This has never happened before

Recently, while listening to my iPod, I heard a song from an early nineties band called Consolidated that made me think. The band was a collection of brazenly socialist vegetarians who challenged their audience to question all aspects of society. While I always admired their ability to question and challenge, I certainly found little to agree with in their political viewpoint.

The song that piqued my interest was called "Music Has No Meaning". This particular piece descried the corporate influence on the music industry. The song, like many of their works, incorporated audio clips from such sources as an MTV music award presentation and news analysis of the industry. In short, their argument was that corporate culture had transformed music into a commodity that had little social, artistic or historical value. While I don't completely disagree with this, I did find its analysis to falter like most do when challenging the status quo.

We too often fall into the trap of romanticizing the past when arguing our point. Much like this song, we have a tendency to assert that present conditions are directly attributable to some recent evil. Of course, the benefit of this is having a concrete enemy behind which to rally our opposition. However, I find little value in attempting to transform things which, in essence, are elements of human nature. History's most famous artists are notorious for dying destitute, yet this is somehow new to the music industry. As Paul Fussell once said: "...prole America is about sweet." Of course, while he seemed surprised by this, the fact is that the masses throughout history have been about the most basic fluff and diversion. Music, art and entertainment in general has always been most successful when it caters to the masses in very superficial and titillating terms. It is human nature to seek out the path of least resistance and no where is this more evident than in the masses.

Politically, this analytical shortcoming most often manifests itself in the conservative pining for the good old days. I'm sure the pedophiles and child abusers of the past would also like us to return to a time when their activities where discussed in mere hushed tones. Conversely, and just as inept, is the liberal belief that creating an identifiable current evil, most recently the younger Bush, will help us force humans to behave in ways completely contrary to their nature. Neither of these approaches holds any lasting potential. Only through accepting and understanding human nature do we have any hope of improving our lot socially or politically.