The Forever Culture
At the beginning of the 20th century art and culture moved away from representations of beauty and power to the individualized communication of discontent we know as Modernism. At this time society became focused on hedonism, with jazz and minimalism and the concepts of personal “happiness” at the fore, this illusory happiness being a code (parroted by critical theorists like Herbert Marcuse) for diverting the creative drive imparted to humanity into an industry of product choice, and virally spreading Madison Avenue commercial concepts of fulfillment which were culturally isolating.
The question is, where does this road end? Are we testing cultural theories in real-time, with the goal of reaching the most objective expression of a healthy human morality?
All the trappings of modern life point to the answer being: no.
Sadly, what is happening is the synthesis of our genius is being exploited to outsource cultural uniqueness (tied to hearth and home) for international aims. The commodification requires on the most superficial and nostalgic semblance of a true culture, movement or genre, to create ‘the product’. No further can this be exemplified than with the forever culture of rap music.
Imagine being at a basement club in the bronx in the early seventies. The Master of Ceremonies (MC, for the whipper snappers) suddenly starts talking and rhyming over funk slap bass and wah pedal guitar parts. Your first thoughts might be: “well that’s neat I guess, but I hope he stops soon.”
Unfortunately, it has never, ever stopped.
In fact the MC didn’t just fail to stop talking over the funk beat, he soon started talking over, rock music, punk music, metal music, country music and even classical! I am reminded of years ago looking over an orchestra handbook and seeing ‘Wyclef Jean presents: a night of art by Henri Matisse accompanied by Mozart’, and instantly bringing to mind (by comparison) Ren and Stimpy farting out the notes of Beethoven’s 9th symphony.
Today Rap music continues to steal the aesthetics of other genres, as we see with Travis Scott (I know… who?) apparently adopting certain heavy metal imagery for his ‘astroworld fest’ which recently killed 8 of it’s willing participants.
All historic or contemporary culture is now the plaything of such characters, and must be viewed from this new point of reference. All genres and styles must be inducted through a hazing of slander and humiliation and reprocessed as a meaningless product, by the cultural masters steering the ship of forever culture. It cannot evolve beyond ‘forever product’.
It is ultimately destroying the means for the soul to express itself through the deduction of preference and discrimination.
How does one resist or combat the forever culture? Make it your duty to find things that are good, and well thought out, and tell those that consume the forever culture that it fucking sucks, and they should feel bad for liking it. Never relent at hating bad culture.
