Customer Reviews

All Shook Up: Music, Passion, and Politics

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In the early 1970s amidst the Indian gurus at the Whole Earth Festival at the University of California Davis, I met a young American who admired Ravi Shakar and was, not surprisingly, studying the sitar. He assured me that all of the ragas composed by traditional Indian musicians were designed to enhance or induce spiritual states. Thus, for the Hindu musical tradition of the ragas, the concept that instrumental music affects the human mind and spirit is a basic presupposition. Indeed, the primary purpose of the music is not entertainment but Hindu spiritual development.

Nevertheless, it seems that in the modern West, most Christians and secularists alike reject with asperity this elementary insight that the most influential message of music is found in its rhythm, melody and harmony rather than in its lyrics. Therefore, we owe a debt of gratitude to Carson Holloway for this groundbreaking recovery of the role of music in the moral education of human beings. He contrasts the deep concern with music as a moral force of the ancients represented by Plato and Aristotle and of certain moderns such as Rousseau and Nietzsche with the lack of such interest of other moderns such as Hobbes and Locke.

Holloway acknowledges Allan Bloom's recognition of the anti-philosohical influence of rock music but finds Bloom's analysis wanting. I think that Holloway succeeds in advancing a rational understanding of the subject. Unfortunately, an objective appraisal of his work is difficult for many because music lies on the fault line of the culture war between those who see the Judeo-Christian ethic as corresponding to the natural order of creation and those whose ethic denies the existence of such an order in favor of human autonomy.

Defenders of the Judeo-Christian ethic are typically disarmed on the musical front by their failure to understand what any random student of Ravi Shankar knows: Music directly affects the soul without regard for the rational content of lyrics, which are quite optional. Thus, the sounds of the music, i.e., its musical form, may enhance or detract from any lyrics. Indeed, the form of the music may well be more powerful than the words and overwhelm their message.

Holloway makes a useful contribution to our understanding of how music affects us beginning with this recognition that music does affect our souls in powerful ways that matter in both ethics and politics.

"All Shook Up" is an excellent introduction to the important roll music plays in forming societies. The author carefully progresses from Socrates to Nietzsche to show the significance of both the differences and similarities in their philosophies on music. He makes a strong case that the effects of music on society are more significant than even the "conservative moralizers" imagine.

Holloway effectively illustrates the assertions of notable philosphers concerning the importance of music in society, with particular reference to the rhythm and tone of the music. Philosophers ranging Aristotle to Rousseau understood the importance of music in arousing or pacifying emotions. Holloway offers a very convincing illustration of the effects of music upon the characters of individuals. Music is filled with explicit language, verbal images of gratuituous sexual conduct, and the pleasurable experiences of narcotic abuses. In being over-exposed to this kind of music, the current generation has become accustomed to expecting extreme methods of gratifying oneself. This over-gratification has lead to an experimentation with new methods of gratification, more extreme and effective than the preceding methods. Holloway doesn't really discuss what should be done to remedy this trend nor does he suggest censorship. Also, the book was lacking a global philosophical approach as asian philosophical teachings concerning music were omitted from the book.

Holloway's book is a wonderful introduction to what the history of western political philosophy says about the role of music in shaping people's character. The belief that music has a role in forming the character has always been a controversal stance, starting with Plato, and remains one still today. One only has to be reminded of Allan Bloom's chapter on Rock music and the reaction that section provoked shows how powerful this theme remains today. Liberals (ancient and modern, capitalist or not) don't like the idea that music plays a role in character formation.. and what Holloway's book does shows the reader what the big stars of western philosophy has to say on this subject. Holloways argues by ignoring the power of music in the formation of character of the young especially, contemporary society and the music it has bread.. has lead to extremes both in music and people's character.. and both for the worse.

As a former classical music critic writer for The Washington Post, I feel that that poorly paid gig should at least give me some cred, as they say, or used to say in the pop music world, when talking about the world of music. Speaking of cred, one of the greatest seekers of it, as I am sure most people will recall from high school, is the nerdy guy who wants to be cool in some way. So he hatches a secret plan to use his smarts to get in good in the field of the cool types, like the ones who listen, and presumably hump, to the hottest music. Maybe the author here Carson Holloway, was a cool jock in high school, or one of the few nerds to befriend the QB and his buds. But I bet not. So I am betting that this book is a sort of remembrance of things past, or past traumas, namely in the world of hazy high school memories. For that is about the only explanation I can come up with for the thing. How else would you explain someone who seriously is discussing Eminen and Kanye West with Plato and Aristotle? I know he gives an uber-nerd rationale for the thing, but at some point one just wants to laugh. What's next, Britney Spears and Hans Vaihinger?? The whole premise of the thing is delusional and forced. The phenomenon of music for the ancients, which is definitely a very fascinating topic in itself, bears almost no real resemblance to what music is today. One doesn't need disquisition on plectra compared to electric guitars to see this. Only the vast qualities of mass consumer culture and instant communication in society are needed to assess it. And if one is not satisfied with that, then think alone of the Volume! (It now goes to "eleven" as they said in the genius movie Spinal Tap) Frankly, it is so different that one would more rationally and profitably compare ancient philosophy's view on war and aggression to modern music than to the very rarified matter of what they meant by music at that time.

Further, Holloway's tendency to give an simple textbook analysis of the matter is particularly troubling because he has chosen such a broad bailiwick. He bears down on the famous notion of Plato's that music is a form of mimesis, or as he says, is "imitative". But then, even though he is citing the Republic, he forgets to historically contextualize this in terms of Plato's exact metaphysical implications. Since for Plato any notion of mimesis generally is linked with his metaphysical conception, which was later in the medieval era to be called a Realist perspective, "imitation" in fact has some unavoidably negative implications seen in the Ancient context. It is the tendency to give a Polyanna-ish reading of ancient "idealism" that allows such analyzes as Holloway's to be both technically correct, in a high school culture course sort of way, and ultimately silly in an serious conceptual sense. Plato's view of the Republic was, as many serious scholars on the right and the left have argued, not a perfect society per se, (perhaps fantasized by conservatives today for their special communities in Florida, with names like Trinity). No Plato's notion was, if brilliant, also grim and, by our standards, decidedly non-funtastic. But one shouldn't need such close criticisms to critique this book. Just the idea of Eminem and Plato in the same sentence should do for any reasonable real music lover. As someone who was proudly non-cool in high school because I loved Mozart above all others, I think Mr. Holloway, just is hopelessly trying to avoid being thrown against the lockers.

A more reasonable and informed view of music in our time could developed on the idea of reviving quality per se. This is an involved topic. So involved that I won't go into here. But at the very least it involves accepting the idea that most ages do NOT produce anything of interest when it comes to arts generally, and music in particular. This is what unjaundiced arts history teaches. So we are definitely not dealing with important expressions of anything whatsoever, negatively or positively. Pop music is about as important an expression of anything as a McD's Quarter Pounder is of food aesthetics. To analyze it absurd. To palliate it rationally is, perhaps, reasonable. But the nerdy desire to analyze it , on mammoth display in Holloway's book, and to use a love-hate critique of pop music and popularity generally to smuggle in his right-wing views about culture generally is just pointless. And fie on people like this for being so pointless. Case closed.

Despite the many references to more prestigous thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, etc., Halloway's assertions concerning popular music are shockingly simplistic. Though he clearly approaches his subject from a political and cultural standpoint, the uneasy connection he attempts to forge between the physics of music and human response, and the resultant cultural fallout, demands a more rigorous grounding in physics, psychology, biology, and/or math for his argument to even begin to seem plausible. Once Halloway's focus moved beyond lyrics to actual harmonic structures, establishing a causal connection between music (even the sort he laughably terms "pornographic pop") and "destructive behavior" required more than simply paraphrasing Plato, or quoting some Nietzsche to succeed. Not only does he avoid a comparative analysis between disciplines, but Halloway limits his studies to the classics of western civilization. There is an entire world of music out there, each unique form entwined with an equally unique culture. Certainly there must be some insight to be gleaned from it somewhere. Perhaps he did, in fact, research other discplines, and/or other genres of music, but found them inconvenient to his arguments. Indeed, in some of his more athletic leaps of reasoning, Halloway's conservative slip begins to show. Frankly, this book proved to be the sort of conservative pseudo-intellectualism I'd expect from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, but with a better bibliography. In the book's favor, I can say that it is quite readable, with a clear, if somewhat plain narrative voice. If only the logic employed were equally as clear.

Holloway's academic scholarship serves as the thinest possible veil for an unmistakable and troubling piece of conservative moralizing. Marshalling the evidence of Plato, Aristotle, and a curious admixture of modern social science research, Holloway argues that the influence of contemporary popular music (or as he rather tellingly refers to it in several place, "pornographic pop") on the character of young listeners has dangerous political implications. His insistence that it is not just lyrics but, as Plato and Aristotle acknowledge, the very rhythms, meters, and harmonic structures of music that can lay hold of and inflame youthful passions leaves him with no alternative but to condemn pop music in its totality. Indeed, one gets the impression that the only thing preventing Holloway from supporting outright consorship of pop music is his grudging acknowledgment that the First Amendment would likely render any such attempt unconstitutional. Of course, Holloway nowhere explains what it is about the rhythms and harmonic structures of pop music that make them puerile and vulgar, and the fact that he also neglects to explain precisely what he means by "pop music" serves to extend the potential range of vilified music to a rather disturbing degree. In addition to his questionable conclusions, Holloway bases his argument on frequently one-dimensional interpretations of Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, and Nietzsche (his interpretation of Plato, for example, is based almost exclusively on Books 3, 4, and 9 of the Republic and a brief passage from the Laws), and it often seems as if he has allowed his ideological commitments to determine the direction and findings of his research. Readers looking for yet another neo-Struassian volley in America's culture wars might want to pick this volume up. However, those readers interested in work that seriously engages the complexities, problems, and promises of the relationship between music and politics might wish to look elsewhere.