Where goes my beautiful world?

In The Subversive History of Music, musicologist Ted Gioia argues that every fifty years or so generational change creates fresh musical forms that ‘subvert’ the established order, declaring that ‘Music is a change agent in human life (and) innovation almost always comes from outsiders.’

Which raises the question, could the same generational disruptive process apply to socio-cultural-political shifts?

If I were to be a Gen Y or Z or a Millennial, then I would be pretty pissed off right now. It is quite a legacy to inherit:

• The climate apocalypse and environment destruction has blown the boundaries of a finite planet to smithereens. The possible end of species looms.
• Neo-capitalism has introduced perpetual debt in a cashless society, while levels of inequality hark back to the laissez faire capitalist period. The era of economic crises has returned.
• Across the globe liberal democracy is under attack from reactionary populists, neo-fascists, and tyrants. The US is in decline and the EU internally disrupted.
• Conflicts reeking with injustice, competing power blocs, and untamed patriarchal egos.
• The death of the communist dream (thanks Jo Stalin). As the new rising superpower, China is behaving like any other imperialism.
• Australia has recently elected dull mediocrities as professionals following to the previous venal self-servers. A petrified Labor government timidly adheres to the tatters of neoliberalism while making platitudes to the ghosts of social democracy. Her Majesty’s Loyal Opportunists continue to play the NO card.
• Throw in the techpreneur: multibillionaires investing in immortality therapy, artificial intelligence and rocket ships to get themselves the fuck out of here because they know the planet is dying.

No wonder adolescent mental health is in crisis. Specialists apportion blame to the algorithms and digital interaction that is rewiring the brain. Which can be true and still a gross understatement given the future today’s youth face.

Mine is the generation of the 1960s and 70s, the last time there was a substantive generational shift. We were the counterculture – tune in, turn on, drop out – throwing off the white picket fence Cold War shackles. We were raised in the long post World War Two economic boom, when Keynes and the welfare state ruled. Capitalism was modernising so the working class was granted access to tertiary education.

Using class-based politics my generation talked of building universal collective solidarity. Motivated by the Vietnam War (the French also had Algeria), we were the rise of the anti-war and the civil rights movements (in Australia the land rights movement), women rights, and gay rights. We did achieve significant victories, which caused the columns to tremble, but the temple didn’t fall.

We ended up settling down, compromising our principles for career advancement, and voting for neoliberalism. Some remain dogmatists baying at the moon still thinking the revolution will be televised. A few of us have sought to remain true to foundational principles while keeping pace with an ever-changing world.

The grand narrative and utopian vision of Marxism may have been specious, but the validity of recognising the interconnection of resource ownership and power remains valid. It is the economy, stupid, while integrating with other analytical constructs that have arisen as dialectical partners.

Stepping back another fifty years recalls the first part of the twentieth century with the suffragettes campaigning for women’s voting rights. Militant unionism in the Industrial Workers of the World occurred. The slaughter of World War One sparked revolutionary fervour: Bolshevism rocks! The Roaring 20’s cabaret was crushed by the Great Depression, fascism and World War Two.

Which brings us to today, 100 years later, and the world is again plunged in perennial crisis. With everyone digitally connected what happens in one location is instantly known globally. Everyone can find their common peer no matter where they are – be it to buy into the consumer dream, plunge down a conspiracist rabbit hole, or redefine individual and collective identity.

Today’s youth use intersectionality and identity politics. While intersectionality is powerful analytical tool, the self-focussed nature of identity politics makes it looks like the love child of neoliberalism, Foucault and helicopter parenting.

Identity politics originated from and has had the greatest influence in the (liberal) elite institutions in the world’s richest countries, and this is the social layer it primarily represents. As far as I can tell, it has not had influence outside the western world, aside from a couple of metropoles like Cape Town and Rio.

Identity politics comes across as a contradiction, having both progressive and regressive features. Using layers of marginalisation to define oppression is not necessarily unifying, while the people proclaiming support for non-binary identity seem to have a singularly lineal world view. Cancel culture is anathema to free speech consciousness and identity politic advocates assert a puritanism that is worrying.

Contradicting that perspective is the ability of today’s youth to mobilise on a massive scale in unison across the globe. From climate change to Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, transgender, and now displaying internationalism on Palestine. Their power is growing, and they can certainly claim successes in redefining concept, language and analysis of gender and race, along with the way intimate relationships are conducted. The propensity of arrogant public figures to engage in misbehaviour is being called to account.

The 60’s radicals were known as the ‘new left’, recognising the rebirth of the Marxist-Leninist ideology that preceded them. Perhaps these days we should be known as ‘old left’ and what went before is the ancestor or foundation left. Rather than a continuance, today’s youth seem to be a distinct philosophical break. They call themselves progressives instead of left. Class consciousness is passé as social justice and equity are the phrases du jour.

I am still getting my head around this new creed, veering between disparagement and entrancement. There’s a part that thinks ‘that’s me 50 years ago’ and then ‘oh gawd, I’m sounding just like my parent’s.’ The wonderfully naïve aspiration in youthful upsurges meets the jaded world-weary whines from an ageing activist.

In his book Ted Gioia says: ‘If authorities do not intervene, music tends to expand personal autonomy and human freedom … Authorities usually intervene.’

History shows it is really difficult, verging on fucking impossible, to overthrow established power. Egalitarian societies have a brief survival rate. Capitalism is both adaptive and resilient while remaining rapacious, capable of turning songs of resistance into another marketing campaign.

Just as the youth of the 60s were called upon to ‘Join the Pepsi Revolution’ today Coca Cola has launched ‘an immersive diversity, equity and inclusion employee enrichment platform’. Women of colour taking up leadership roles in conservative forces displays the capacity of capitalism to incorporate new doctrines into established systems. Space has to be made for people who have been denied a voice or opportunity, but it is the perspective rather than the identity they represent, which determines if the ethos expressed has any value.

The forces of reaction are rising, and they have the power of wealth behind them. The overturning of women’s abortion rights in the States, the success of Brexit, or defeating the Voice to parliament are all reactionary victories. CPAC and the Atlas Network are just two examples of right-wing coordination, with Proud Boys, neo-Nazis and incels as the foot soldiers. Mad reactionaries tag team with rational ones.

If the human species is to have a future on this planet – or at least prevent the supercilious elitists from escaping to another world – then a massive shift in power, along with equitable distribution in wealth is required. We have enough, we simply must cease plundering finite resources.

Ted Gioia also wrote, ‘The dangerous rebel gets turned, after a few years or decades, into a respected tribal elder.’

If the wisdom of this elder has anything to offer, then it is ‘go for it kids, heart and soul. Wishing you all the best because if you don’t succeed then in fifty years’ time there won’t be enough of a planet left for another generation to subvert. What the rich and powerful can’t incorporate they will crush, so learn to build alliances on minimal platforms with people who are not like you. Keep pushing the boundaries, as you discover that progress is a cluster fuck of unseemly compromises.’

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I aim to write further, and in depth, on the thoughts expressed in the above piece.

Other reading in Eyes of the Sun, as at 17.01.24

There are three items on Australia and one on the Middle East. Of the Australian posts two relate to the 2023 Voice referendum. These are Africa is not Australia, and Ego is not a Dirty Word Unless You Stuff up the Country. The third article is on The ALP and AUKUS.

For a Decisive Shift this one is Ugly was written three days after the 7 October Hamas attack on southern Israel. Events have already surpassed my guttural writing.

Recently I began a series of short articles on Israel-Palestine exploring some of the rhetoric today’s iteration of the Free Palestine movement are chanting (we had one in the 1970s you know. Well, OK, back then it was just a small group). Themes included ‘Who are the partners for peace (just and equitable) between the river and the sea’ and ‘Animal Farm: Why does the leadership of the oppressed end up being like the oppressor.’ 

Israel’s ongoing horror onslaught in Gaza is such that currently any considered discussion is impossible. We can call for an ‘immediate ceasefire’ and ‘Israel out of Gaza’ while hoping against pessimistic expectations that at some point there will be space to discuss a meaningful way forward. To paraphrase Freire’s dictum: Liberation for the oppressed means liberating the oppressor. Free Palestine.