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Jagger’s new band
Dean Ericson writes:
There’s an article in the Daily Mail about Mick Jagger, his 6’4” girlfriend, and his new band, “SuperHeavy.” The thing reads and looks like a parody from The Onion. Check out the band photo:
Great things to come: A promotional shot for SuperHeavy,
from left, Damian, Joss, Mick, A.R and Dave
Straight out of Central Casting, it’s an updated version of the Village People: a ganja reggae mon in a backwards hat, a kittenish slut in a babydoll outfit, the aged Leader of the Pack trying to look 24, a Third World hipster in sunglasses, and a Williamsburg-I’m-too-cool-for-this-planet hipster with his loving arm around the Third-World hipster. And when you move your pointer over the photo you get a pop-up window that shows you where you can buy the clothes they’re wearing (Macy’s!).
LA replies:
But don’t these enduring tropes indicate, not some laughable weakness in the pop-liberal culture, but its disturbing strength: that it’s a tradition, or a set of traditions, that keeps replicating itself, generation after generation?
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Gintas writes:
You wrote:
“But don’t these enduring tropes indicate, not some laughable weakness in the pop-liberal culture, but its disturbing strength: that it’s a tradition, or a set of traditions, that keeps replicating itself, generation after generation?”
Its strength is that it appeals almost irresistibly to our corrupt nature. I wouldn’t call that a tradition, but a pattern of manipulation.
LA replies:
I don’t know what this means.
Dean Ericson writes:
“But don’t these enduring tropes indicate, not some laughable weakness in the pop-liberal culture, but its disturbing strength: that it’s a tradition, or a set of traditions, that keeps replicating itself, generation after generation?”
It’s the bedrock theme of liberalism: perpetual rebellion. But then, isn’t that the theme of America, born in rebellion—and thus of liberalism throughout the West which is influenced by American liberalism? And then there’s that bit in the Bible about man’s rebellion against God. So yes, it does seem to be a powerful tradition. (But one traditionalists should not be too eager to embrace.)
LA replies:
I’m not talking about the content—about the objective value, the goodness or badness—of this tradition. I’m talking about its structure. And it is the structure of a tradition—a set of beliefs, behaviors, attitudes that that keeps replicating itself and carrying itself forward through time, with people in each new generation identifying itself with it and becoming its members.
Gintas writes:
I think the artificiality of it all makes me think it’s not tradition; these are calculated things, generated by marketers and advertisers and pushed at us and sustained through all media channels. It reeks of propaganda and indoctrination. It’s parasitic.
It’s hard to believe that fossil Jagger is still kicking. Is that really him in that picture, or is it a cardboard cutout? It really looks like a cardboard cutout.
LA replies:
Hey, see the Stones concert in the 2008 movie “Shine a light” filmed by Martin Scorsese in 2006 at the Beacon Theater in New York. They are fantastic. They’ve had a steadiness, consistency of quality, and amazing vitality over five decades. Whatever you think of them, that’s not something to sneer at. Jagger, at age 63 in that concert, is no fossil, but a phenomenon, as are the rest of them.
And they’re all still skinny as rails.
Kilroy M. writes:
I think “virus” would be a better descriptor under the circumstances.
Actually, when I look at this, the thing that stands out for me is the utterly ridiculous expression on Jagger’s face. It’s an odd mixture of prophetic gaze into the abyss, a conceited self-importance common among the new-ager hippie types who are convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt about their enlightenment, they just know they have all the answers to man’s woes, combined with a kind confrontational truth-to-power pose: Jagger has become a caricature of himself in one vanity shot. [Isn’t this reading an awful lot into the expression on a man’s face? Whatever Jagger is, he has never been associated with bien pensant liberalism.]
This kind of naive and cheesy “thing” might work in the ’60s/’70s when people in thier naive stupidity actually believed the cultural revolution in the West would be “liberating.” Today, it’s just plain comical: oneworlder passivism has given us what Enoch Powel predicted. Flower power has given us sex-war and demographic implosion. And this ambassador from that age of social destruction reinserts himself onto the stage, apparently with the same, reheated and bankrupt ideals that have ruined the society which he now continues to entertain. The depressing this is that he will probably sell records. [LA replies: Again, I don’t think it’s true that Jagger has ever pushed liberal ideals per se. This is not to defend his work and its impact on our culture.]
The other band members? Well, of course, what else could one expect. They fit the various archetypes of the only-just-post-pubescent pop-hero. The novelty here is the apparent cultural vitality of someone who would ordinarily have passed his expiry date decades ago. Liberalism destroys the society that embraces it. But the old-school agents of liberalism believe themselves to be immortal. Perhaps that is the ultimate proof of their perpetual immaturity: the refusal to age with dignity. [LA replies: Jagger is a performer, with the same unique persona and act that he had in 1965. As I said to a friend when watching the “Shine A Light” movie recently on DVD, it’s as if Jagger came out of the womb as Mick Jagger, and has been him ever since. If you don’t like what he brought into the culture, fine. But criticism of him for not “aging with dignity” seems woefully off-target, a kind of kneejerk conservative censoriousness.]
Gintas replies to LA:
You’re right. They must not have partied as hard as maybe they wanted people to think they did, otherwise they would have been burned out at 30 (which Steve Sailer wrote about was the creative cutoff age for rockers).
Matthew H. writes:
My first thought when I saw the photo was “England, 2011.” It’s the fashionable old toff and his current collection of accessories. Note that Whitey gets center stage in this multi-cult super group (with the cutie on his right arm).
Gintas observes, “They must not have partied as hard as maybe they wanted people to think they did, otherwise they would have been burned out at 30.”
Sadly, however, the hedonistic cult of which the Stones were the most prominent exemplars lead many of my generation, many starting as pre-teen children (the Stones were old hat by that time), to blight their lives with drink, drugs and dissipation. I could give you a long list of names of friends, relations and acquaintances. It is impossible to quantify the toll—economic, cognitive, social, psychic—that the fetid cult of “rock’n’roll” has wrought on Anglo-Saxon and European nations in the last 50 years. It is surely great indeed.
Oddly enough, by synchronicity perhaps, last night on a whim I tuned in Mick & the boys on youtube from 1967 doing Get off My Cloud. Ah, that old beat! Nothing like it.
But then, the Bible tells us: Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Matthew 7:20.
I’ll give the old devil his due: 120 pushups! He must live better than some of his legions of acolytes.
Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 23, 2011 09:44 AM | Send
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