The Nobel Prize in Literature 2016 awarded to Bob Dylan
nobelprize.org
nobelprize.org
A South politician preaches to the poor white man
"You got more than blacks, don't complain
You're better than them, you been born with white skin" they explain
And the Negro's name
Is used it is plain
For the politician's gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain't him to blame
He's only a pawn in their game.
YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KY2lQV3ADfc
As it seems especially relevant today. It's a song about the killing of civil rights activist Medgar Evers by a poor white farmer in the 60's. Dylan addresses the civil rights movement in a way that avoids laying the blame squarely at the feet of the angry racist who pulled the trigger, instead placing the blame with politicians who sow hatred, insecurity, fear and division for their own ends and don't care what mess they leave behind.
When I see Trump rallies today full of angry people complaining their country has been 'taken from them' I can't help but think of that song.
Are you suggesting history existed before I was born?
Do I think that Trump is drawing on the same political tradition by 'othering' Mexicans, LGBTs, Blacks to win political support? Do I think that most of Trump's political constituency comes from the 'base' that the likes of Karl Rove built? Do I think that 'liberal political elites' is a dogwhistle for 'progressive social change I don't like' - you bet.
Edit: By reductio ad 'X' I mean in reference to Reductio ad Hitlerum (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum), which as commenter below points out is actually a bastardization of Reductio ad Absurdum
Not really. Reductio ad absurdum is a common proof strategy.
Sure, Trump has tapped into a certain political current that has long existed in American life (since at least Andrew Jackson), but there are other reasons for his (un)popularity and are worth understanding in their own right.
Looks like I got the literal translation of "reductio ad something" right though. Also seems like the spirit is the same between me and Leo Strauss about how said reduction results in something pat, neat, simple and intellectually lazy. That's what I experience every time someone tries to tie up something interesting & complex with a nice Trump ribbon. It has been "reduced to Trump."
But, as you say, it goes back and forth and in the 19th Century it was the Democrats who were known for this. Neither party has a great history with race.
Black US unemployment went from 15% (peaking at 16% a year later) in 2008 back down to 9.1% in 2016 (close to the 2007 pre-recession low).
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t02.htm
http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2011/ted_20111005.htm
I encourage your fact based discovery of the economic condition of this country and it's citizens.
Alternatively, we can all live in total fear of ISIS taking over the country.
http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-isis-will-take-over-us-...
Going from 84% to 90.9% employment rate represents an 8.21% increase in the proportion of black people who are employed.
Going from 90% to 95% employment rate represents a 5.55% increase in the proportion of Americans who are employed.
Do they look back from todays "hellscape" recovery and remember the wonder days when we wondered how many people would lose their jobs or homes to foreclosure? Or did they rejoice when black RNC head Michael Steele was forced to kowtow Rush Limbaugh after Obama was elected?
Prior to the financial crisis it was 4.6% overall, 8.3% for blacks[1].
So now it is 8.9% worse that the per-crisis number for all employment (ie, (5-4.6)/4.6) vs 8.5% worse for blacks (ie (9-8.3)/8.3).
Sure, I'm sure you can play with the numbers to give it the spin you want, and I can spin them the other way.
But it's pretty difficult to argue that it is significantly worse now than it was before.
[1] http://www.bls.gov/opub/reports/race-and-ethnicity/archive/r...
Give me a break. "Taking our country back" is talking about wrestling power back from the political and cultural elite that has emerged in the last half-century. This elite formed when 1) all of the smart kids started going off to college together and forming their own social bubble, 2) they began invariably marrying people they went to college or work with (while in earlier times, the successful were typically married to very average middle-class people they grew up around), and 3) the economy shifted to highly rewarding intelligence while wages for lower-skill work collapsed. This has led to the splintering of American society. It has nothing to do with race.
I recommend Charles Murray's book Coming Apart, which is a thorough sociological study of this phenomenon and its effects.
You say that as if it's a bad thing.
If you really believe that women and minorities don't have equal rights, then I can only urge you to dig a little deeper. Gender wage discrimination is a made-up problem, the statistics that you hear don't control for career choice, hours-worked, positions-sought, etc. The problem with our police force is that it's not professionalized once you get below the federal level. Police are too aggressive and quick to use force, but it's not a racial issue.
SJWism is a cancer on Western civilization and it's one of the most pressing problems we face, because it prevents us from having honest conversations about any other problem. Debates these days always devolve into accusations of racism/sexism/"ableism", or whatever the latest boogeyman "ism" is.
But racism is not a significant factor these days. In fact, minorities who do escape the fatalism of these communities are advantaged by widespread affirmative action, not just in school admissions, but in hiring, business loans, professional recognition, etc.
Race does not exist in a vacuum. Look at the legislation that makes possession a crime. Look at the way selective enforcement results in blacks being over represented in prison systems.
Look at the way the urban school districts are underfunded. You can pretend that the system is not racist, but when one racial group suffers disproportionately from legislation that is regressive, unfair and has not been repealed or changed since the era when Jim Crow was wakking, you have a racist system.
We can put feel good bandaids over some college admission laws and we can even elect a black president, but until we fundamentally rework the laws and institutions of this country, we cannot call racism dead. That is the opinion of someone who has not been pulled over for driving through the wrong neighbourhood.
I think the Republican Party's pro-life position to be discriminatory against women. No one can force you to be an organ donor. Even if donating your organs would save someone's life, you have autonomy over your body and you are allowed to decline to be an organ donor. How is abortion any different? Even if you could save the baby's life, a woman should have complete autonomy over her body, period.
Immigration is a huge issue, and I really thought the GOP was turning the corner on it, but it's all fallen apart since the GOP decided it would rather pander to an angry white base. Hopefully Trump will lose big and the GOP will actually follow the research they did in 2012.
You sound like a reasonable person. I agree that wage discrimination and police violence aren't black and white issues. I agree that SJWism stifles honest debate. But I believe that climate change is real. I believe that marijuana has medicinal benefits and that the War on Drugs has been a colossal waste. I believe that religion has no place in government or political discourse. I believe that it doesn't matter what your sexual orientation or gender identity is. These aren't partisan issues in my mind; it's reality. Romney seems to understand this. But I'm from East Texas, and I know for every one of him, there's a dozen Louie Gohmerts. The GOP needs to get its shit together and jettison the insane branch of its tent before we end up with a de facto one party political system.
Amnesty for current illegal immigrants + improved border security and visa enforcement, so that it never happens again, is the obvious answer to the immigration problem. What many people don't know is that the American people were sold on just that in 1986. It was a great compromise, a great humanitarian action, worthy of a great nation.
Too bad it was a total lie. Amnesty was granted, but the improved enforcement never came. The Democrats were happy to keep importing voters and keep a hot-button issue alive. The Republicans were happy to keep importing cheap labor. The people, who wanted an end to uncontrolled immigration, were the suckers. Sanctuary cities that refuse to hand over dangerous criminals for deportation, and a federal government that usually declines deportation anyway, have only added fuel to the fire.
The people are totally right to refuse to be fooled again.
>But I believe that climate change is real.
The funny thing is that the people beating the drums of climate panic tend to be the same ones that are opposed to nuclear power, which is the easiest and most obvious solution that doesn't require crippling our economy.
>I believe that religion has no place in government or political discourse.
I disagree completely. The government should certainly not favor one religion over another, but the religions are the source of our moral values, even for most of the non-believers among us. We take for granted just how much Christianity has shaped our secular culture and morality. If you believe in your heart that abortion is the taking of a human life, then you have a duty to fight to end it.
>I believe that marijuana has medicinal benefits and that the War on Drugs has been a colossal waste.
I agree for the most part, but I've lately had doubts about my previous position that we should just legalize all drugs. Drugs like heroin and meth and cocaine rob people of their agency, of the will to direct their own lives. They should not be available for purchase.
So are you saying we should just give up on the issue? We tried something and it didn't work. We should try again. The solution isn't "build a wall".
> The funny thing is that the people beating the drums of climate panic tend to be the same ones that are opposed to nuclear power, which is the easiest and most obvious solution that doesn't require crippling our economy.
I agree, I think it's idiotic to vilify nuclear power. Catastrophes have happened, we learned from them.
> The government should certainly not favor one religion over another, but the religions are the source of our moral values, even for most of the non-believers among us.
We agree to disagree then. I believe religion is a highly personal issue that has no place in public discourse. I do not see Christianity's influence on our culture and morality as a positive thing.
> Drugs like heroin and meth and cocaine rob people of their agency, of the will to direct their own lives. They should not be available for purchase.
I agree. When I rail against the War on Drugs, I specifically refer to the stance of incarceration rather than rehabilitation as a solution to the drug problem.
Part of the solution is certainly to build a barrier. Mind you, this was once uncontroversial when it was just a flimsy "border fence", which is already authorized by law with bipartisan support. Now it seems that some are scared that a proper barrier, combined with real internal enforcement, might actually work.
Now that the trust is gone, the government must prove itself on border security and immigration enforcement. Amnesty should only be considered when the people are convinced that this crisis will never happen again, that we will never again have millions of people enter the country against the democratic will of citizens.
>I agree, I think it's idiotic to vilify nuclear power. Catastrophes have happened, we learned from them.
I suggest then that you base your vote on this issue not so much on who "believes" in climate change or not, but who supports the actual policies that can actually solve it.
>When I rail against the War on Drugs, I specifically refer to the stance of incarceration rather than rehabilitation as a solution to the drug problem.
Yes, I agree that we should stop imprisoning people for possession. But I do think that trafficking should remain a serious crime. I think you'll find that the prison population won't change much under this arrangement.
And even if you did stop imprisoning for trafficking, it wouldn't necessarily change much either. Most people in prison for "non-violent drug offenses" don't have that as their most serious charge.
How is the GOP going to put out an actual policy to solve climate change if they don't believe it's even a problem in the first place?
I think it's important not to discount the difficulty of securing the border because of the size of it. And as you mention, American companies (like Smithfield) are happy to create incentives for border hopping because they can use the threat of calling INS to keep wages low and prevent unions from forming.
The problem with the idea of widespread voting fraud is the data doesn't support it, at all. Bush's DOJ came up with an estimate of %0.00000132 of fraudulent votes in federal elections, for instance. Note that by then it was explicitly illegal for aliens to vote in federal elections.
> We take for granted just how much Christianity has shaped our secular culture and morality.
I'd argue that across peoples and times you see more variation in theological doctrine than moral teachings in the various religions. Hinduism, for instance, is practiced by different people differently and encompasses polytheistic, monotheistic, and even atheistic traditions. But morality remains a feature, specifically the concept of karma. Sweden is by some counts 85% atheist, but I'm not aware of anyone calling it a den of iniquity. Certainly my Muslim-American friends are moral.
In other words, people tend to be recognizably moral regardless of their very divergent beliefs about other things. That points to a general human capacity for morality, rather than one specific to any one religion (that the others, even those predating it, were presumably lucky enough to develop independently).
Certainly moral codes differ. But they also differ within the same religion across time -- for instance, the modern Christian view of divorce vs. the ancient one.
Christian orthodoxy varies. Ancestor worship is common in African Christian sects. Protestant and Orthodox churches abhor the Roman Catholic practice of praying to statues. Unitarians discount the trinity. Sure, there's a common thread of Christian morals there, but I'd argue that it's the same thread you find everywhere, modulo views on homosexuality and a couple of other things.
I don't mean to be cruel but I find the assertion that America gets its morals from Christianity to be somewhat narrow in that it presupposes that Christians got theirs from on high, and ignores the similar moral teachings you find throughout the world and throughout history.
It also runs contrary to the founders' explicit intentions for the role of religion in government, and I would argue that it does a large disservice to your fellow Americans who aren't Christian.
If so, this is the same rhetoric used to discriminate or marginalize the early generations of immigrants in NY last century; my grandparents went through it. Not a lot of fun.
And if this is a ploy to gain sympathy to a particular party, I think that party deserves that continued support. Trust extended to the outsider begets trust as that outsider lays downs roots, and those children and their children would be likely to vote the same way by gratitude or tradition. Even if it distorts the way they would vote without that influence, I think the country overall benefits when immigrant communities feel supported, looking forward, participating in society, not isolated from it. It's how our country changes, grows, adapts.
The US government is not founded on enforcing morals, but guaranteeing rights. For example, the 10 Commandments and the Bill of Rights are at distinct odds with each other.
I disagree in absolute. In my view religions do far more harm than good, and to claim religious thought is the basis of morality even for non believers is somewhere between condescending and insulting.
Anyhow, my broader point is that religions are a source of moral conviction for people. And moral conviction is totally legitimate basis for political conviction.
We are obviously setting side abortion in cases of rape. So the pro-life position is equal in it's belief about women's autonomy over their bodies. It's only that the pro-life position believe the fetus should be proetect earlier the women's autonomy over her body is equally protected.
I disagree. I think it's absolutely insulting to say that an unborn, memoryless fetus/embryo/cell cluster has more of a right to life than the living, breathing, self-aware woman its inside.
> We are obviously setting side abortion in cases of rape.
This isn't obvious. Many conservatives believe abortion should be universally disallowed, including pregnancies resulting from rape.
I think it's telling that instead of defending the core of your position, that abortion should always be allowed, you're falling back to periphery issues, such as what to do when the life of the pregnant woman is threatened by the pregnancy. Many (most?) pro-life people would agree with allowing abortion in such cases, and it's really a sideshow to the main question.
> Many (most?) pro-life people would agree with allowing abortion in such cases
It doesn't matter, because they are many more who want to ban it entirely. Many religions, such as the Catholic Church, teach that there are no circumstances in which abortion is acceptable. Women have died in Catholic hospitals because of this doctrine. If we say some abortions are allowed, and some aren't, then we're politicizing what should be a medical decision between a woman and her doctor.
In that you don't already comprehend, I doubt I'll be able to aid in your understanding, but here goes nothing.
The state allows men to exercise control over their own reproductive systems more completely than women.
It really is that simple.
Men have all options available e.g. vasectomy, wearing condoms, etc. Women on the other hand see the "party of small government" lead the charge into their hospital rooms, dictating to them what rights they have insofar as control of their own reproductive systems goes.
If men also could get pregnant, it wouldn't be discriminatory. That the only reproductive control technique to be denied women is a technique only available to women, any laws to restrict such techniques are inherently discriminatory toward women.
The attempts to restrict abortion effect women's rights directly, far more so than men, many of whom vanish before a child is even carried to term.
Does that help clear it up?
This is preposterous logic. Women have the same access to birth control than men do. In fact, as it stands now, the options available to women are vastly superior, i.e. the pill.
The fact that only women can bear children does not make the regulation of abortion "discrimination". Discrimination would be if both sexes could bear children, but only abortion by females was banned.
Do you think that abortion on the day before birth should be legal?
As it stands the opinions of people who have zero involvement in a woman's reproductive cycle easily exert legislative and legal control over the options available to women.
Can you provide even a single instance of male reproductive regulation subjected to similar legislative control?
> In fact, as it stands now, the options available to women are vastly superior
You think of abortion as a form of birth control because your involvement in the process is essentially binary. Either you want a child or you don't. Either you wear a condom or you don't. For women exercising control over their reproductive rights isn't restricted to the timespan of a sexual encounter. An association between birth control and abortion in the greater context of reproductive rights seems to me indicative of a singular and fairly rigid perspective.
> The fact that only women can bear children does not make the regulation of abortion "discrimination".
Perhaps you should study the definition of discrimination. My OED lists two definitions to include: "the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex" and "recognition and understanding of the difference between one thing and another". In its most neutral definition, that is in the sense of differentiating two things, discrimination is rendered necessary by laws regulating abortion specifically as a direct result of the fact that women are the only ones who can become pregnant. The definition with more negative connotations makes reference to prejudice. The Wizards of Ox define prejudice as "preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience", or alternatively "harm or injury that results or may result from some action or judgment". Give that anti-abortion laws are passed, in part, by men whom by definition have no actual experience with the subject of legislation, it doesn't seem much of a leap to interpret such behavior as being prejudicial and thus discriminatory.
> Do you think that abortion on the day before birth should be legal?
In some cases, absolutely. Consider a premature baby born five months before it should be with no hope to survive, or the case of last minute complications that threaten a woman's life, or last minute discovery of terminal congenital defects.
Are you for real? I don't think access to contraceptives for adult men and women has been a real political controversy for at least 40 or 50 years.
By your definition of discrimination, regulation of any industry is discrimination, since it doesn't apply to the other industries. Property tax is also discriminatory, because it only affects people who own property. This is transparently puerile logic.
Quite.
> I don't think access to contraceptives for adult men and women has been a real political controversy for at least 40 or 50 years.
Contraceptives? I was talking about abortion, not about contraceptives.
contraceptive |ˌkäntrəˈseptiv| adjective (of a method or device) serving to prevent pregnancy: the contraceptive pill.
Abortions don't prevent pregnancies from occurring, they terminate pregnancies that have already occurred. Clearly not the same thing. This would by why abortion isn't listed under Oxford's definition for contraception.
To wit: "contraception |ˌkäntrəˈsepSH(ə)n|noun the deliberate use of artificial methods or other techniques to prevent pregnancy as a consequence of sexual intercourse. The major forms of artificial contraception are barrier methods, of which the most common is the condom; the contraceptive pill, which contains synthetic sex hormones that prevent ovulation in the female; intrauterine devices, such as the coil, which prevent the fertilized ovum from implanting in the uterus; and male or female sterilization."
To say that women have access to "contraceptives" as if such is a viable response to my comments about abortion illustrates your own ignorance of the facts.
Still if you consider abortion to be a form of contraceptive, I'll happily refer you to Roe v. Wade, countless bombings and arsons of abortion clinics, assault and murder of personnel at abortion clinics, etc.
Once again you're looking at things through a male perspective and seeing abortion as a contraceptive as that's the only aspect of reproductive control that you understand.
What you think carries little weight compared to what I know for fact. I've actually volunteered for non-profits that have distributed contraceptives and I know exactly what kind of challenges such organizations face.
The fact of the matter is, as I said before: "As it stands the opinions of people who have zero involvement in a woman's reproductive cycle easily exert legislative and legal control over the options available to women."
You respond to comments about abortions (termination of pregnancy) with talk about contraceptives (used to prevent pregnancies).
Such a retort is little more than a straw-man.
> By your definition of discrimination
I'm pretty sure I used Oxford's definitions and I'm pretty sure that was made clear. I'm also pretty sure I'm not an editor at Oxford ergo those aren't my definitions, but rather a standard on which the world for the most part agrees.
I saw what you tried to do there, and I didn't like it.
> regulation of any industry is discrimination
Not at all. People aren't corporations. They don't have gender or ethnicity. I can't say that I'm surprised that you equate women with corporations given the need of corporations for external entities i.e. executives, staff, etc, to direct their function. It says a lot about how you think of women, i.e. that they need somebody to control them and make decisions for them.
> Property tax is also discriminatory.
Once again the negative definition of discriminate is to "make an unjust or prejudicial distinction in the treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, sex, or age".
Discrimination in the first sense, that is of differentiation, does apply to property tax as the law must differentiate between those that own property and those that do not.
Discrimination in the second sense, with its associated negative connotations, is a bit more difficult to argue for in the case of property tax as the courts have found the laws as regards such taxation to be just, that is to say, not prejudicial.
You're ignoring a crucial aspect of the negative definition of discriminate, that referring to which is unjust or prejudicial, just for the sake of the argument that you want to make.
Once again there are two definitions to include one that is neutral from the perspective of morals and values and another which is not. You're using one definition where it is convenient for your argument, and ignoring another, again where it is convenient for your argument.
Adding to that, you respond to statements about abortion with off-topic comments about contraception?
And you dare call my logic puerile?
Maybe if you look outside your bubble aka in the internet you can come to realise in the real world this isn't nearly a big and widespread of a problem as some people make it out to be.
Ah, but it was in meatspace that I became alarmed by them. I saw them ruin my alma mater, go after freedom of association, smear everyone who dared oppose them racist. I saw the spinelessness of leaders who instead of fighting back would just capitulate. I saw the Obama administration embrace their cause and turn college sexual assault tribunals into modern Salem witch trials, where a mere accusation is enough to ruin a life forever.
This has spread beyond academia. I saw what they did to Brendan Eich in Mozilla, I saw the chill that has set in among my conservative friends, who dare not speak their opinions lest they be outcast from their industries.
Maybe it's you who needs to step out of whatever bubble you're in.
Furthermore, your position is self inconsistent -- any attempt to wield your highly sensitive SJWism sensor will lead to the same variety of dishonesty that you claim of others holding similar sensors for other social topics.
You are right that there are specific instances where tribally motivated groups explicitly misuse social arguments in a way that disadvantages their opponents -- you are wrong to imply that all occurrences of disadvantage based on this pattern are misuse.
Or am I misunderstanding the "it"? Do you mean "taking the country back" has nothing to do with race? For you, it sounds like that's true, so that's good. That's all I can conclude however. I can conclude nothing about Trump. Literally nobody has any idea what Trump's really about. He's juuuust incoherent enough that he never manages to actually, successfully say anything. In that way he succeeds at being all things to all people. Anyone can project anything onto him without fear of being contradicted. Including his opponents. You say he's about SOCIAL EQUALITY. His opponents say he's about RACISM. Who's right? Nobody knows.
Edit: Same is true of Clinton, for different reasons. The words are more coherent, but they're so vague and full of platitudes you can't really say what she's about either.
Edit: And note that "by my logic" you cannot conclude any thing is anti- any other thing. That was your logic.
You mean people like Trump?
Nationalist vs Globalist is a pretty good summarization.
The globalists seem primarily interested in using their positions of power to enrich themselves and gratify their egos, and they perhaps feel they are doing something right in their policy prescriptions, but it is driven by complete lack of understanding of human nature.
The nationalists understand that humans have concentric (genetic) loyalties, from self, to family, to nation/race. These are just facts of nature, fighting against them is a losing battle and arranging our societies along these natural lines will produce the best outcomes.
The nationalists want the best for the whole world, not just a tiny trans-national elite.
Trump is a nationalist.
(Yes I know this seems antithetical to the experience of many in SV, elite universities, etc. What these supposedly smart people fail to understand is that they are among outliers of outliers. Exceptions to rules are not unknown, but basing our policy on exceptions is an invitation to disaster.)
I think you're giving them too much credit even. Their world view is ultimately incoherent, based more in "niceness" than in any consistent belief system. Contemptuous of Middle America for valuing cultural unity[1], they viciously demand adherence to their own rigid moral precepts, while also seeking to import mass numbers from populations that don't share one bit in those precepts.
[1] One of the wonderful aspects of American nationalism is that this unity is not racial, but cultural.
It's not a social truth, despite attempts to raise above reproach its horrible behavior and worse consequences, it's just an old political technique used by some political leaders for their own purposes, as Bob Dylan pointed out, a brushfire they set which now has turn into a raging, out of control forest fire. We can do something about it.
> These are just facts of nature
We can say murder and rape are facts of nature; is it 'elitist' to outlaw them? I don't feel they are 'facts' of my nature, in that they somehow inevitable, and neither is racism.
There are far better angels of our nature, and America was founded on them. 'All men are created equal' and liberty for those men (and women), not just people you happen to like. That has resonated with people's natures for centuries now; I think we can say it's not longer an 'experiment', as Lincoln called it, and it's attracted immigrants from every culture and inspired many more around the world. A lot of those populist 'white' people, as they call themselves, used to hate each other as Irish and Italians and Germans and Poles, Catholics and Protestants and Jews. It turned out those divisions weren't in their natures after all.
That's not even remotey accurate.
If this was about racism, then why Trump now? Why were Republican nominees so conventional the last 50+ years?
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/oct/13/liberal-media-...
In this case, the politicians who "sow hatred, insecurity, fear and division for their own ends and don't care what mess they leave behind," are the leftists.
See the rapid, shocking, galling decline of civil society in some western European countries in recent years.
These mass immigration leftists sow hatred and insecurity when they act as if the natives of the western world(genetic Europeans,) are somehow in debt to the rest of the world for past sins. Strangely overlooking the fact that the entire modern world with all its convenience and affordances, huge improvements in health and nutrition etc. etc., are more or less entirely the product of Europeans. All peoples can look at some past actions with regret, but Europeans have clearly been a net positive on the world at an unprecedented scale.
These mass immigration leftists sow fear and division when they support the importation of huge population groups with the bonkers notion that these groups will then start behaving along the societal norms of the country they've been imported to, rather than the country they came from.
So the Trumpers are right, their country is being taken from them in this way.
But before we get too far in the weeds on a patented HN thread of only the most tenuous relevance, Congratulations Bob!
It's gotten to the point where we see all pretence dispensed with and we now see regular race riots in the US when someone is justifiably killed by the police.
All thanks to a get out the vote effort of Democrats and their media compatriots in the form of falsely portraying blacks as victims and stoking racial tensions, encouraging the tensions along with violence in many cases.
And a deafening silence in public discussion about the huge disconnect in rates of black on white crime vs white on black.
One must wonder, what is the endgame for these people? Facts can't stay hidden forever.
My guess is that Dylan got the price because his generation is aging and they want a statement of that it all really mattered in the larger sense.
We still have a long way to go, but imagine if we wouldn't have taken all the small steps that actually were taken, and imagine if we wouldn't have had the leaders and singers that gave us a direction.
The optimism and feeling of change was the same.
The Altamont concert[2] was the end of that feeling in the 60's, just as the 2016 US election campaign has been the end of it now.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Declaration_of_the_Independe...
Also worth checking out is Dylan's controversial speech upon receiving the the MusiCares Person of the Year 2015 award. I wonder what he'll have to say to the World when he gets to Stockholm ;)
Read Bob Dylan's Complete, Riveting MusiCares Speech
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/read-bob-dylans-compl...
And of course some essential viewing. D.A. Pennebaker's seminal documentary classic Don't Look Back which follows Dylan on his concert tour of the U.K. in 1965.
Inside Criterion's Incredible Restoration of Dylan Doc 'Don't Look Back'
http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/news/inside-the-restorati...
And from that timeless English tour, a masterful performance ;)
"It Ain't Me Babe" (Live, 5/7/65 - Free Trade Hall, Manchester, England)
On Dylan's immersion in classic folk:
>If you sang "John Henry" as many times as me – "John Henry was a steel-driving man / Died with a hammer in his hand / John Henry said a man ain't nothin' but a man / Before I let that steam drill drive me down / I'll die with that hammer in my hand." If you had sung that song as many times as I did, you'd have written "How many roads must a man walk down?" too.
On what's often missing from rock & roll:
>The other half of rock & roll has got to be hillbilly. And that's a derogatory term, but it ought not to be. That's a term that includes the Delmore Bros., Stanley Bros., Roscoe Holcomb, Git Tanner and the Skillet Lickers... groups like that. Moonshine gone berserk. Fast cars on dirt roads. That's the kind of combination that makes up rock & roll, and it can't be cooked up in a science laboratory or a studio.
Considering that most of the rock & roll I listen to comes from Britain, I have no idea what he considers rock & roll to be. It's certainly not american folk music.
I'm also not a huge fan of Clapton sans Cream OR the Stones, so maybe I just don't like american flavored rock & roll. It didn't really click for me until Iggy Pop showed up. It didn't feel right to be caught halfway between him and Woody Guthrie—both ends make sense, but the middle sounds terrible to me.
Do you hear this in any of their work? I only hear it in "Rocky Racoon", which is one of my least favorite beatles songs as a result.
I can't say I'm a fan of Stones-style rock and roll. I'd prefer Led Zeppelin; much less caterwauling and more music.
Rock and Roll has key influence from both the folk traditions, and the blues ones. And in many ways, baroque and early music which influenced bluegrass.
If you educate yourself on American music from the 20s-50s you'll realize the true extent of the influence on the British music of the 60s and 70s. It's a lot more than Rocky Raccoon but if you're ignorant of country music you're not going to hear the guitar licks, drum patterns and vocal inflections that show up in many of the recordings by the Beatles.
There's no shortage of literature on these influences so how about we just leave any additional education on the matter to personal study, eh?
I see that easily, it's the folk influence I have a (harder) time with.
Led Zep are absolutely in the English folk tradition – distinct but related to the American scene – as well as the blues one.
And outside of Rubber Soul, "I've Just Seen a Face" comes to mind. What a brilliant song.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=i%27ve+just+see...
"The band's heavy, guitar-driven sound, rooted in blues( and psychedelia on their early albums, has earned them recognition as one of the progenitors of heavy metal, though their unique style drew from a wide variety of influences, including folk music."
"The four played together for the first time in a room below a record store on Gerrard Street in London.[17] Page suggested that they attempt "Train Kept A-Rollin'", originally a jump blues song popularised in a rockabilly version by Johnny Burnette, which had been covered by the Yardbirds."
A lot of great rock-and-roll has come out of Britain... if you trace how it got there, it comes back to the same people Dylan is talking about (not solely, but the Hillbillies are there).
The Crunge is a James Brown tribute. When the Levee breaks references the American Blues tradition pretty explicitly (I'm going to Chicago). In My Time of Dying is an old gospel tune from Louisana. Dazed and Confused was a cover of an American blues tune, etc.
Clapton was a similar story. He's the first to say his biggest inspiration was Robert Johnson.
The Beatles had a much stronger US influence in their earlier work than their later work. They had multiple singles that were Chuck Berry covers.
I learned lyrics and how to write them from listening to folk songs. And I played them, and I met other people that played them, back when nobody was doing it. Sang nothing but these folk songs, and they gave me the code for everything that's fair game, that everything belongs to everyone.
Does Dylan allow bootlegging? Are his songs libre? Does he limit their use or charge royalties? Can I sample one without his permission?
EDIT: The very last line of the speech, as printed: Copyright 2015 Bob Dylan
The song Little Sadie is one example - its been known under a variety of names, with variations of lyrics. All the John Henry songs - they have been sung by blues and country players alike for almost a century.
He says he's part of that tradition, and at length talks about how he benefited from it. Does he give back?
"Hey Joe" is thought to be inspired by Little Sadie. Its not about ripping off, its about telling the same story in a different way - story telling.
By that tradition, folk songs are for everyone to play and sing, not only for a professional to perform for you. There's a communal, shared, DIY philosophy behind it; it's art by and for regular people (folk art), to be shared; it's not about profit, and intellectual property is almost an opposed concept. To a degree, it's like free/libre software and makers.
IIRC, folk music legend Woody Guthrie kept his songs simple so that anyone could play them. And a more recent folk singer printed (maybe still prints) on all her recordings, where the copyright info usually appears, Unauthorized reproduction, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing.
Yes, I agree. I guess I dont see the conflict. If you play any of these songs, change a few verses, some melody and some chords, then you can claim the copyright just like Bob Dylan did. That is what I think he is trying to get at in that speech.
Notice how is says the following in his copyright claim:
"Basis of Claim: New Matter: rev. melody & new music." [1]
There are many artists that have copyright claims for the same essential song title. Search for Walking Blues, John Hardy or any old fiddle tune like Shady Grove, Blackberry blossom, man of constant sorrow etc. There are a ton of these songs out there where anybody can make their own mark and claim the copyright because literally everybody does it.
Try doing that with 'Times are a changin' and I can guarantee you its not the same unspoken code because its not one of those tunes that have been passed down by generations of musicians and told and retold. The bar will likely be much higher for you to claim your artistic expression on that copyright.
That was the point I was trying to make here. I mainly objected to your 'Can I sample one without his permission?' since I don't think its the same thing.
[1] http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?v1=14&ti=1,14...
> I mainly objected to your 'Can I sample one without his permission?' since I don't think its the same thing.
I understand your point and I agree that's the reality of it, but I'm saying that isn't how it has to be. It isn't the same thing in some qualitative ways, as you say, but mainly because Dylan chooses to make it different. Like all the FOSS developers, all those Grateful Dead bootlegs, and all those traditional folk tunes, and some folk singers (and other musicians) in the recorded era, he could have made his libre. My guess is that like Tim Berners-Lee, Linus Torvalds, and many others, he wouldn't be homeless, that is unless he prefers to keep traveling.
If someone makes a song that sounds a lot like a Dylan song, it would be telling how he would react. He's taking about musical evolution, not free streaming.
I'm not sure of the legal rights involved, but he spent nearly the first half of his speech thanking individual artists for covering his songs, so I'd say it's fair game in his eyes.
For live performances, the venue carries an ASCAP license, I believe on an annual rate. I don't know how royalties are attributed to individual songwriters.
For recordings, the recording company is, as I understand, responsible for paying royalties to the songwriter.
Note that songwriters and composers get royalties, but recording artists are typically only compensated for their studio time. This bit of legal context for revenues is a reason for the difference between recording artists (much better deal for the studio) and singer-songwriters (much savvier for the artist).
For Dylan I'd actually prefer to consider his lyrics without the music since sometimes I can't really understand what he's singing. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLCewTcb-jc)
And I hope that you die
And your death’ll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand o’er your grave
Til I’m sure that you’re dead
You aren't even trying.
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.
While that's true, Bob Dylan was most likely the reason behind Hurricane's retrial, so that's something: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_(Bob_Dylan_song)
Yeah he's not writing protest songs anymore (unless you ask him [1]), but since he went electric, he's been doing what he wants, not what's expected of him. I saw him on tour this year, and it was a strange experience. The performance, song choice, and delivery felt more like he was just doing his music thing and I was paying to watch -- he wasn't trying to entertain me.
[1] I saw a video of this interview, but I can't seem to find it now, so https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protest_songs_in_the_United_St... will have to do. Search for "all my songs"
> The writer who accepts an honour of this kind involves as well as himself the association or institution which has honoured him,” he said at the time. “The writer must therefore refuse to let himself be transformed into an institution, even if this occurs under the most honourable circumstances, as in the present case. (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/05/sartre-nobel-p...)
Bury the rag deep in your face
For now's the time for your tears
0- https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tjwyq4ppzw6s7xatkamydg...
Was that before or after he invented the Internet?
- - -
By the way, you're a mean person peter303, Al Gore is a nice person.
- - -
Edit: Oh, I spoke too soon. He actually has a Nobel, a Grammy and an Emmy award. That's actually even more impressive than I expected.
> for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition
There's no doubt he did this, but ... do songs count as literature? I'm not really sure they do, and much as I love the songs, the lyrics by themselves don't have anything like the impact (on me at least) of top-notch poetry
They should. Literature and poetry started from rhapsodies, sagas, and other forms of song-based storytelling, and it's not very good that it diverted so much to some kind of literary ivory tower.
EDIT: Eugene O'Neil, Jacinto Benavente, Dario Fo
I know you were being sarcastic, but your comparison isn't really apt. Novels are not a lyric medium: they're prose. Song lyrics are lyrics set to music. Some poetry is "lyrics" without the music (although lyric poetry is not quite the same thing).
Or the Nibelungenlied ("Lied" is German for song).
Song and story are very much related, especially since back when the people couldn't read, singing stories was more popular than today.
But then again, remember that Sinatra vs. Bieber meme... http://weknowmemes.com/2012/02/music-what-happened/
It suppose it goes without saying, but that meme is some selective criticism.
"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. "
- Socrates, circa 470 BC
I'm not a Bieber fan, but I think it's unfair to judge him strictly by his lyrics. Or Sinatra for that matter.
To you they don't, to me and others they do. To the current Nobel committee they did this year.
At the end, Nobel prizes are highly subjective and people dependent recognitions - so arguments of the form of X deserves and Y does not are not too meaningful.
Literature and Peace, yes.
Science? No. People will disagree on whether some person who didn't get the price really should have gotten it, but no scientist disputes the value and importance of the work of the people who did get the prize.
In science, perhaps there are people who should have gotten the Nobel prize but they didn't. However, few people would say that the people who did get the prize didn't deserve it.
With Peace and Literature, people do this all the time.
Really? I've spent pretty much all my spare time and money on music for the last 30 years, but no lyrics by themselves have ever had the effect on me that, for example "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" has had
... but then maybe I'm looking at this wrong, and the prize is being awarded for the songs rather than just the lyrics. If that's the case then I guess the prize is well-deserved
One example I might offer on the same line as Prufrock is Bookends by Simon and Garfunkel. From "Save the Life of My Child" all the way to "At the Zoo" we follow a life (or many lives) and its roller coaster. "America" and "Hazy Shade of Winter" are particular favorites.
(as an aside, one of my favorite lyrics of all time is by Gordon Lightfoot in his excellent "Black Day in July" -
"And then the tanks go rolling in
To patch things up as best they can"
Talk about summing up so much in a few words.)
If it's solely because of lyrics, Bob Dylan is not the best lyricist.
It's a weird comfort-food-like pick either way.
Now, I do agree that you can have a great song with lyrics that wouldn't be that great by themselves. But that doesn't mean genuinely good poems can't be written as lyrics.
...don't see why lyrics shouldn't count. Radio plays, films etc. also count.
Anything with text is potentially literature. The rest is up to the snobbery of the judges.
Stephen Sondheim wrote that you can't fit as much complexity into sung lyrics as into read poetry. I wish I had the book in front of me to provide more details, but he reveals a lot about his craft here:
Hat Box
http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/215415/hat-box-by-st...
(For those not familiar with the genre, many think Sondheim is the great composer of musicals of all time; you might have seen some of his on film, Sweeney Todd and Into the Woods, recently. His lyrics (and stories) are not of the fun, clever, vapid variety often associated with musicals, but brilliant, creative, and multi-dimensional. - For those interested, Company and Sweeney Todd are probably good places to start.)
I feel ambivalent about this nobel prize. I absolutely feel Dylan is deserving of an award on this scale, and I have no problem viewing his work as literature. So in that sense, I have no real objection.
Still... novelists, playwrights, poets, there were a lot of people practicing more pure literary forms who were passed over here... and they certainly aren't going to be considered for any music awards. I'm just not convinced this was the right way to go. I do feel a kind of unease about it. I'm not really the best one to make the case against it, because I'm not convinced it's the wrong decision either.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard-Boiled_Wonderland_and_the...
Lastly, if someone keeps getting passed up for an award, it just signifies that there are people who deserved the award more, not that they deserve the award by virtue of not receiving it. That's why I think it's silly that he won the Oscar for The Revenant, which was certainly not his best performance. You can make a case for someone deserving an award for cumulative achivement, but then there are even more worthy candidates.
I would be less salty if another author received it over Murakami, but to make the jump to songwriter sets a precedent I don't particularly like. You can make a reasoned argument for authors who deserve it more than Murakami, but to switch genres sort of implies that either all the Nobel caliber authors have been exhausted, or that nobody cares about literature anymore, or that the Nobel committee made this pick to satiate the complaints over the lack of American laureates, and Bob Dylan was the best the US could offer. In any case I find it troubling.
Here are three Dylan songs with big literary value:
* "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts": an amazing example of musical story-telling
* "The Ballad of a Thin Man": Some of the most post-modern lyrics ever put to music...
* "Like a Rolling Stone": One of the most influential songs of all time
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_(Bob_Dylan_song)
Here's a great video on 'All Along The Watchtower'. I'm rewatching this today to celebrate!
"He not busy being born is busy dying" must be one of greatest lines ever.
At the other end of spectrum is 'Changing of the Guards' in which Bob Dylan seems to be intentionally parodying his own songwriting (still an enjoyable song though).
May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
May you stay forever young
May you stay forever young.
This song and 'Tangled Up In Blue' and 'Hurricane' are practically novellas in song form. I think the 'long form storyteller' Dylan is often the least acknowledged, but probably my favorite Dylan song format.
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon, there is no sense in trying
Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fool's gold mouthpiece the hollow horn
Plays wasted words proves to warn
That he not busy being born is busy dying
Temptation's page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover that you'd just be one more person crying
So don't fear if you hear
A foreign sound to your ear
It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing
Dylan himself was something of a hustler in his own way (not being negative here: he was also quite an amazing person) but he worked hard at his craft, delving deeply into Lord Byron and many others to hone his poetic skills - and it showed! So many artists gained fame doing his songs owing to the limitations of his own signing voice (his has a raw quality that is appealing in its own right but probably more for specialized audiences as compared to what the signing groups with more of a popular bent could achieve). "Can't sing, can't play" was one putdown popular in that era. But oh how this music soared from one with a raw force, a poetic inspiration, and a truly superb talent whatever the technical limitations - and all wrapped up with the zeitgeist of the times, perfectly capturing the sense and urgency of the civil rights movement.
Very nice to see the accolades now being bestowed on a man who effectively changed a generation in profound ways.
There's still time for Leonard Cohen; he'd have been my choice. But another songwriter probably won't happen again so soon.
With apologies to Bob Dylan...
Then she opened up a book of poems
And handed it to me
Written by an American poet
From the twentieth century
And everyone of them words rang true
And glowed like burnin' coal
Pourin' off of every page
Like it was written in my soul
From me to you
Tangled up in blue
Broken lines, broken strings
Broken threads, broken springs
Broken idols, broken heads
People sleeping in broken beds
Ain’t no use jiving
Ain’t no use joking
Everything is broken
Broken bottles, broken plates
Broken switches, broken gates
Broken dishes, broken parts
Streets are filled with broken hearts
Broken words never meant to be spoken
Everything is broken
Seem like every time you stop and turn around
Something else just hit the ground
...
YouTube version of the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngVMh3vJsVU
On the whole I agree with Rorem. But on the range of Nobelists for Literature, I guess that Bob Dylan isn't all that much an outlier.
"Visions of Johanna"
I don't think that anyone in modern culture has impacted society in the ways Bob has.
Added: For a good singer it must be fatal to be poisoned with the virus of fame, you become one more commodity, good for selling books and records but no more genuine value.
I hope the next Nobel in Literature to be for a twitter writer, I don't have anything against Dylan, it is only that I find his works are not Literature but very good songs.
Of course, this complaint is invalid for a literature prize, so I can only say it's well deserved.
Maybe this can open up for film and TV writers to be considered. They're the ones mostly filling the storytelling needs book authors did when Nobel instituted the prize.
So, no I don't think he should have teamed up with a singer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0ybJQs8_rs
(Yeah, the "permanent secretary of the Swedish academy" is showing off her multilingual skills quite a bit...)
"He's so unhip when you say Dylan, he thinks you're talking about Dylan Thomas / Whoever he was" http://genius.com/Simon-and-garfunkel-a-simple-desultory-phi...
Another thread connecting their awards with Dylan is that all three authored widely read and acclaimed autobiographies or memoirs.
With God on Our Side (Live 1966)
Why am I walking, where am I running
What am I saying, what am I knowing
On this guitar I'm playing, on this banjo I'm frailin'
On this mandolin I'm strummin', in the song I'm singin'
In the tune I'm hummin', in the words I'm writin'
In the words that I'm thinkin'
In this ocean of hours I'm all the time drinkin'
Who am I helping, what am I breaking
What am I giving, what am I taking
But you try with your whole soul best
Never to think these thoughts and never to let
Them kind of thoughts gain ground
Or make yer heart pound
But then again you know why they're around
Just waiting for a chance to slip and drop down
-- Last Thoughts On Woody Guthrie
You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatenin' my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood that runs in your veins
He's unpredictable (and irascible) enough to make me want to hear what he thinks about all of this.
"Christopher Ricks, Professor of Humanities at Boston University explores the poetry in Bob Dylan's songs."
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=neighbourhood+b...
To be just like I am
But everybody wants you
To be just like them
- Maggie's Farm
I dig Dylan, though. He's awesome.
Yours truly, Tambourine Man
Without ideals or violence
She doesn't have to say she's faithful
Yet she's true like ice, like fire