chris dahmen's blog 6
I was a little disappointed with the documentary the U.S. vs. John Lennon. I thought it was interesting that the ideology of the documentary was too favorable to the anti-intellectual or antibourgeois cause of the hippy era. I think the reason for this was entirely superficial. Namely, because it would make for a more compelling story and thus sell more commodities. Thinking about this in Literary terms, every story including realism, has to include some elements of idealism. Otherwise, who would find it entertaining? Interesting? There was not one dissenting perspective or opinion toward the antibourgeois cause that was taken seriously in the documentary's ideology. And the film used every kind of technology at its disposal like visual rhetoric; camera angles, picture framing, juxtaposition, archival material like actual testimony, interview clips, and so on to convey a persuasive ideology to convince viewers of the greatness of the historical time period and the legitimacy of the hippie cause that was in fact a rather dis- ingenious and ignorant form of childish rebellion against one's own culture and tradition.
Thinking about who John Lennon was, is useful for understanding his mission and others like him because almost universal to the oligarchs of the antibourgeois, (the 1960-70’s rock culture figureheads) there is a common theme; working class background and youthful rebellion against one’s parents and other forms of authority, and anti-intellectualism. Much of this disingenuous legacy is still with us today.
Tairq Ali gave a snippet of commentary when he was asked about John Lennon and said “The notion, that the world’s largest, most powerful imperial nation-the United States of America-could be seriously threatened by a writer, a singer, and intellectual, a painter is laughable-I mean, it’s just a joke.� This is a form of ideology that I fundamentally disagree with. Tariq is putting John Lennon in the same category as an intellectual. Many see him as such. Socrates like John Lennon was ostracized by society and small minded people for his notions of encouraging people especially those in power to be scrupulous. Socrates was an intellectual by the definition of the term. John Lennon was more akin to being a philistine by the definition of the term. They are not equal. Ralph Gleason summarized Bob Dylan’s ideology as thus: “He is saying in short, that the entire system of Western society, built upon Aristotelian logic, Judeo-Christian ethic, and upon a series of economic systems from Hobbes to Marx to Keynes, doesn’t work.� Really? From who’s perspective? Someone educated about such matters that can articulate a clear idea of how this works and can persuade the educated classes to believe it? Certainly not. If they are of “the left� but they don’t even know the first thing about Karl Marx, are they really of “the left� or are they just a bunch of bratty kids rebelling against authority with no clear purpose and for no clear goal? Are they really a credible source then in that case? They are about as credible as Saddam posing an imminent threat to the West.
There is a form of ignorance to all this rock cultural mentality that is still a part of our culture today. Part of the peace pushers’ mentality was to not have any doubt about what their mission was. When Lennon and Yoko Ono were being interviewed on a talk show during the documentary before Bobby Searle came out and was endorsed by Lennon, Yoko said “We don’t have any space for negative thought; we just think we have to have it (peace).� So in other words, there is no room for criticism or debate. Or we might even say, there is no room for open mindedness or thinking outside the box. It’s similar to Roskolnikov in Crime and Punishment “2+2=4, it’s just simple arithmetic.� That is the justification he used to murder his landlord and steal her money so he could use it to give to the poor. If he could kill one person and save thousands from starving to death, why wouldn’t he do it, right? Later he encountered a problem he hadn’t thought about. How was his conscience going to deal with the idea of being a murderer? He discovered it really wasn’t so simple after all. Likewise, the oligarchs of the anti-bourgeois like Lennon, Yoko, Dylan, Presley, etc. should realize by now too that the problems of the day were also not as simple as they imagined.
Being from a working class background is prime grooming for life as an anti-intellectual. If one doesn’t go to college and learn how to specialize and become ever more sophisticated, it’s hard to appreciate something like the Mona Lisa or The Three Penny Opera. Typical of working class people, not finding social mobility leads to frustration with the ruling class apparatus or system. But can we say that because the ruling classes dominate our culture that the past 2000 years of western civilization are expendable and are disposable? To borrow Tariq Ali’s quote “that is (also) laughable, I mean it’s just a joke.� So if you can’t achieve upward mobility, then do you have to bring the whole culture down to a lower level? Destroy your whole culture and start over? Allow Muslims to take over? Who is interested in that? Where are all the adults in this madness? Often working class parents don’t care about their kid’s education, it’s not hard to see the negative consequences. For example, Diana West cites an example of a school in the DC area who’s principal after witnessing several students engaging in rear-entry sex on the dance floor to some kind of vulgar hip-hop cultural music that isn’t from a western tradition. As she points out “the no-freak pledge, sparked a student led protest about freedom and expression with more than three hundred students signing a petition against this supposed abridgement of student rights. ‘Civil rights are falling by the wayside every second,’ said Laura George, a mother who actually encouraged her daughter and her classmates to stand up for their ‘civil rights’ to in effect simulate sexual intercourse on the gymnasium floor. ‘I’ve got to take a stand here for my kids. I’ve got to teach them that you’ve got to question authority when authority’s gone mad.’� This case is part of the residual anti-logic, anti tradition, culture of the hippy era. If they only knew the effects they would have.