What an intresting conversation! It has been a pleasure to read all
of these perspectives. Of course these themes connect to much larger
issues beyond that of the shakuhachi and the classical arts in Japan.
I am of the opinion that the arts that are popular at a particular
moment of time are reflctive of the mood and psychological mind set
of its host country. I find it fascinating, and deeply disturbing,
that youth all over the world love techno 'music' - probably the
biggest artistic crime the world has ever known. To sit in a bar or
cafe with friends I am often forced to endure the endless mindless
thump, thump, thumping of techno "music" that is deviod of even the
slighest hint of grace and beauty. Why, why why would people listen
to techno in a world that has produced Bach? And when I say techno,
you can throw in rap, hip-hop and 98% of its other twisted,
ill-begotten kin.
And so in Japan the people grow disdainful for their nation's most
precious cultural fruits, and instead wait in line to buy CDs of
N'Sync and The Back Street Boys. Very sad. This is the ugly side of
globalism - the destruction of non-mass producable culture. When the
powers of the world mixes us all up, we inevitably sink to the lowest
common denominator.
And likewise this also connects to the "surgance" of shakuhachi in
the west - which is not really a rise, but an appearance. In the US-
a country more characterized by the mass production of culture -
including fashion, music, literature, art, even speech patterns,
expressions and sense of humor - than any other country -there is a
small minority of people who crave the authentic, and the
traditional. People who are moved by a cultural tradition that goes
back farther than the previous meeting of the marketing execs of Time
/ Warner / AOL.
I read the other day about why John Walker was moved to seek out a
school to study 'true 'Islam - he claimed that he was searching for
something "authentic." There are a lot of Americans who can
understand that feeling -but who obviously have a more active moral
compass - who are finding authenticity by relying on their own
creative capacities as opposed to just depending on television, mass
produced music and block buster video to provide for the cultural and
spiritual content of their lives.
Sorry for the rant - but these were the associations that this
conversation brougt up.
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Feb 03 2003 - 09:09:50 PST