Cultural Recognition

Apparently there were two or three classes that really stuck with me during History of Cultural Theory in undergrad, because the analogy of Althusser’s cultural “interpellation” is a subject that I frequently ponder. Makes me wonder how much more productive I could be if I had actually persevered through monotone lectures a little bit more attentively. Still,  something stuck, even if that idea is just a golden trophy to be sought through the maze of fog that’s my murky recollection. (Wait, I think that’s the fourth Harry Potter.) I’ve written about interpellation before, and in fact it’s the very notion behind this whole blog.

One of the analogies Althusser uses to describe the process of interpellation or cultural hailing is that of the policeman. You’re walking down the street, minding your own business, staring down at your iPhone and tweeting to the world that you’re walking down the street and minding your own business, when a cop shouts “Hey, you!”

• a. He knows. Run!
• b. Me? You talkin’ to me?

Somehow, for whatever reason, you know he’s talking to you. You hear his voice, translate his words into meaning, and figure it out. He might not actually be talking to you but you access that ability and do, for a second, think he means you.

It’s the same way when a lifeguard blows her whistle at a kid running on a pool deck. He might not even look up; he might just stop running. He might stumble but keep running. He knows he’s breaking the rules, and he knows that the whistle was meant for him: the guard can see his reaction.

It was the same way when I was out in Clarendon with a few girlfriends last night. We were talking happily, but in my peripheral vision I sensed a guy in a blue shirt looking at me. There’s one. Like a cat scoping bigger and badder predators, I stopped using my logical brain and instead kicked into my intuition. I could sense a shark circling, ready to chat. Yeah, he was looking at us. Yeah, he’s interested. So was I surprised when I noticed that he and his other blue shirt buddies had posted up near the windows behind us? No. I kept talking to Erin about my graduate program (because I am a N.E.R.D.), gestures included, but when I hear one voice in a crowded room say, “Excuse me,” Yes, I know you’re talking to us. 

So what’s happening? A combination of intuition, observation, interpellation? All three, I guess.

If all three happen in real life, then all three must also happen in theory, scholarship, activism, and ideas. Just an obvious little thought.

Somewhere between getting convinced to go to a line-dancing country bar in Alexandria and being reprimanded for my ineffective screening of over-interested guys, I got to talking to my friend Lizzy about my direction in my M.A. program. I don’t really fully explain what I’m doing to most people, because I tend to nerd out and say way more than they bargained for, but Lizzy was asking questions and (gasp!) was actually involved and interested in the conversation. We began talking about preserving vs. sustaining communities through art forms, and the ways in which those media retain or lose relevancy in changing societies.

Lizzy is a classical violist, so our conversation was guided toward symphonic orchestras as an example of a culturally expressive medium that is losing relevancy today. She cited a few reasons for this shift, based mostly on generational and class differences:

Young people aren’t interested. They’re not familiar with the “rules” and etiquette of going, tickets are too expensive, they’re not interested in the music — and that’s just surface level.

We all know that the overarching class structures prevalent in the heyday of classical music are no longer with us. We have classes, of course, but now is (arguably) less bourgeois/prole and more diversified. Symphony orchestras no longer represent the values of (“high art,” education, frivolity) and within (the visibly divided culture: ticket prices, etiquette) the same societies.

All of this is not to say that the orchestras are completely out of date and no longer valuable. They just do not reflect the same values as earlier, so they cannot serve the same purposes in cultures, and in building communities. They can be adapted to do so, or new expressions can (and do) emerge.

• This Darwinian mode of thinking is nothing new. How do classical, historical, and folk art forms take on new roles in this line of thought?
• How much of “value” is implicit and unsaid in cultures?
• What are the dangers of introducing analytically reflexive notions to communities?
• What about “art for art’s sake?” What can be said for the soul of the symphony itself?

In response, my friend and classmate Michele– also a musician — had written a comment that apparently got caught somewhere in the WordPress web. She introduced an article by Alex Ross originally published in the New Yorker (2004) and most recently republished in 2010 book Listen to This. The article’s about the flexibility and perpetually dying nature of classical music defending its relevancy today. Ross discusses the artistic value of this genre of music, and I think that Michele has added a good response to my question about the soul of the symphony. Ross’s article briefly discusses the changing social function of music as representation of class structure.

My above post, though, wonders — what, functionally, is music beyond music? And, don’t write me off just because I’m not a musician. I have an appreciation for music and the other arts. I wonder these questions about literally everything in the world. Artistry removed (if such a thing is possible), what value did it add or represent in the past? in today’s state? Beyond expression of the human experience – what is it? This is what I wonder.