gene, a computer-generated image, a transplantable hand, a musical sample, a trademarked name, or a sexual service are comparable things.” (7) Yet Garcia is frankly dualistic; his flat ontology only lasts until page 159 and the end of Book I (entitled “Formally”), which deals entirely with things that are equally things. Thereafter Garcia turns his attention from things to objects, which are not flat in the least, but engage in hierarchical relations with one another. In agreement with both DeLanda and the speculative realists, Garcia proclaims that his book “proposes to put to the test a thought about things rather than a thought about our thought about things .” (8) Just as ducklings are “imprinted” (9) after hatching and treat the first creature they see as their mother, philosophers are imprinted by the idea with which they begin. Hence, philosophies that begin with human access will never truly find their way back to things. This makes Garcia rather suspicious of twentieth century philosophy, since “the twentieth century—to which in some way this work proposes to bid adieu—has been a period of theorizing modes of access to things rather than things...” (9) Among other possible benefits of the philosophy of things that Garcia proposes, it is fully able to account for thought as a special variant of things, while the reverse is not possible.(10) In Book I of Forme et objet , Garcia’s “things” are so flat, so de-determined, that he is forced to renounce some of the most basic features ascribed to things by most realists. As he tells us in his foreboding third footnote: “We will maintain that the solitude [of things] is less than unity, less than identity, and that it does not imply acceptance (any more than refusal) of the principle of non-contradiction.” (11) In a contemporary world cluttered with too many things, Garcia’s flat and formal plane provides us with some breathing room: “The formal plan of thought enables or re-enables us to cut short all accumulation—whether of knowing, experience, or action—by a simplicity, an impoverished surface...” (13) As Garcia says elsewhere in responding to a Deleuzian critic of the book, his starting point in flat ontology is designed to obstruct the claims of both analytic philosophy and Hegelianism: “Hence, this work seeks to protect each thing—real, imaginary, inconsistent, contradictory—both against Ockham’s Razor and against the Aufhebung or dialectical process.” 18 Yet contrary to the equalizing spirit of many flat ontologies, “we will add to our formal ontology of the equal, an objective ontology of the unequal.” (13) But initially, Garcia joins all flat ontologists in holding that everything is irreducible: “this irreducibility, which we will term the ‘chance’ of each thing... also marks the refusal of a positive thought that reduces things exclusively to natural things, or social things, or historical things, etc.” (15) This irreducible “chance” of a thing emerges as an important technical term in the book, always paired with its inverted brother, the “price to pay” ( prix à payer ). On pages 17-19, we find the only diagrams in the book. What they illustrate is that Garcia wishes to avoid two equally dangerous extremes. The first is the philosophy of substance, featuring the thing-in-itself as a mighty river fed by attributes as if by subordinate tributary streams. This model can be found in many of the classic thinkers of West and East alike. In it, “there is obviously a hierarchization between that which is dragged towards something other than itself, and this other which serves it as an ontological support while supporting its proper being.” (16) For Garcia, the second extreme worth avoiding is the philosophy of events: “One thus conceives trajectories of being, identified as events, facts, powers, intensities, or intentionality. These vectors of being come first, bearing and supporting being, displacing it, but without ever finding a stopping point, a buffer, an objective consistency.” (17) The first model gives us a thing too wrapped up in itself, too compact . This word “compact” (the French and the English are the same) is another technical term for Garcia. But if the “compact” model of things leads us to something more than things, the philosophy of events gives us less than things, by dissolving them into a play of vectors. Garcia’s alternative lies midway between these two extremes: Being enters the thing, being comes out of it. And a thing is nothing other than the difference between the enters and the being that comes out. Thus, the circuit of being is never halted. In the thing, there is never the thing-in-itself. And the thing is never in-itself, but outside of itself. Nonetheless, being is not eventally “pollinated” by vectors: it possesses an objecting halting-point... (19) This single idea is the key to Garcia’s book: the thing is neither a self-contained durable lump nor some sort of evental flux. Instead, the thing is the difference between its various components and its relations with its environment. Or stated differently: “the price to pay for this disposition is a circulation of being that systematically distinguishes two senses of things: that which is in the thing , and that in which the thing is , or that which encompasses it and that which it encompasses,” (19) translating comprendre here as “encompass.” 19 In a beautiful description of a piece of black slate, Garcia sums up the various minerals, qualities, and shapes that compose [ comprend ] it, and calls them “that which is in the thing,” (20) noting that this tells us nothing about “that in which [the slate] is”—namely, all the various situations in which the black slate can be found. Instead, the slate is the difference between these two: the most characteristic principle of Garcia’s philosophy. 2. Formally Book One of Forme et objet , “Formally,” is concerned with the formal equality of all things in a flat world. “Two questions mark the boundaries of reflection: of what is everything composed [ composé ], and: what do all things compose?” (27) Looking downward, we wish to know what everything is made of; looking upward, we want to know the ultimate result of the combination of all things. Here we must turn our attention to the thing n’importe quoi— no matter what it is. (30) Anything with finite qualities is obviously too specific to be relevant to global ontological questions. To an equal degree, something possessing all qualities (think of Whitehead’s God) 20 would not be n’importe quoi either, since it would still be too definite, even if incredibly vast. The same holds for contradictions, since these all differ from each other. The square circle, the non-white black white, and the non-city city are all too distinct to count as the thing no matter what it is. The n’importe quoi must be devoid of all specific qualities, including contradictory ones. In one of the more intriguing points in his book, so reminiscent of Meinong, Garcia proclaims that “the ‘no matter what it is’ is neither a reality nor an abstract construction, nor both of these at once; the ‘no matter what it is’ is simply the plane of equality of that which is real, that which is possible, that which is inexistent, that which is past, that which is impossible, that which is true, that which is false, that which is bad.”(39-40) Since everything has two faces, it would be a grievous mistake to focus on just one of them at the expense of the other, as physicalism or materialism do when reducing the world to minuscule physical underpinnings. For scientistic materialism, “it is either atoms, particles, or fields of force... which are the things.” (47-48) Moreover, “these more-than-things are accompanied by less-than-things: for example, ideas or facts of consciousness are determined by the state of matter and are not autonomous things, but manifestations reduced to secondary effects of material processes...” (48) On this point, Garcia’s position is in complete accord with my own critique of undermining and overmining. 21 Where we disagree is that Garcia is more deeply suspicious of the notion of substance, which I view as salvageable with a few needed changes, while Garcia sees this operation as hopeless: “A substance, in the history of philosophy, is the more-than-thing par excellence.” (51) Another agreement between our positions is visible when Garcia claims (correctly, in my opinion) “that it is vain to distinguish between things which are material and those which are not.” (52) Yet we also find an even more important disagreement, since for Garcia withdrawal cannot be the quality of a thing. Instead, the absence of a thing is simultaneous with it, embodied in all that is not it– the absence of the sculpture of a woman is to be found in the mold that appears at the same time as it, and thus withdrawal must be viewed as an “event” rather than as something pertaining to an object. For Garcia, nothing withdraws beyond access. Since we must distinguish between “that which is something” and “that which something is,” and since the former is identified with “no matter what it is is” and the latter with “ not no matter what it is,” we can say that “everything is thus a milieu, a fragile link between ‘no matter what it is’ and ‘ not no matter what it is.’” (62) And here we find Garcia’s critique of the thing-in-itself: “A thing is never defined en bloc . We can affirm that a thing is this or that, but that does not suffice. It is still necessary to state precisely that which is this thing .” (62) Stated differently, “something is not in itself : for that which is in the thing is not the thing, and that in which the thing is is not the thing.” (62) And here Garcia and I, facing the same evidence, draw opposite conclusions. For me, the fact that nothing can be identified with either its components or its concrete location means that the thing must be something in-itself distinct from both of these. Yet for Garcia, to be in-itself would mean to be identified with just one of these two extreme terms, and hence the thing can only be the difference between them. Garcia is equally suspicious of the classical tendency to view “unity” as a property of the thing, since in his eyes unity is too relational a property to belong to things. (65) While specific things are situated determinately with respect to other things, we are still speaking here about the thing no matter what it is, and this can be viewed only in terms of solitude, which all things share: a human being, a hand, or a chair or all equally things insofar as they are on their own , not insofar as they are one . (64) A thing is alone, and relates only to the one thing that is not another thing: world. In a striking parallel to my own argument for a partial revival of occasionalism, Garcia tells us that “the things communicate only by their solitude: it is because everything is equally on its own in the world that things can be together, enmeshed in one another.” (67) Alone in their solitude, things all relate to world, which serves as a mediator allowing them to become mixed up in one another. As we have seen, one reason that nothing can be in itself is because everything is in something else. For Garcia, “to be in something and to be something are equivalent.” (69) Stated more broadly, “being is thus the difference between the two aspects of each thing: that which is it, and that which it is.” (70) And even more vividly: “a thing is almost like a sack: there is that which one puts in the sack and that which remains outside the sack.” (70) But not quite like a sack, “since a thing is not a thin skin or film. Instead, a thing is comparable to a sack that is immaterial and without thickness: it is nothing other than the difference between that which is this thing and that which thing is, between content and container.” (71) Nothing can be in-itself because everything is two selves at once. For example, we cannot say that our self is defined by our consciousness: “Everything has a self because nothing is in itself. The self is not the quality of that which is related to itself (which is conscious, for example) or which thinks itself related to itself. Nonetheless, for an entity called ‘conscious’ to be related to itself, it is necessary that this very relation should be another thing than the self to which it is related.” (71) Consciousness cannot be the self, precisely because it is other than that of which it is conscious. Nothing is able to grasp itself. The self is “the function by which being and composition [ compréhension ] are mutually excluded...” (72) The self is “the point of shadow of everything that projects some light...” (72) The in-itself faces two opposite dangers: “For something to be in-itself is to be a self. Something which is a self flies out through one of its two sides... Stated differently, being in-itself is simply the possibility of a double failure.” (73) The in-itself can be termed compact : “There remains to us a means of thinking that which does not fully enter into the world, though without exiting from it. This means is what we call the compact.” (76) In a sense, the compact is the opposite of the world. For in the case of the world, everything enters it and it enters nothing; as for the compact, it enters the world (since it is something, after all) while nothing enters it. (77) The compact marks the presence of the impossible in the world. (78) It is not impossible, but possible only on the condition that it fails. (78) The time has come to speak of where a thing is located. “The sole condition of a thing is that of being in another thing than itself, and thus in another thing than something.” (78) A condition is “that which determines something, that which forms something, that in which something is.” (78) As for humans, “the condition of someone is his situation; my social condition is that which socially determines me, my place and my function...” (79) More generally, “to be conditioned is to find oneself reduced to that in which one is.” (79) Everything is conditioned, but nothing is reducible to this condition. To determine the condition of something is to determine in what it is. A thing is located in that which contradicts it, just as a statue exists in its mold, which is precisely that which it is not. Since the thing is finite and definite, its condition or form must be infinite and indefinite. That in which all things are is the world, which Garcia also terms “the whole.” (81) “To try to be in-itself is to attempt to remain outside the world. And indeed, to try to be in-itself is only a path of entry into the world.” (83) For Garcia, “the world is not the pre-existent container of the things it contains, a priori , nor the construction by the mind of a fictional ensemble of all things, a posteriori .” (85) Instead, the world is simultaneous with all things; the two always go together. The world cannot be a determinate world, such as the physical universe or mathematical space, since these are already too specific and limited. “Every determinate world, which is in fact a universe , is a ‘big thing’ [ grosse chose ]: it is a set, however vast, of composite things which itself embodies a thing.” (85) Every determinate world is really just a “big thing.” Stated differently, “it is nothing other than a balanced milieu between the things that compose it and the thing that it composes.” (85) We generally picture the world as a physical univer. (shrink)

“All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.” -/- Karl Marx might have been thinking of punk rock when he wrote these words in 1847, but he overlooked the possibility that new forms of solidity and holiness could spring into existence overnight. Punk rock was a celebration of nastiness, chaos, (...) and defiance of convention, which quickly transcended itself and developed its own orthodoxies, shibboleths, heresies, and sectarian wars. Is punk still alive today? What has it left us with? Does punk make any artistic sense? Is punk inherently anarchist, sexist, neo-Nazi, Christian, or—perish the thought—Marxist? When all’s said and done, does punk simply suck? These obvious questions only scratch the surface of punk’s philosophical ramifications, explored in depth in this unprecedented and thoroughly nauseating volume. Thirty-two professional thinkers-for-a-living and students of rock turn their x-ray eyes on this exciting and frequently disgusting topic, and penetrate to punk’s essence, or perhaps they end up demonstrating that it has no essence. You decide. -/- Among the nail-biting questions addressed in this book: Can punks both reject conformity to ideals and complain that poseurs fail to confirm to the ideals of punk? How and why can social protest take the form of arousing revulsion by displaying bodily functions and bodily abuse? Can punk ethics be reconciled with those philosophical traditions which claim that we should strive to become the best version of ourselves? How close is the message of Jesus of Nazareth to the message of punk? Is punk essentially the cry of cis, white, misogynist youth culture, or is there a more wholesome appeal to irrepressibly healthy tendencies like necrophilia, coprophilia, and sadomasochism? In its rejection of the traditional aesthetic of order and complexity, did punk point the way to “aesthetic anarchy,” based on simplicity and chaos? By becoming commercially successful, did punk fail by its very success? Is punk what Freddie Nietzsche was getting at in The Birth of Tragedy, when he called for Dionysian art, which venerates the raw, instinctual, and libidinous aspects of life? (shrink)

This paper discusses the state-of-the-art dispute over the ontological question of rock music: what is the work of art, or the central work-kind, of rock music, if any? And, is the work of rock music ontologically distinct from the work of classical music, which is the only musical tradition whose ontology is vastly studied? First, I distinguish between two levels of inquiry in musical ontology: the fundamental level and the higher-order level, in which (...) comparative ontology – the project in which someone engages by considering that there is ontological variety among works of distinct musical traditions – falls. After addressing two general questions about rock music, I turn to Theodore Gracyk’s ontological account of rock music, according to which the primary focus of critical attention in rock music are recordings, or recorded tracks. This view has the consequence that ‘recordings’ is a fundamental concept of philosophy of music, necessary for us to understand rock music. Stephen Davies objected that Gracyk’s account fails to assign appropriate value to a valuable practice with which rock audiences are committed, live performance, and argued that the works of rock music are of the ontological kind for studio performance. Finally, Andrew Kania synthetized both views: rock recorded tracks are at the centre of rock as an art form, thus being the rock works. For, different reasons, none of these views is deemed satisfactory. (shrink)

This article positions punk rock pedagogy, or the educative dimensions of punk rock subculture, as an exemplar for combatting hate speech. This analysis contrast institutional efforts to protect free speech (which are rooted in free speech absolutism) with the ways by which punks protect one another from bigotry. This paper argues that the punk approach more closely reflects how free speech protections are framed in international human rights law.

I argue that the work of art in rock music is a track constructed in the studio, that tracks usually manifest songs, which can be performed live, and that a cover version is a track (successfully) intended to manifest the same song as some other track. This ontology reflects the way informed audiences talk about rock. It recognizes not only the centrality of recorded tracks to the tradition, as discussed by Theodore Gracyk, but also the value accorded (...) to live performance skills, emphasized by Stephen Davies. (shrink)

Classic rock of the 1960s and early 1970s broke away from the harmless bubblegum and surfing music of the 1950s to become a vehicle for profound commentary upon the human condition. Theories and motifs from major figures in the history of philosophy, theology and literature were refracted and transfigured in this intelligent new popular art form.

Drawing on interviews with women and men musicians, this study examines women's overrepresentation in an instrumental specialty, the electric bass, in alternative rock music. Structurally, this phenomenon may be explained by the instrument's greater ease of learning and lesser attractiveness to men, yet women bassists frequently advance an alternative theory of “womanly” affinity. The entrance of women into rock bands via the bass may provide them with new opportunities and help legitimate their presence in a male-dominated site (...) of artistic production, yet it may simultaneously work to reconstruct a gendered division of labor and reproduce dominant gender ideologies. (shrink)

This article responds to the new and major work on Lobby Loyde by Paul Oldham. It focuses on the middle period of Loyde’s career, from the Chicago-period Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs through to Lobby’s work with Sharpie band (was it?) Coloured Balls, and connects and compares Lobby’s trajectory to that of the post-Lobby Aztecs, as expressed in Sunbury, the 1972 parallel Australian event to Woodstock. Who led these processes, the bands or the crowds? If the crowd claimed a band, (...) what happened to musical autonomy in this process? This was a moment when mass audience response became tribal, and opened the possibility that musicians were no longer in charge of their art. Trying to escape from the wiles of the music industry, these musicians instead seem to have become captive to their audiences. (shrink)

The article deals with the problem of understanding the meaning of music on the example of rock music. The purpose of the article is to find a criterion for such an understanding. For this purpose, the question is considered as to what musical meaning is. Since rock compositions usually have a short length and one explicit melody, it can be said that musical understanding is the grasping of this melody. The question arises as to what it (...) means to grab a melody, and whether it means the ability to sing it. Not necessarily, it turns out–rather, it means capturing its pattern. The idea that music is a language is rejected: music does not have external meaning. The article discusses several examples of the “translation” of one melody into another style or mode. In such a translation the hyletic data changes, but the pattern remains. This is associated with the preservation of musical meaning and musical thought. The most important criterion of musical understanding is the existential experience of the melody. To understand music, to grasp its meaning, the listener must be open, that is, be ready to perceive music as an aesthetic object. At the moment of listening, music is a saturated phenomenon, because it completely fills its horizon. Any other, alternative music is impossible. The problem of corporeality in the perception of music is examined. It is especially important in rock music, which usually has a clear rhythm. The pattern of the melody also has a spatial character, which refers to corporality. Here we can talk about a certain “resonance” of external music with the inner musical world of the listener. (shrink)

The article deals with the phenomenological analysis of music perception on the material of rock songs. The structure of a song is simpler than the structure of a classical piece of music, but all the results are valid for any music with appropriate complication. “Listening device”—a computer program that translates sounds into musical notation - perceives individual sounds. But the musical consciousness understands the specific musical thought. It groups sounds into motifs and phrases. F. Tagg introduces (...) the concept of “museme”—a unit of musical meaning. Musemes have meaning only for the understanding consciousness. Musemes of different levels include motifs and phrases, metric signature, rhythm, and the structure of the whole work. In a melody there may be “key sites” in which the concentration of musical thought is maximized. They are constituted by musical consciousness and are largely subjective. The understanding of a musical work takes place in time, and this allows the consciousness to mark out a segment of time, to arrange the intelligible structure in it. A melody is a meaningful whole that has its own logic of unfolding. It encompasses a segment of time and transforms it into something stationary. Melody can be represented in the form of a scheme. The subject of music is the compression of time into such structures. An interesting example of musical perception is psychedelic rock. When listening to psychedelic music, the constitutive activity of consciousness is reduced and an altered state of consciousness occurs. The horizon of meaning narrows, the protention disappears. Here we should recall the notion of “saturated phenomenon” introduced by J.-L. Marion. The saturated phenomenon does not allow for constitution and assimilation. Psychedelic music modifies the horizons of future meanings. The article concludes with a question about computer music: will it make sense to us? So far there is no unequivocal answer to this question. (shrink)

Discusses the relationship between popular music and literature in conjunction with the connection between high and low art.