Comments on: The American Exception: Pop Culture Today http://www.radioopensource.org/the-american-exception-pop-culture-today/ Christopher Lydon in conversation on arts, ideas and politics Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:23:24 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: enkerli http://www.radioopensource.org/the-american-exception-pop-culture-today/comment-page-1/#comment-162468 enkerli Fri, 03 Oct 2008 18:39:35 +0000 http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=1489#comment-162468 Some fairly insightful comments, especially about what Aaron Hemeon designates as "assumptions which are normally held as evident truths." (To some academics, the whole "we hold these truths to be self-evident" approach doesn't seem too conducive to critical thinking.) The fact that Bayles recognized the importance of /Friends/ and /Sex and the City/ does seem to have deeper implications than what some US-based commentators on The World's perspectives on the US might have it. And pointing out some side-effects of the perceived American versions of "Freedom" and "Liberty" had a bit of the "Speaking Truth to Power" appeal of other ROS episodes. All said, it sounds like Bayles's trip was an eye-opener. She was wonderfully honest in acknowledging her surprise at what some people told her of their ideas about the US. And, though she did fall in the trap of talking about US cultural specificity in Manichean terms, she didn't get stuck under that trap. However... Bayles reproduced a journalistic-nationalistic model of popular culture which almost seems anachronistic in these post-industrial times. Not just because she was "counting countries" or because she uses "The Middle East" to refer to just about any Muslim society regardless of actual geography. Not even because she barely mentioned the implications of Internet- and cellphone-mediated communications. But mainly because she blends together broad comments about US products and discourses. The stuff of directed interviews, with or without interpreters. An audio engineering analogy could be one of mixing multiple voices into two balanced channels, controlled by a single individual. As, in this case, the individual in question is an "insider" asking "outsiders" some questions about her own in-group, the mix may have ended up sounding a bit over-produced. There's also this tension between genuine interest in popular culture and the perceived need to address Adorno-type critiques of popular culture. Makes sense in the context of those freshmen courses to which Bayles referred, but to go back to the audio analogy it makes it sound like "ping-pong" panning, not like the resonance of a large hall. (Ok, I'm stretching this one a bit much. But these things are easier to understand than to verbalize.) Some fairly insightful comments, especially about what Aaron Hemeon designates as “assumptions which are normally held as evident truths.” (To some academics, the whole “we hold these truths to be self-evident” approach doesn’t seem too conducive to critical thinking.)
The fact that Bayles recognized the importance of /Friends/ and /Sex and the City/ does seem to have deeper implications than what some US-based commentators on The World’s perspectives on the US might have it. And pointing out some side-effects of the perceived American versions of “Freedom” and “Liberty” had a bit of the “Speaking Truth to Power” appeal of other ROS episodes.
All said, it sounds like Bayles’s trip was an eye-opener. She was wonderfully honest in acknowledging her surprise at what some people told her of their ideas about the US. And, though she did fall in the trap of talking about US cultural specificity in Manichean terms, she didn’t get stuck under that trap.

However…
Bayles reproduced a journalistic-nationalistic model of popular culture which almost seems anachronistic in these post-industrial times. Not just because she was “counting countries” or because she uses “The Middle East” to refer to just about any Muslim society regardless of actual geography. Not even because she barely mentioned the implications of Internet- and cellphone-mediated communications. But mainly because she blends together broad comments about US products and discourses. The stuff of directed interviews, with or without interpreters.
An audio engineering analogy could be one of mixing multiple voices into two balanced channels, controlled by a single individual. As, in this case, the individual in question is an “insider” asking “outsiders” some questions about her own in-group, the mix may have ended up sounding a bit over-produced.
There’s also this tension between genuine interest in popular culture and the perceived need to address Adorno-type critiques of popular culture. Makes sense in the context of those freshmen courses to which Bayles referred, but to go back to the audio analogy it makes it sound like “ping-pong” panning, not like the resonance of a large hall. (Ok, I’m stretching this one a bit much. But these things are easier to understand than to verbalize.)

]]> By: chris http://www.radioopensource.org/the-american-exception-pop-culture-today/comment-page-1/#comment-162461 chris Thu, 02 Oct 2008 03:04:06 +0000 http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=1489#comment-162461 Yo, Aaron Hemeon: So glad you're aboard. I love your site. And I love the start of your self-profile: "I am a person filled with ideas. I am concerned with the direction of the human project. I am a pragmatist." Have we ever been photographed together? So people can draw their own conclusions. But you're in Vancover and I'm in Boston and Providence. Let's stay on the case. Thanks, Chris Lydon Yo, Aaron Hemeon:

So glad you’re aboard. I love your site. And I love the start of your self-profile: “I am a person filled with ideas. I am concerned with the direction of the human project. I am a pragmatist.” Have we ever been photographed together? So people can draw their own conclusions. But you’re in Vancover and I’m in Boston and Providence. Let’s stay on the case. Thanks, Chris Lydon

]]> By: aaronhemeon http://www.radioopensource.org/the-american-exception-pop-culture-today/comment-page-1/#comment-162460 aaronhemeon Thu, 02 Oct 2008 02:53:52 +0000 http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=1489#comment-162460 Ms. Bayles respectfully dismantled so many assumptions which are normally held as evident truths. I had to watch 300 in class on the formation of 'the west,' in which I was as revolted with the film as she is. It brought to mind Zizek's position -- that the left ought to appropriate 300 as a heroic model. Love Zizek, but here I side with Bayles. I haven't owned a television for about seven years, but I am a movie fiend. A movie I can process and digest, television is such an opinion machine. With reality-tv, for example, all of a sudden the program is setting standards. I am dismayed by the fact that so many women watch reality-tv, and, yet, its depiction of women (unintelligent, catty, and shallow) is so oppressive. It will be interesting to watch over the next few years, as bandwidth improves, tv go the way of radio -- that is, open source. To go from selecting among available programs, to navigating a pool of media when you become interested will revolutionize the predominantly viewed art form (TV). This will then influence our thinking in better ways -- so I hope. Ms. Bayles respectfully dismantled so many assumptions which are normally held as evident truths. I had to watch 300 in class on the formation of ‘the west,’ in which I was as revolted with the film as she is. It brought to mind Zizek’s position — that the left ought to appropriate 300 as a heroic model. Love Zizek, but here I side with Bayles. I haven’t owned a television for about seven years, but I am a movie fiend. A movie I can process and digest, television is such an opinion machine. With reality-tv, for example, all of a sudden the program is setting standards. I am dismayed by the fact that so many women watch reality-tv, and, yet, its depiction of women (unintelligent, catty, and shallow) is so oppressive. It will be interesting to watch over the next few years, as bandwidth improves, tv go the way of radio — that is, open source. To go from selecting among available programs, to navigating a pool of media when you become interested will revolutionize the predominantly viewed art form (TV). This will then influence our thinking in better ways — so I hope.

]]> By: hurley http://www.radioopensource.org/the-american-exception-pop-culture-today/comment-page-1/#comment-162456 hurley Wed, 01 Oct 2008 10:53:38 +0000 http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=1489#comment-162456 Listening to the show as I write. Television a key point. Certain shows broadcast by CULT via HBO -- The Sopranos, bien sur, but also In Treatment, Mad Men, things I haven't seen -- enormously popular in my corner of abroad. But what they offer not necessarily what the US might want to project. I spent some of my salad days guiding great American jazz musicians around Europe, and the reception was unfailingly rapturous. I recall a joke in the old SPY magazine abut the burden of someone offering you tickets to a jazz performance. Not so in Europe, an appealing aspect of globalism, shall we say, in which a distant culture keeps another alive. Whither Mickey Rourke otherwise?...Perhaps the most elegant man I ever knew was the great, great Benny Carter. The last time I saw him, when I was a teenager, he was in hospital. I brought him my Walkman and all my Bach, so to say. He gave me such a look, put both beside him, and thanked me, held my hand. I doubt I was so prescient, but had I been I might have said that's the man I want to represent me. Give me Benny Carter. Or the head of Alfredo Garcia. Listening to the show as I write. Television a key point. Certain shows broadcast by CULT via HBO — The Sopranos, bien sur, but also In Treatment, Mad Men, things I haven’t seen — enormously popular in my corner of abroad. But what they offer not necessarily what the US might want to project. I spent some of my salad days guiding great American jazz musicians around Europe, and the reception was unfailingly rapturous. I recall a joke in the old SPY magazine abut the burden of someone offering you tickets to a jazz performance. Not so in Europe, an appealing aspect of globalism, shall we say, in which a distant culture keeps another alive. Whither Mickey Rourke otherwise?…Perhaps the most elegant man I ever knew was the great, great Benny Carter. The last time I saw him, when I was a teenager, he was in hospital. I brought him my Walkman and all my Bach, so to say. He gave me such a look, put both beside him, and thanked me, held my hand. I doubt I was so prescient, but had I been I might have said that’s the man I want to represent me. Give me Benny Carter. Or the head of Alfredo Garcia.

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