The United States has changed since I was a
kid. I remember when the country
celebrated the bicentennial of our founding.
In those days, Americans took pride in their heritage. It doesn’t seem that way anymore,
particularly in pop culture. Long gone
are the days of John Wayne. Now we have
movies like Machete that laud illegal aliens and devalue American citizenship. Our nation’s politics and media buttress this
new ideal.
The Spirit of ’76 witnessed a great American win the
decathlon at the Montreal Olympics.
Bruce Jenner was the pride of the nation. Every kid during that time remembers his face
on boxes of Wheaties. We ate the “breakfast
of champions” while watching School House Rock on Saturday mornings. Now we find out he’s a woman trapped in a man’s
body. WTF is that all about?
The culture has become effeminate. Men are portrayed as predators. Many have
become self-loathing she-males who constantly check their underwear wondering why
God cursed them with a pair of balls.
Back in the 70’s men were proud to be men. They didn’t shave their chest and legs. I don’t recall any self-respecting man
wearing onesie pajamas sipping hot chocolate and demanding free stuff from the government. That just didn’t happen.
If you go on a construction site today, chances are
you’ll hear either Mexican music, or, crap that is played at dance clubs. Mind you these are big, tattooed men working
at manly jobs. They are playing music you’ll hear blaring out of your prepubescent daughter’s bedroom. Now that is a sure sign the culture has
changed.
Dr. Larry Schweikart, a professor of history at the
University of Dayton, described how the power of rock n’ roll music changed the
world. Here is an excerpt from a
Carolina Journal interview:
Kokai: People
will have to watch the movie to get the whole story, but tell us what was the
role of rock ‘n’ roll in fighting the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall?
Schweikart: The
first thing, and what might be surprising to many people, was it wasn’t the
lyrics, because so many of them did not understand English. But what appealed
to them was the freedom of rock ‘n’ roll as a musical structure. And this meant
that in rock — country, jazz, blues, [too], but we focused on rock — these are
all American music forms, and they start together as a group, they end together
as a group, but in the middle you always have the solo.
And I
discovered that was an expression of America, and Western values, that you do
things together as a society, but you never lose track of the individual. The
individual always gets a chance to shine. And I think that, as much as anything
else, really appealed to people — that they could sense that coming through.
And, of
course, there was a general freedom and rebelliousness of rock that is not
there with classical music. Classical music is played the same from century to
century to century, you know? And while you can have different players, and
they can do it very well, they’re essentially playing what Beethoven wrote, you
know, 200 years ago. Well, rock ‘n’ roll changes every single time you play it
because of the solos, but also because no two players play it alike, which is
why we have so much cover music
Have you noticed there aren’t solos in today’s rock
and roll? What does that say about
modern American culture?
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