Cannon Fodder and the Power of Pop

These are difficult days for those who argue that America is a homogenous culture built on European-Christian principles. Recent reports that Mark Twain "borrowed" an African-American oral tale as the premise for Huck Finn and that Stephen Foster lifted "Dixie" from an African-American family in Ohio question the role of the giants of American traditional culture. And that's just the beginning.

One is left with questions for the "cultural warriors" who seek to "take back" America from those whom they perceive as having wrestled away control of the reins. Did the culture they want to bring back ever exist anywhere but in their minds? Did the land to which they want to return ever exist?

Canon Fodder

Last month this column focused on the emerging culture wars. In looking at Robert Hughes' Culture of Complaint, Michael Medved's Hollywood Vs. America, The Disuniting of America by Arthur Schlessinger Jr., and James Davison Hunter's Culture Wars, a picture of the battlefield was painted, albeit a black-and-white one. These books offered, to varied helpful degrees, insight into some of the issues at stake.

This month the discussion continues. We dig an inch or two deeper to discover the energy that drives the cultural scene and the industry that attempts to manipulate that energy.

Discussion of the culture wars became fashionable with the rise of campus activism, especially around the quincentenary. Authors such as Schlessinger, then-Secretary of Education William Bennett, and young gun Dinesh D'Sousa recounted examples of political correctness run amuck. Radio talk show hosts climbed aboard for the ride.

But Henry Louis Gates Jr., a professor of humanities and Afro-American studies at Harvard University, is unwilling to give over the debate. In Loose Canons: Notes on the Culture Wars (Oxford Paperbacks, 1992), Gates observes the excesses and claims the importance of the efforts. Critical of all sides, and self-critical as well, he does not back down from the fray.

The recent move toward politics and history in literary studies has turned the analysis of texts into a marionette theater of the political, to which we bring all the passions of our real-world commitments. And that's why it is sometimes necessary to remind ourselves of the distance from the classroom to the streets....We pay homage to the marginalized and demonized, and it feels almost as if we've righted a real-world injustice....Yet it sometimes seems that blacks are doing better in the college curriculum than they are in the streets.

Gates alludes to the tension present between the black middle class and the black underclass, but his analysis is less fully developed on this point. He sees the problem but can't quite unpack it.

Some parts of this book are remarkably interesting. Gates traces the wars over culture back to America's infancy, asking questions about the development of a uniquely American canon of literature. Surprisingly, he finds that some scholars, including theologian Theodore Parker as early as 1846, argued that no truly American literature existed (other than occasional pieces, such as newspaper articles) that didn't reflect the privileged perspective of the upper classes, just as English literature did. At least this was true until he read the literature of fugitive slaves. These writings, for Parker and others, were the first uniquely American contribution to literature. Thus these are central to any American canon.

Well, I can just hear William Bennett rolling over in his yet-to-be-dug-grave.

Bennett, author previously of the diatribe The Devaluing of America: The Fight for Our Culture and Our Children, has released his own primer, The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories (Simon and Schuster, 1993).

And who can argue with virtue? This 831-page tome includes poetry, essays, and short stories from a variety of authors, with Bennett's ever-present commentary providing (his) context, of course. Its chapters are arranged by virtue - self-discipline, compassion, responsibility, etc., ending with faith.

Bennett throws in a little Martin King ("Letter From Birmingham Jail") and Booker T. Washington ("Up From Slavery") with his Aesop (many) and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ("Perseverance"). Lest it be said he doesn't cover all his bases, he even adds Oscar Wilde's "The Selfish Giant."

This anthology is actually difficult to criticize. It is inspiring and enlightening reading. Bennett's canon offers much to consider, though his commentary foreshadows a certain intellectual protectionism.

The fact that Bennett, co-director of Empower America and a Heritage Foundation fellow, edited this book leaves me concerned more with intent than content. Knowing he is one of the biggest proponents of "taking America back" makes me ever vigilant to listen for the other shoe dropping.

The Power of Pop

Nelson George has assembled a number of his essays on African-American culture in Buppies, B-Boys, Baps & Bohos: Notes on Post-Soul Black Culture (HarperCollins, 1993). George, who may in fact be the best columnist in America - he's "Native Son" in The Village Voice -uses cultural expressions to draw clear the diversity and the unity within the African-American community. George succeeds at the very point that Gates is weak. This book demonstrates that he has the whole picture, with its myriad shades.

George, also the author of The Death of Rhythm and Blues, offers the history (and pre-history) of hip hop, rap, and their other urban cousins. Defining terms and offering in one chapter the essential timeline of black popular culture for the last dozen years, Buppies offers a clear look at America through the eyes of one New York City black man, but also through the thoughts of a generation.

George is primarily, to this white man, a translator. He takes my interactions and experiences and helps me understand how they fit into broader movements and ideas. George is able to see history unfold even as it does so. His use of pop culture as the Petri dish for experimenting on the indelible truths of America is as strong an argument for the involvement of radicals in cultural definition as I have seen.

Will multiculturalism mean the end of America? Will this great melting pot be fragmented into soup bowls? As demographics change at a remarkable rate, are ethnic enclaves the future of America? And will the globalization of the marketplace mean the cultural death of many societies?

By expanding the field we look at, the culture war takes on some more obvious and devious undertones. What we have seen so far are only skirmishes; the future will be filled with insurgencies and guerrilla wars. The question is, where will practitioners of nonviolence ally themselves? An important question it is.