Something ugly simmering in society

Music has always been a cultural indicator.

Ted Gioia is author of The Honest Broker on Substack, a guide to music, books, media, and culture. He is author of 12 books, and has served on the faculty at Stanford. His latest piece explores why fans are throwing things at performers, knowing they might hurt them.

Gioia writes:

It’s a curious coincidence that, during this same period, activists have started throwing things at famous works of art. You wouldn’t normally think of museums and concert halls as epicenters of paintball-esque outbursts. But in the year 2023, they are hot spots for all the worst tendencies. 

Of course, there’s a long history of fans throwing things on stage. But until recently, they were usually nice things. Only in the rarest instance—for example, a vaudeville show of embarrassingly low quality—were tomatoes tossed at a performer.

His judgment as to why American and European audiences are now creatures to be wary of:

The anger isn’t coming from the music. It’s coming from the broader culture.

Of course, all of us already know that there’s a collapse in civility and decent behavior in every sphere of public life nowadays. The stuff happening on airplanes blows my mind. And it’s also happening at restaurants, movie theaters, and any other place where people congregate for work or play.

"But there are specific triggering issues related to music", Gioia says, and: 

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that many of the worst acts of pre-meditated violence during the last decade have occurred at music venues. In addition to schools and shopping centers, musical performances are frequent targets.

You may think that violence plays out on the battlefield, not at a pop concert. But music has always been a cultural indicator. In some ways, it is our most revealing source of information on society. Sometimes the future shows up in our music even before it gets covered in the newspapers.

So even if I am saddened by the craziness at music concerts, I can’t say I’m surprised There’s something ugly simmering in our society, and it has finally arrived at the pricey front row seats of concerts. All of sudden, fans have decided that an expensive ticket gives them the right to do something abusive to their favorite pop star.

It makes no sense, but it’s definitely part of the zeitgeist. And it will almost certainly get worse before it gets better.

Such is the state of mind of swathes of citizens in countries that have been captured by a progressive nihilism. And take note of this depiction that works for everyone who bears the burden of commitment only to self, the type that has become all too common:

He is a truly postmodern man: no truth exists apart from his; and any alternative reality has to be attacked mercilessly. Because his whims oscillate, so do the non-facts he invents to satisfy them. He is a spluttering, glowering fusillade of fantasies. He is, in Michael Wolff’s words, “a man whose behavior defies and undermines the structures and logic of civic life”. 

Ω See also: There will be more ugly travellers... 

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