Pink Floyd and Philosophy, (Chapters 16-19)

As mentioned before, these chapters are written mostly by university people, and it has become a pretty standard cliché that such professors are typically left wing in their politics.  Also mentioned earlier was the fact that such intellectuals routinely misrepresent Capitalism, using the term as a substitute for “Greed,” which is itself often grossly misused.  For instance: “For [Walter] Benjamin the socialist, however, this democratization of art and criticism leads to the crucial question I mentioned earlier.  All this is made possible by an industry devoted to reproducing and distributing art purely for economic gain.  And, any socialist would recognize, this results in unfair exploitation of those responsible for creating the commodities, even if these commodities are recognized as art, since capitalists keep the surplus value created by workers as profit for themselves.”  Whew!  This might have been lifted from Das Kapital itself!  [Notice how the fact that the artist gets paid a lot more than he would have without the help of the “greedy capitalists” is completely ignored.  Typical.] 

But these last four essays are focusing on mental disorders, and what philosophers – and Pink Floyd - have to say about insanity.  Anyone with more than a minimal knowledge of Pink Floyd’s origins is familiar with the idea that the band seems to be haunted by the “ghost” of Syd Barrett.  We may get a little tired of hearing about the person who originally fronted the band, but appeared only on the first, relatively unimportant album; but the remaining members of the band have apparently been rather obsessed with Barrett themselves, judging especially by their lyrics. 

Philosophers who write down to the unwashed masses (who write articles for the lay person who has very little background in philosophy) like to present what they feel are some of the more colorful illustrations that have been used to make a point.  One of the most overdone illustrations (at least in this series) has been Aristotle’s cave, where people perceive the world via the shadows of real events as seen on the back wall of the cave.  This is supposed to show that we don’t really see the world as it is, but only as our imperfect senses show that it is.  Another overdone illustration in this book is the ancient Greek story of the dichotomy of Apollo and Dionysus.  All you really need to know about this story is beautifully displayed in the first (quite lengthy) song on Hemispheres, by Rush. 

Yet another overdone illustration from philosophy in this book is the story of Sisyphus, condemned by the gods to roll a boulder uphill over and over, only to watch it roll down and start the process again.  This is supposed to illustrate the existential futility of mankind’s constant struggle to make the world a better place.  Both these stories make great talking points in a college Humanities class, but professors apparently milk them for much more than they are worth.  Gotta keep it entertaining for the kiddos (geez, I hate that word).

 

The shining star (or crazy diamond) of this section is the final selection, “Living Pink,” by Steven Gimbel.  (Our editor knows how to wrap things up on the right note!)  Gimbel examines five different approaches people take to staying positive in a difficult world, “…living in a way that makes sure we don’t just snap one of these days and cut someone into little pieces.”  This includes numerous examples of lyrics from Pink Floyd’s oeuvre, including perhaps my favorite song ever, Comfortably Numb.  This essay, along with several others, makes the whole book well worth our time to read it!

Join us in July for Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood!  This is one of the newer works from the brilliant woman who gave us The Handmaid’s Tale.  Comments on the first quarter of the book will begin July 5th.

Pink Floyd and Philosophy, (Chapters 11-15)

Reading this collection of essays reminds me of reading a collection of short stories.  You generally have to slog through some not-so-interesting stories to get to the really good ones.  In this section of the book (actually two short sections) we begin with some rather long-winded explorations of how to define the band in terms of its members.  Is Pink Floyd without Roger Waters still Pink Floyd?  It’s more than just semantics, the writers seem a little too eager to show, and so it is.  But it’s not a point that bears dwelling on for more than a few pages. 

When I came to the chapter written by Randall E. Auxier, I recognized his name as one that had been attached to chapters that I had found especially interesting in other books from this series.  Sure enough, his “It’s All Dark: The Eclipse of the Damaged Brain” is one of the highlights of this book.  He is one of the writers who use humor to punctuate his ideas, a proven method of getting people to listen and get your points across.  Ask anyone who their favorite teacher is or was, and I can almost guarantee you they liked them at least partly because of their use of humor. 

“Here’s something fun to do with your brain that your math teacher never taught you.  First, take some drugs.”  Okay, this is a college professor; don’t try this at Home-Ec… “Now, imagine a point.  Now make it move in one direction.  It becomes a line.  Now make the whole line move in one direction.  It becomes a plane.  Now make the whole plane move.  It becomes a solid (it has three dimensions.)  You are using your imagination to multiply dimensions.  You can go beyond three dimensions if you really, really work at it, or if the drugs are good enough.”  Some teachers have to work hard at developing this kind of witty representation.  To others it comes naturally.  In my own experience, I have always had to be careful to keep the humor reigned in – my own brand of humor runs to the bizarre and “inappropriate.”  I also have had a tendency to overdo it when I’m on a roll, laughing trumping learning.  

Auxier has a lot of really good stuff to share about how musicians perceive music differently than most people.  He presents this as a non-musician himself, but his observations are generally right on target: “…it’s difficult to make music well, and those who do learn to make it well are themselves even more susceptible to its power than those who simply listen. Waters and Gilmore may have you in their control, but they are more had by what they are doing than you are.”  And: “…music is probably the single most powerful way to penetrate a person’s regular ‘defenses’ against, well, mind control [being influenced], and take him where he didn’t quite intend to go.” For a book containing superb observations about music psychology on just about every page, I highly recommend “This is Your Brain on Music,” by Daniel J. Levitin. 

A lot of the writing in this section falls more in the category of Psychology than Philosophy, but the “Philosophy of Art” subdivision is mostly concerned with the “Why” of Art, and that is largely tied in with the effects that Art has on mind, culture and history.  Some philosophers have more to say on Art than any other topic, being known for their influence in that area.  As an admirer of Ayn Rand, I can’t help but compare all that is written in this book to works of hers I have read, predominantly in her collection of essays on Art, “The Romantic Manifesto.”  She wasn’t big on so-called “abstract art,” preferring the works from the Romantic Era of classical music for very practical reasons.  But I have to think she would have appreciated the efforts of Pink Floyd on their albums from 1973-79, beginning with “The Dark Side of the Moon.”

 

 

 

 

Next week's chapters: 16-19.
 

Pink Floyd and Philosophy, (Chapters 7-10)

One way to tell when you’re reading something written by a Socialist-leaning “academic” is that they love to use the word Capitalism.  And when they use it, it’s almost always used as a substitute for the word Greed.  What term do actual Capitalists use?  Usually something like “Economic Freedom” or “Free Market.”  The essays in this book – and, indeed, other books in this series that I have read – are written by mostly by professors and other ivory tower types.  “Intellectuals.”  Many of them deserve that title, but it has become a commonplace that our academia is riddled with “Socialists” or “Statists” or other Government Worshippers of some stripe.  And when Roger Waters gets accused of misunderstanding Capitalism, I chafe.  If he was one of those types, we would know.  He would have misused the word, too.

But some of the writers here seem to have escaped that trap.  And of course, philosophy pertains to many areas of thought other than political philosophy.  More interesting to me, in this work, is the focus on Aesthetics and Art.  Yes, Pink Floyd’s lyrics are a much more important aspect of their work than most bands, many of whom speak of practically nothing but romantic relationships in their lyrics.  But Pink Floyd’s music is very distinctive in other ways, as well.  Some of the analysis here is very insightful, bringing to light aspects that I hadn’t fully recognized before. 

“The band’s secret weapon for creating this artistic unity is a final, distinctive feature of their music – its leisurely pacing.  The band usually plays slowly, and avoids the aggressive, hectic, up-tempo sound favored by most rock bands.  This does more than lengthen the songs, however, for it also adds to the musical atmosphere in which listeners can really think and pay attention to the music, without feeling the kind of rush or excitement that Led Zeppelin or The Sex Pistols would put in play.  The slow pacing also underscores the clear, clean, uncluttered sound of Pink Floyd’s great albums.  Even with all the sonic ‘extras,’ such as sound effects and spoken narration, those recordings sound open and spacious, leaving ample room for the listener’s thoughtful response.”  This is the kind of analysis that brings a musician to a book like this to begin with. 

The band’s approach to recording their music is commented on as well:  “For example, consider Gilmour’s explanation of how he created his famous solo on ‘Comfortably Numb’ from The Wall: 'I just went into the studio and banged out five or six solos.  From there I just followed my usual procedure, which is to listen back to each solo and mark out bar lines, saying which bits are good.  In other words, I make a chart, putting ticks and crosses on different bars as I count through: two ticks if it’s really good, one tick if it’s good and cross if it’s no go.  Then I just follow the chart, whipping one fader up, then another fader, jumping from phrase to phrase and trying to make it a really nice solo all the way through…It wasn’t that difficult.'”  Seeing what an artist has to say about his Process is a special thrill for me, and I think an interesting insight, at least, for most non-musicians.

 

In any overview of philosophical writings you will, unfortunately, encounter the inevitable attempts – even on the part of “professionals” - to pass off gobbledy-goop as serious thought.  Yes, that probably means I just don’t get it.  But as I see more and more of it I become more and more convinced that a lot of it truly is junk.  It’s here, but one should just go ahead and read it, if only as a painful reminder that the junk is out there, cluttering more impressionable minds.  And the great thinkers [the ones I agree with?] echo that sentiment, so I don’t think I’m so incredibly dense myself. What a relief!





Next week's chapters: 11-15.

Pink Floyd and Philosophy, (Chapters 1-6)

The series of books that this work comes from is known as the “Popular Culture and Philosophy” series, an ongoing compilation of analyses which extract the philosophical elements from various popular phenomena in order to show the study of Philosophy in a more positive light than most of us have acquired.  This one is the thirtieth such volume, the seventh one I have read, and I have enjoyed them very much.  (I have read, in this order, the books on Harry Potter, Monty Python, The Wizard of Oz, the Beatles, Superheroes and the band Rush.)  Sure, I have been known to read a “real” philosophic work now and then by Ayn Rand, Aristotle, Plato, Nietzsche and others; but the books in this series are much easier to read and generally more entertaining. 

Pink Floyd is one of the musical entities that have had a major influence on me musically over the years – and my career has been a music career, so it’s an important influence.  The “chapters” of this book, and the others like it, are essentially essays written by experts in the field, whether philosophy professors or more journalistic writers on the topic at hand.  One thing they often do is to tell how they were affected personally by the subject, in this case Pink Floyd.  One writer tells how he would turn out all the lights in his dorm room and lay on the floor with his head positioned between the speakers of his stereo and his eyes shut, and be transported to the universe of The Dark Side of the Moon.  This relatability to the writers helps grease the skids into what can become a fairly in depth exploration of a particular genre of philosophical study – usually pretty painless. 

Another writer points out something I had noticed before:  “Why is it that all of us who are familiar with Dark Side feel the necessity to recount when we first heard it and how it affected us?”  This is probably a phenomenon associated with all of the “classics” of rock or pop albums, but I would venture to guess that this album is referred to in this context more than any other.  I know my own first listen was in a very memorable and unusual situation! 

The strange phenomenon known as The Dark Side of the Rainbow is discussed in the 5^th entry.  “…place the The Dark Side of the Moon CD on pause immediately after pressing play.  Then play the classic version of The Wizard of Oz and, on the third roar of the MGM lion, unpause the CD.  Reports vary about which roar is actually the best, since the start speed of CD players can be different.  For me, the third roar works fine.”  I tried this once a couple of years ago, and it really is uncanny how frequently the two works coincide in one way or another.  For instance, the Tin Man lifts his blade just as the phrase, “You raise the blade” is sung. 

Some entries focus on specific albums, others on the overall content of Pink Floyd lyrics over the years, and others on events that have taken place in the band’s history throughout their career.  This first section is titled, Pink Floyd in Popular Culture, which would seem to apply to the entire book, but will contrast with more specific areas of philosophy in subsequent sections dealing with, apparently, Alienation, Collectivism, Perception and Insanity.  This brings up the question of how it is determined which writers will cover which topics.  If each writer simply picks the topic they want, it would seem there would be a lot of duplication.  Surely the areas of political philosophy or religious philosophy shouldn’t be overlooked in a book about Pink Floyd, whose lyrics have had so much to say within these major topics of Philosophy!  A brief glance at the Index reveals the absence of both - but we’ll just have to see how well they are covered.

 

 

 

 

Next week's chapters: 7-10.