John Cage
An article about John Cage (a big influence on composers I admire, such as William Duckworth) reveals a political dimension I didn't now about: Cage leaned libertarian and anarchist in his political views and boasted that he had never voted.
Excerpt from the article by Richard Kostelanetz, from Reason Magazine:
"Cage's informing theme is announced in the book's subtitle: How To Improve the World (You Will Only Make Matters Worse). Always is he predisposed to leave well enough alone; almost always are his sympathies libertarian. (The exception is a peculiar, unfortunate, and temporary admiration for Mao Zedong.) In addition to appreciating such '60s touchstones as Marshall McLuhan, Buckminster Fuller, and Norman O. Brown, Cage was influenced deeply by the American individualist anarchists. His guide to their work was James J. Martin's 1953 history Men Against the State. Martin for a while was Cage's Rockland County neighbor, and Cage would purchase copies directly from him. 'It's one of those books I never have,' he once told an interviewer, 'because I'm always giving them away'."
Hat tip, John Merritt.
6 comments:
Interesting! I didn't know Martin's _Men Against The State_ was a substantial influence on Cage.
When Loompanics was still in business, they sole me a pristine copy for, IIRC, $2. It's almost as if Mike Hoy had hundreds or a few thousand copies in his warehouse. That and Martin's wonderful _Revisionist Viewpoints_. I think new copies of that were being sold for $2 too.
(In RV, Martin has an essay published in 1968, as young Americans started to turn strongly against the Vietnam War, called "On the 'Defense' Origins of the New Imperialism," which seems well worth our study. Almost nothing has changed. Strike that: it's the same only worse.)
That was the book that made me realize the semantics of "libertarian" had changed quite a lot since the 19th century, at least in Unistat. In reading Martin's _Men Against The State_ I started to think of varieties of semantic meanings of "libertarian-anarchist" thought. To this day I do, but I tend to have a hard time liking a lot of what passes for current American capital ell Libertarian thinking, and I think RAW pulled a punch or two about them because he knew a decent chunk of his readership were Libertarians.
Martin himself wasn't a "big tent" guy for anarchist-libertarians, in his 1953 book _Men Against The State_. He won't accept writers of "vague and dimly felt resentments toward authority." He criticizes Rudolf Rocker for his big tent, that would seemingly allow Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson "on the fringe of the anarchist fold." Even Wm Godwin, Rbt Owen and Thoreau are too much for Martin. He argues for American individualist-anarchists as a sort of Ground Zero for true anarchist-libertarian thought, as we see in these lines:
"The semantic smokescreen raised up by the moral uproar here and overseas after Haymarket and a number os sensational assassinations in Europe covered over in the process the uncompromising stand taken by the American individualist anarchists, who deplored the use of force, or 'direct action,' and asserted as before their traditional hope of the eventual adoption of noncoercive individualist equity as a result of education and rational conviction."
Martin asserts his American anarchists had these ideas almost 50 years before Bakunin, Goldman, and Kropotkin.
When I step back and look at the semantic drift of "libertarian" I feel foolish. Of COURSE the meanings would change! For numerous reasons.
Aside from Korzybski, one of the things I think RAW valued so much in Pound was his insistence on DEFINING YOUR TERMS. (<----I'm doing the crazy capital stuff 'cuz Ez liked to do it, too.)
ADDENDA: Yea yea, I know: James J. Martin was a Holocaust Denier. And I am not.
Another thing RAW liked about Pound - I paraphrase - Every man deserves to have his ideas analyzed individually.
Holocaust denial seems to me a major, puzzling idiotic mistake when coming from guys like Martin and his hero Harry Elmer Barnes.
Holocaust denial seems like a really obvious temptation if one believes that WWII was something America was tricked into.
Holocaust denial may have seemed like an obvious temptation if you doubted the official story about Pearl Harbor, but it seems like quite the stretch to be as smart as Martin and Barnes were and still be able to reject all that - uncannily massive, really - documentation that the Holocaust happened.
It's as if Martin and Barnes had proto "We're in the Matrix, man!" takes on "reality."
But I speculate...
kami sekeluarga tak lupa mengucapkan puji syukur kepada ALLAH S,W,T
dan terima kasih banyak kepada AKI atas nomor togel.nya yang AKI
berikan 4 angka alhamdulillah ternyata itu benar2 tembus AKI.
dan alhamdulillah sekarang saya bisa melunasi semua utan2 saya yang
ada sama tetangga.dan juga BANK BRI dan bukan hanya itu AKI. insya
allah saya akan coba untuk membuka usaha sendiri demi mencukupi
kebutuhan keluarga saya sehari-hari itu semua berkat bantuan AKI..
sekali lagi makasih banyak ya AKI… bagi saudara yang suka main togel
yang ingin merubah nasib seperti saya silahkan hubungi AKI ALIH,,di no (((0823 1366 9888))) Atau insya allah anda bisa seperti saya…menang togel 275
juta, wassalam.
dijamin 100% jebol saya sudah buktikan...sendiri....
Apakah anda termasuk dalam kategori di bawah ini !!!!
1"Dikejar-kejar hutang
2"Selaluh kalah dalam bermain togel
3"Barang berharga anda udah habis terjual Buat judi togel
4"Anda udah kemana-mana tapi tidak menghasilkan solusi yg tepat
5"Udah banyak Dukun togel yang kamu tempati minta angka jitunya
tapi tidak ada satupun yang berhasil..
KLIK DISINI 4d 5d 6d
ايهما اولى بالشرك يا رسول الله؟ المرمى او الرامى؟ فقال الرامى
•
Solusi yang tepat jangan anda putus asah.... AKI ALIH akan membantu
anda semua dengan Angka ritwal/GHOIB:
butuh angka togel 2D 3D 4D SGP / HKG / MALAYSIA / TOTO MAGNUM / dijamin
100% jebol
Apabila ada waktu
silahkan Hub: AKI ALIH: (((0823 1366 9888)))
angka GHOIB: singapur 2D/3D/4D/
angka GHOIB: hongkong 2D/3D/4D/
angka GHOIB; malaysia
angka GHOIB; toto magnum 4D/5D/6D/
angka GHOIB; laos
true religion jeans
swarovski crystal
longchamp handbags
nhl jerseys
ray ban sunglasses
oakley sunglasses
swarovski outlet
michael kors outlet
louis vuitton outlet store
nike air max
lebron shoes
michael kors outlet
louis vuitton outlet
michael kors outlet
true religion outlet
michael kors uk
louis vuitton outlet store
ray ban outlet
adidas outlet store
prada handbags
fitflop clearance
louis vuitton outlet
ray ban sunglasses
adidas outlet
michael kors wholesale
michael kors outlet
ray-ban sunglasses
cheap mlb jerseys
air jordan shoes
mlb jerseys
ralph lauren outlet
mulberry outlet
michael kors outlet
mulberry uk
nfl jerseys
20160315zhenhong
Post a Comment