High and Low Culture Since 1975: Cultural Psy-Ops, Genuine Mavericks, and Other Trends in the Post-Vietnam Era
Rarely being satisfied with prevailing simple notions, whether correct, incorrect, or someone else's well-grounded or not-so-well-grounded opinions, I have kept running tabs of cultural trends over the years in the form of mental scorecards. Shouldn't we all have?
Tallying these up and organizing it all into an overview called High and Low Culture since 1975 presents my conclusions about the times I witnessed firsthand. I also dabble in other trends of politics, art, conspiracy theories, and psy-ops. These observations make for snapshots in my private picture album and should be perused as such.
In the single year of 1975, the final year of my underage adolescence, I noticed cultural upheavals as drastic as things that had just happened to my body. Either way, no one else appeared to be surprised or concerned about such drastic changes. This perceived indifference led me to believe I was having a normal reaction to reality following an hormonal upheaval.
After enough time passed, I realized I had indeed genuinely witnessed both iconic and iconoclastic disruptions, even though people still seemed nonchalant about it all. A survey of 1975 events shows how the new practices began and old ones ended: the Sex Pistols; the Church Committee; Jazz Fusion music; Philip Glass's Einstein on the Beach; the original cast of Saturday Night Live; Paddy Chayefsky's script to Network; the film music for Jaws; a general discouragement of creativity outside the all-consuming monopoly of show biz; a perceived death of Classical Music; and the rise of what is now referred to both neutrally and pejoratively as "arena rock."
From the fuses lit in 1975, extensive fireworks burned over the next decades in specific places: 1) the shady culture of espionage in the modern governments; 2) educational academies and the private foundations that support them; 3) passages to better places regulated by brutal gatekeepers; 4) a policy of managing contingencies of new organic growth; 5) a standing military keeping the peace determined by World War II; 6) a phantom public relations activity explaining and justifying it all; and 7) our own private dwellings where we select games to play and we're good at, not being forced into a game that doesn't suit us, let alone has a "heads I win, tails you lose" premise. As seven diatonic steps in a symbolically dissonant scale, my long-winded and meandering tune seeks to harmonize with the steadier context of the past 1,000 years of Western culture. Meanwhile, more creative readers should invent their own flavors of Post-Modernism to re-harmonize and accompany the narrative.
This overall form of High and Low Culture since 1975 reflects my own self-analysis and expresses points of controversy that in my experience have been roundly dismissed by more forceful voices. Imagine at least for a moment that I am correct and they are all wrong, whether for your own entertainment or enrichment.
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Createspace Independent Pub. ISBN 15002547880, 9781502547880
September 26, 2014