Capitol Hill Blue Forums Misc. Topics Ain't This America What is distinctive about American art and letters

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My innocent remarks about H.P. Lovecraft piqued the interest of a number of Ranters, so I thought I would start a thread to go more deeply into the matter.



Sigh. I am amused (faintly) that so many Americans mistake truth-telling and even the gentlest satire as anti-Americanism. Tetchiness is an extremely American tendency, the vanity of Americans is usually seen by themselves as pride (quite a different thing), and so many, many Americans have absolutely no sense of humor!


I agree with you that jazz is a contribution to world culture, and, given twenty-five hundred years of undisturbed evolution, might reach the level of sophistication which classical Indian ragas already have attained.

But jazz is the product of an oppressed minority of the US population; the dominant culture had no hand in its creation --- other than to make so many millions of their fellow Americans so miserable that they could only find an outlet for their feelings in musical creation.

The musical tradition of the dominant majority has been vacuous and limited in the extreme. The only composers of real quality I can think of at the moment are Aaron Copland and Alan Hovaniss --- and the latter was at least as influenced by his Armenian heritage as his American.

I think that Sacred Harp singing may be juxtaposed in an interesting fashion against jazz. Both are products of the southern American tradition. I first heard it as a teenager on very low fidelity ethnographic recordings from the early 1940's. I knew nothing about what I was hearing, and someone asked me where I thought the music came from. I thought perhaps from deepest, darkest Africa! As I became used to the recordings, I was vividly carried back to 19th century America, to the peasant culture of the "poor white trash," to their rootedness in the earth, to an uneducated, uncultured people in whom burned an intense flame of simple-minded faith in a primitive religion which sustained them in their life of hardship.

Alas, in my short lifetime that has all vanished away! Modern Sacred Harp singing, though more popular and widespread than in the 40's, has lost its soul and is as shallow and heartless as most other aspects of modern American "mass culture" [an oxymoron if ever there was one!].

numan,

your anti-americanism is yours to stroke and love all you want, but your disdain for all things american as it is represented here has hindered your ability to see the forest for the trees, as it goes. our irish brother has handed you two fine examples, two that have been embraced lovingly by the world, yet you can even find a reason to denigrate that. there are a number of american masters where the arts are concerned, but it is apparent that you would argue to the death against such a fact. frankly, i do not see opportunity for discussion here, based upon your past inability to see america as anything other than an obstacle to the rest of the world.

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Your criticism is incorrect. In fact, I praised jazz. It seems that, in your eyes, my sin lies in the fact that I did not over-praise it. All too many Americans feel outrage unless their country is over-praised.

By the way, objectively, the USA is an obstacle to the rest of the world. The most recent, obvious example of that fact is the present economic calamity.

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Just out of curiosity, which modern mass culture do you present as an admirable alternative?

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Is it not interesting that in the land of the vulgar "Pursuit of Happiness," so many of the best writers are gloomy and morbid? One thinks of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, and a host of later luminaries (or at least what passes for illumination in the USA).

Edgar Allan Poe is interesting; he was influential in the 19th century (almost the only influential American writer in the 19th century), particularly in France --- analogous to the unfortunate case of Jerry Lewis in our own time. He was at least a good third-rate poet, but his works are sadly dated --- and one of the crucial tests of great works of art is that they do not become dated. He did produce one great poem --- the ever-glorious To Helen.

Mark Twain rarely rose above being a second-rate writer, but his Huckleberry Finn rose to the heights of greatness --- at least before the descent into bathos and vulgarity at the end of the novel. It certainly deserves to be considered the "Great American Novel." I have always considered it comparable to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness; it captures, as no other book does, the essential horror and nullity at the heart of the American experience. No wonder it was one of the few American books Stalin permitted to be published in the Soviet Union during the Cold War! How amazing that so many people consider it to be a children's book!

The only other possible contender for the title of the "Great American Novel" is Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. It is an extended, sophisticated metaphor about Europe's rape of America and America's corruption of Europe.

Objectively? Perhaps any opinion you have is self defined as objective? Is it your (objective) assertion that economic crisis started with the creation of the USA and would never recur if the USA was to disappear? which nation do you propose as standard bearer whose leaders never make mistakes. Which country in history has achieved great power and not abused that power? Which nation has achieved a political system devoid of corruption by the wealthy? Which nation is populated by people that are not human, but near god like in their disdain for seeking personal benefit? Where is the Valhalla that we should all reference with adoration? Perhaps you would agree to be philosopher king of the world and save us all from ourselves?

im not interested in over praise. i said you can even find a way to denigrate it and my point is bolstered by this comment, written by you:

Let's not forget these quintessential American inventions:

Roller Derby, Demolition Derby, and Costumed Wrestling

And what other country on Earth has a near-universally available media channel dedicated solely to presenting fake news stories to keep the mentally-challenged occupied?

Well, the cinema is a largely American creation, yes I know there are others, but I rest my case. Now just off the top of my head:

Leonard Bernstein
Cole Porter
John Williams
Stephen Sondheim
Esa pekka Salonen (while foreign born, most of his works were created while in residence in America)

John Singleton Copley
Albert Bierstadt
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Gehry

That is a start, go for it Numan.

Aaron Copeland, Andrew Weyth, e.e. cummings, O Henry, Frank Lloyd Wright.