Ralph Dumain
"Studies in a Dying Culture" BLOG 23 August 2006 August Wilson's Cultural Perspective Clip- [...] "I chose the blues as my aesthetic," Wilson told Playbill in 1996. "I don't do any research other than listen to the blues. That tells me everything I need to know, and I go from there. I create worlds out of the ideas and the attitudes and the material in the blues. I think the blues are the best literature that blacks have. It is an expression of our people and our response to the world. I don't write about the blues; I'm not influenced by the blues. I am the blues." [...] -August Wilson This saddens me, because the blues could not possibly tell anyone everything they need to know and in any case it reflects earlier times, not the present. Something has changed decisively, and I don't believe anyone who claims that this could be true for our time and for the future. How one bridges the gap between past and future is a more difficult problem now that at any time in history; it requires some deep thinking not forthcoming in a shallow society. Furthermore, I claim that a public discourse is lacking that would capture the depth of what must be understood about social reality now, and furthermore, I'm guessing that nobody really cares to plumb this depth, and that all but a handful of scattered individuals are numbed against doing so. The historical sea-change of the past quarter century is rendering the cultural concerns of the baby boomers as well as the surviving children of the Great Depression obsolete, just as it has bequeathed a legacy of superficiality and false values to the young (not that many of the old values weren't rotten, or pretty much the same as the new). This historical break is more complete than any in American history, perhaps more so than even the gap between the Depression generation and the Boomers. I'm one who believes in the importance of history, but historical consciousness is neither nostalgia nor tradition, and its relationship to identity formation in this day and age is tenuous. ^^^^^^ CB: Shall we plumb the depths a bit of the historical sea change you note ? Is a start that culturally, for Black people , there is the denouement of urban Black power ( mayors of major cities), Reaganism, Hip-hop/rap in the blues, Neo-liberalism and deconcentration of industry out of the MidWest _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
