Carl Scott

Rock’s other significance in relation to modernity, which David Bowie understood better than anyone, is that it sanctions a new type of heroism, that in contrast to, say, an astronaut’s bit part in a space-flight that is essentially the military-industrial establishment’s . . . . Continue Reading »

For never are the ways of music moved without the greatest political laws being moved. Plato, The Republic, 242c And so they say, this the golden age . . . U2, “New Year’s Day” At this point one might well wonder why I am bothering with rock, having abundant reasons to dislike the . . . . Continue Reading »

Rock intellectualizing’s third basic flaw is its captivity to bohemian/New Left assumptions regarding morals, culture, and politics. The Songbook will examine rock’s largely uncritical promotion of the sexual revolution as it unfolds, but here we consider the oddity of its leftism. On one . . . . Continue Reading »

In case you don’t know, Peter’s The Restless Mind is one of the very best books there is on Tocqueville. Either the best, or in the top three. His post below, which contains a number of fascinating angles for further inquiry, and particularly about Tocqueville’s (scattered, and . . . . Continue Reading »

To continue where we left off in Songbook #14, rock intellectualizing not only involves dismissal of the musically fine, but also of intellectually fine. It’s very activity demonstrates its ambivalence toward the core activity of the life of the mind, the wrestling with thinkers of first rank. . . . . Continue Reading »

John Stott has passed away. The English evangelical leader who inspired so many American believers. When I was a student leader in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, it was a source of pride that our organization was linked to this man. He’s probably most famous for Basic Christianity and The . . . . Continue Reading »

Here’s a very fine essay criticizing the Coen Brother’s film for omitting so much from the original Charles Portis book and adding so much also. It’s the essay our Robert Cheeks wanted to read back in January, when we pomocons went nuts over the film in several threads, and it . . . . Continue Reading »

Peter, here’s the link for the The New Republic piece on Perry’s “convenient conversion to radical evangelicalism.” What the conversion amounts to, outside of political moves, is this: “ . . . growing up Methodist, [Perry] belonged to the mainline tradition that counts . . . . Continue Reading »

. . . the rock and roll apparatus affectively organizes the everyday life of its fans by differentially cathecting the various fragments it “excorporates” along these three axes. . . . It involves vectors (quantities having both magnitude and direction) that are removed from the hegemonic . . . . Continue Reading »

In previous Songbook posts, I’ve posed rock and roll against rock, and against hard rock in particular. So what about the punk rejection of 70s dinosaur rock? Wasn’t that a return to rock and roll fervor and simplicity? Why have I suggested that punk belongs to Rock more than it does to . . . . Continue Reading »