Linda Nochlin—The Paterson Strike Pageant

Linda Nochlin
"The Paterson Strike Pageant"
(orig. 1974)

in

Making It Modern: Essays on the Art of the Now
ed. Aruna D'Souza
(2022)
pp. 368-376

[372] A combination of visual spectacle and dramatic performance, the pageant can weld together two seemingly disparate forces, the subject and object of the dramatic metaphor. In reenactments like the Paterson Strike Pageant, the "actors" remain themselves yet at the same time play their roles as symbols of broader issues. In the same way, the farm laborers in Hitler's Nuremburg Rally of 1934 played—and were—themselves but at the same time stood for the masses of agricultural workers throughout the country. In like manner, the vast crowds that reenacted in Moscow in 1919 the storming of the Winter Palace were revolutionaries themselves yet also played the role of vaster revolutionary Russian forces.

For leaders of revolutionary movements, as well as for ideologues consciously or unconsciously intent on maintaining the status quo, the pageant was a potent weapon in forging a sense of communal identity for the hitherto inarticulate and unselfconscious lower classes. A pageant could function in the realm of participatory dramatic action rather in the way Diego Rivera's Mexican murals did in the realm of public visual art: to
[373]
forge a sense of contemporary purpose, self-identity and social cohesion out of a vivid recapitulation of historical fact heightened by symbolism.

But the pageant was also a unique political instrument in another way: the effects it had on the performers were as important as those it had on the audience. This can be said of no other performance art form.

I know not which esoteric usages are appealed to by effects, important, and performance art form, but this appears on its surface to be an absurd statement. Some effect is all but assured by most any performance. The question is not one of evidence or absence of effect; rather it is a question of control, of what in admin-speak has come to be known as Measurable Outcomes, without which not even another Paterson Pageant could get the attention of either the institutional art world or the "radicals" who ostensibly aim to countervail its power.

In the case of the Paterson Strike Pageant, the choice of significant incidents—...and the dramatic simplification and compression of events which may have been unclear when experienced in actuality—all made the striking workers conscious of the meaning of what they had lived through.

Later, Golin would emphasize this point even more forcefully. But he insists with equal vehemence that events were hardly unclear to the workers as these events were experienced in actuality.

At such a distance, now, from these events, and thus relying on "secondary" sources to form a yet more tenuous "tertiary" account, the distinction between general morale boosting and making people conscious of the meaning of what they had lived through could be meaningless. It may be lost to history. That much being granted, Intellectual history is both more amenable to continual revision and closer to my own concerns here anyway. And so as a matter of nothing more or less than Intellectual History, this drift from morale-boosting to consciousness-raising does seem worth noting.

This is above all an epistemological concern: often we realize only too late what we should have said or done; but also, we distort memories beyond any semblance of truth pretty much from the moment they are formed. Literary thought elevates the clarifying potential of hindsight to the status of an unquestioned and unquestionable virtue, of an assured result (think control again); but it fails to reckon (quite willfully, I think) with the distortive streak. It is often unclear, at least to me, just what it is that distinguishes the quotidian distortion of memory (surely a "motivated" distortion) from the production of "literature," aside from the packaging.

This is how activist litterateurs make their own beds and then become reluctant to lie in them. It is less literature itself than the activist imperative overlaid on it, here and elsewhere, which forces the epistemological issue; this because the concrete purpose of the activist demands concrete methods rather than experimental ones. And it is the dissonance between the thesis that workers were the strike leaders, on one hand, and the thesis that events may have been unclear to workers as they were unfolding in real time, on the other, which indicates, in fact, a substantial difference in interpretation even where the later author has exalted the earlier author and turned to her for support.

The fact that Nochlin is utterly unafraid of inviting comparison with Nazi and Soviet productions is at least a welcome preemption of the most tenuous, puritanical, animistic objections that might be raised against certain performing arts. But it also railroads us into judging these "participatory" artworks by our agreement or disagreement with their political orientation, and by little else. This is indeed a new kind of art, though there has been political art before. And it is only now, I think, with the long-awaited penetration of the mainstream entertainment industry by an activist ethic that is self-conscious, totalizing, and surface-oriented, with a supersession of unspoken ideology by loudly proclaimed ideological stances, it is only now that we can have an informed rather than merely speculative conversation, beyond the thick walls of academia or the paper-thin ones of industry, as to whether this is something that we really need or want; of whether we are better or worse off (or perhaps merely the same!) this way. I expect that "epistemology" will continue to play no role whatsoever in these discussions, and that this will be the reason why they continue to go nowhere helpful. But epistemology is the question here, and unlike history's lost secrets it will not disappear simply for not being spoken of.

Lasch—Consulting the Principle of Competence

Christopher Lasch
The World of Nations (1973)

Ch. X, "After the New Left"

The mystique of participation has had a profoundly misleading influence on recent American radicalism. It is a symptom of the general malaise of modern culture that watching a play, reading a poem, or getting an education are defined as passive and spectatorial, inherently inferior in the quality of their emo-
[150]
tional satisfaction to acting in a play, writing a poem, or simply "living." The notion that education and "life," art and "reality," understanding and action are radically opposed derives ultimately from the opaqueness of the structures in which we live and from a despair of understanding them. Official propaganda encourages this belief as assiduously as the so-called counterculture, which in this respect (as in many others) merely reflects prevailing values—or, more accurately, takes them more literally than they are taken by the ruling class. Thus, although the cult of participation encourages among other things a distrust of professionalism, the institutions of American society continue to be operated by professionals. It is only the left which, both in its politics and in its culture, clings to the illusion that competence is equally distributed among people of good intentions and regards any attempt to uphold professional standards as a betrayal of democracy.

... Its distrust of professionalism does not rest merely on a healthy disrespect for "experts" or on an awareness of the ways in which the concept of professionalism has been progressively debased... It reflects an intellectual orientation which, pushed to its furthest extreme, scorns not only professionalism but the "work ethic" itself, on the grounds that spontaneous and sensuous enjoyment of life is the only genuine form of participation in its pleasures, while submission to a discipline is inherently "alienating."

(pp. 149-150)

It is useful to be reminded...that "participatory democracy" in the strict sense works, if it works at all, only in very small communities; and that because the complexity of industrial society makes it impossible for such communties to achieve complete autonomy, those who advocate direct democracy as a general program are advocating, in effect, a return to a simpler stage of social and economic organization. One might add that decentralization, a measure of which is undoubtedly desirable, does not automatically lead to democratic results. Unless it is accompanied by a shift in political power, the decentralization of certain administrative functions may serve merely to reduce friction and to placate dissatisfaction with existing practices. ("The organizing principle of the new model [corporate or academic] institution," writes Michael Miles, "will be centralized control through decentralized structures.")

...

It is obvious that all institutions in American life are not equally democratic. "Private" corporations, academic or industrial, are not even formally democratic in their organization, unlike the state. Before arguing that they should be, according to [Robert A.] Dahl [After the Revolution?], one must consult the "principle of competence," according to which authority should be exercised by those who are best qualified to exercise it and who understand the consequences of their decisions. To insist on democracy in the operating room or on the bridge of an ocean liner would be madness for patients and passengers. The argument for democracy in the state therefore depends on the proposition that "the ordinary man is more
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competent than anyone else to decide when and how much he shall intervene on decisions he feels are important to him." In order for this argument to apply also to the university or the private corporation, it must be shown that these institutions, although in most cases nominally private, actually embody political power, are intertwined with the state, and are public in everything but name.

Dahl rather uneasily skirts the issue of the university. If we were to apply his categories to this particular case, we should have to distinguish at the outset between democratizing the corporate structure of the university, so as to give the entire university community access to corporate decisions..., and democratizing the classroom itself, as many cultural radicals are demanding. In the former case, the principle of competence would favor the institution of democratic procedures; in the latter, their adoption would quickly complete the wreckage of an already debased higher education.

(pp. 151-152)

A Tuba in the Jazz Band?

One of my tuba students recently came to me for advice on how to convince his high school band director to let him play in the jazz band. Among other things, I offered to write a letter for him, which I've now turned into an "open letter" to all K-12 band directors who favor strict adherence to the "standard" big band instrumentation of saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and rhythm. My naively optimistic hope is that this document could be used by any student who wants to play a "non-standard" instrument in their school's jazz band, but whose band teacher won't allow it. I've posted the letter on my website as a PDF file:

A Tuba in the Jazz Band?

I'll refrain from rehashing the whole letter point by point in hopes that you, the reader, will click on the link and read it in its entirety. There are, however, a couple of additional thoughts I've had since I finished it.

First, I mention in the letter that this situation never arises at schools with small/weak music programs. That's because in those cases, there aren't enough (or good enough) students available to cover the parts in the first place, and hence, regardless of their feelings about jazz band instrumentation, the teacher is typically in no position to turn down interested students on any instrument. I suspect this accounts for the fact that the majority of my K-12 tuba students were already playing in jazz band when they came to me for lessons (a point which I was sure to emphasize in the letter). This makes it all the more frustrating that one who attends a school with a larger program would be the one to find himself potentially trespassed from jazz band because of his instrument, yet if you think about it, it makes perfect sense, since there apparently are more trumpet, trombone and saxophone players at his school than there are spots available, making the admission of other instrumentalists quite the slippery slope for his band teacher.

In hindsight, I realize now that as someone who came up through bare bones jazz programs rather than sprawling, competitive ones, I benefitted greatly from this very dynamic, even if it didn't seem like it much of the time. My high school band teacher, who was overworked generally (aren't they all?) and particularly inexperienced in the jazz realm, went looking for help and stumbled on Jim Torok and Kerry Ashmore, two traditional jazz musicians who had been working with school jazz bands on a volunteer basis for many years. She turned the reins over to them, and suddenly not only were we afforded the opportunity to work with two highly experienced professional musicians, but two highly experienced professional musicians who, I was soon to learn, often hire their best students. They ultimately gave me my first paying gigs while I was still in high school, not to mention instilling a love and understanding of early jazz that I may not have otherwise developed. To this day, I still play with both of them several times a year.

I lucked out again in college at the University of Minnesota, where Jazz Studies Director Dean Sorenson spearheaded a collaboration with the dance department that entailed commissioning many new works from local composers. When he offered to include tuba in the instrumentation, I jumped at the opportunity to be a full-time member of a big band for the first time, as well as write a piece of my own for the project. While at The U, I was also lucky enough to have drummer Phil Hey as a jazz combo instructor. Phil, who is ubiquitous on the local scene and is the first call drummer for many big names passing through from out of town, has been a valuable teacher, mentor, and friend over the years, but, oddly enough, one of a type which I may not have had if I had gone to a big name jazz school where TA's run all of the combos, as was the case at the University of Northern Colorado, where I spent a year as an exchange student. This is not to diminish the generosity of Dana Landry, the Director of Jazz Studies at UNC, who graciously agreed to do 1-on-1 lessons with me during my second semester, and also had me play a couple of tunes with the Lab Band I. (Did you get that last part, high school band directors?) Nonetheless, since all of the combos and most of the big bands were directed by TA's, this was my only direct contact with jazz faculty members while I was there.

Certainly, there were ups and downs to all of my academic jazz experiences, and I definitely did not feel lucky to be part of small programs at the time. Nonetheless, it has been difficult watching a student of my own be offered less (nothing, actually) by a program that has more to give, and it has also made me more grateful for what I did get to be a part of as a student.

Secondly, I mention in the letter that, in hindsight, the academic world in general seemed less receptive to me as a tuba player playing jazz than the "real world" of living, breathing musicians has been since I left school. I'll refrain from naming names here, although it should be obvious that the one's I've mentioned in a positive light above certainly aren't who I'm talking about. With this idea still fresh in my mind from writing the letter, I just happened to stumble on a recent New York Times article about the guitarist Mary Halvorson, from which this excerpt particularly jumped out at me:

In high school she enrolled in summer programs at the Berklee College of Music and the New England Conservatory of Music, learning to shrug off chauvinistic appraisals of her talent.“Nobody would take me seriously,” she said. “They would take one look at me and say, ‘O.K., folk singer.’ That was really hard for me, and I was angry a lot of the time. I did all these summer programs, and I never encountered another female playing jazz guitar. Ever.” The experience taught her to be comfortable as the only woman on a bandstand, she said, adding that the issue rarely comes up anymore.

Let me preface my reaction to that very last passage by saying that I have no illusions that anything I've experienced as a tuba player in a saxophone player's world compares to the pervasiveness or hurtfulness of sexism or racism. Nonetheless, both of our stories point toward an indictment of musical academia as unduly resistant to diversity, the road less travelled, "the world as it might be" as opposed to "the world as it is," or whatever else you want to call it. Maybe we knew that already, but if nothing else, this is more fuel for the fire.

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I'll close this post the way I began my "open letter," which is to say that the very notion of "standard" and "non-standard" instruments is more representative of where the music publishing industry has thrown in their lot than it is of the whole of jazz history and the attitudes of its practitioners. It's never been about what you play, but how you play. Though I am a tuba player, this is about much more than just the tuba. It's too bad that so many schools have hitched their wagons to a jazz band instrumentation that automatically excludes more than half of the wind band, virtually all of the string orchestra, and everyone in the choir. In the face of this, creative band directors have always found the flexibility necessary to involve all of their interested students in jazz, regardless of the instruments they play. As much as we appreciate these extra efforts, they really ought to be par for the course, and we ought not accept anything less.