Music in a capitalist culture

Midterm paper for Learning of Culture with Lisa Stulberg

Max Weber locates the roots of capitalism in vestigial puritanical Protestantism. Émile Durkheim, in turn, gives a theory of how that Protestantism arose in the first place. In this paper, I ask two questions. First: can Weber’s and Durkheim’s theories of religion be extended to explain culture generally? Second, and more specifically: can their theories explain music?

Music is a valuable lens for examining cultures, because while every world culture includes it, the particular form and function varies considerably from one culture to another. Contemporary America contains a variety of musical subcultures and countercultures that overlap and conflict with one another. We might follow Weber’s example and say that America’s culture has capitalism as its single defining feature. And we might say that America’s commercial pop mainstream defines our musical culture. But those two generalizations conceal roiling masses of unresolved conflict.

Weber describes the two necessary ingredients of capitalism as a disciplined labor force, and an owner class that re-invests its capital. These two features of American culture are so familiar that it is startling to be reminded how culturally and historically specific they are. Per Weber, people in traditional societies typically work as hard as is necessary to meet their basic needs, and no harder. There are wealthy people in non-capitalist cultures, but they tend to use their wealth to obtain luxury or power, rather than using it to systematically generate more wealth.

Capitalism asks us to work as hard as we can to accumulate as much wealth as we can, not for the sake of greater comfort or power, but for the sake of the work itself. We have learned to see work and wealth accumulation as intrinsically virtuous. It is not at all obvious how Protestantism might have given rise to this idea, since renunciation of material wealth is one of its original core tenets. In Weber’s telling, Protestants became less concerned with wealth per se over time, and more concerned with its ostentatious display. Having money is no sin if you soberly re-invest it, rather than spending it self-indulgently. Martin Luther declared that renouncing the business of the world is selfish, not admirable. Capitalist labor, on the other hand, is a calling, “the outward expression of brotherly love” (Weber 1930, 41).

While Catholics can absolve themselves from sin through confession, Protestants have to struggle under a perpetual state of sinfulness, or to maintain a permanent state of grace. Either way, that means constant pressure to please God through industriousness, frugality, punctuality, and integrity.

[T]he earning of more and more money, combined with the strict avoidance of all spontaneous enjoyment of life, is above all completely devoid of any eudaemonistic, not to say hedonistic, admixture. It is thought of so purely as an end in itself, that from the point of view of the happiness of, or utility to, the single individual, it appears entirely transcendental and absolutely irrational. Man is dominated by the making of money, by acquisition as the ultimate purpose of his life. Economic acquisition is no longer subordinated to man as the means for the satisfaction of his material needs. This reversal of what we should call the natural relationship, so irrational from a naïve point of view, is evidently as definitely a leading principle of capitalism as it is foreign to all peoples not under capitalistic influence (Weber 1930, 18).

We might naively think that the Protestant work ethic arose as a post-facto justification for capitalism. But Weber argues that the capitalist ethic came first, and that it created the cultural conditions that made capitalism possible. The Puritans gradually eliminated magic and priestly hierarchy from their faith until the more business-oriented among them shed the belief in God entirely. Unmoored from its spiritual foundation, the capitalist ethic has become its own justification.

Weber echoes both Freud and Marx when he describes the way that capitalism alienates individuals from our emotional and sensual selves.

Combined with the harsh doctrines of the absolute transcendentality of God and the corruption of everything pertaining to the flesh, this inner isolation of the individual contains, on the one hand, the reason for the entirely negative attitude of Puritanism to all the sensuous and emotional elements in culture and in religion, because they are of no use toward salvation and promote sentimental illusions and idolatrous superstitions. Thus it provides a basis for a fundamental antagonism to sensuous culture of all kinds. On the other hand, it forms one of the roots of that disillusioned and pessimistically inclined individualism which can even to-day be identified in the national characters and the institutions of the peoples with a Puritan past… (Weber 1930, 62)

The Protestant work ethic has taken on a life of its own, having expanded not just beyond its religious basis, but even its economic basis as well.

The Puritan wanted to work in a calling; we are forced to do so… This order is now bound to the technical and economic conditions of machine production which to-day determine the lives of all the individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those directly concerned with economic acquisition, with irresistible force. Perhaps it will so determine them until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt (Weber 1930, 123).

Since the capitalist ethic has lost any connection to spirituality or economic necessity, it has taken on the quality of an immutable law of nature, of common sense. It has become our habitus.

Has the Protestant work ethic transcended the economic context so completely as to dominate the rest of our culture? Our musical culture is inseparable from the spirit of capitalism. The popular music press regularly reports album sales and chart positions, information which would appear to be of no interest to anyone outside of the music industry. Why do we use financial success as a proxy for musical quality or significance? We want to know what is popular with the group so that we know how best to fit in, and sales are a reasonable enough proxy for popularity. But commercial success takes on a moral significance for us as well. There are segments of music fandom, from avant-garde classical to punk, where commercial success and artistic quality are diametrically opposed. It is common for fans to bitterly accuse their idols of “selling out.” But even in their resistance, these fans continue to frame musical quality in monetary terms.

The Protestant work ethic can be helpful for musicians. It can instill the discipline and drive needed to push through those long hours in the practice room. When we listen to Michael Jackson or Prince, we hear the result of relentless attention to every fine sonic detail, a level of polish made possible by fanatical discipline on the part of songwriters, performers, and engineers. This equation of discipline with virtue can quickly outgrow its usefulness, however. At every level of ability, we see musicians who are desperately anxious about being judged or rejected. For many of us, the fear of judgment overwhelms the pleasure of the music itself. The same musicians who produce the best work also tend to be deeply unhappy people, prone to drug abuse and dying prematurely, as happened to both Michael Jackson and Prince.

Nearly everyone enjoys music, but few Americans participate actively in the making of it. While we value the work product of musicians, we take a dim view of the lifestyle that gives rise to that product. In a book about the unhappy life of Stephen Foster, Emerson (1998) neatly sums up the psychic obstacles facing a would-be musician:

Any career in music was by definition disreputable in a society that venerated the Protestant work ethic, the virtues of practicality and profitability. Music was for women and children; men outgrew it. As anything other than a hobby, music was not just ungentlemanly; it was unmanly. (99)

There are many world cultures where participation in music is more common than our own. Turino (2008) contrasts our presentational music culture with the participatory cultures of Cuba or Zaire, where playing percussion is a commonplace activity for everyone from young children to the elderly. While we have our own participatory subcultures, we mostly regard music-making as a specialized professional skill like surgery or piloting aircraft. Our psychic barriers to amateur participation are high; if we can not become successful professionals, we do not consider music-making to be a worthwhile use of our time.

America’s musical culture is not solely a product of European-descended Protestantism. We have imported and incorporated the musics of many other cultures, most significantly the traditions of the African diaspora. Those aspects of African music that survived slavery have given rise to our best and most popular music, from blues to jazz to rock to hip-hop. This music carries vestiges of religious traditions that are wildly different from Protestantism, and that act as a spiritual counterweight to the capitalist ethic. Brennan (2008) argues that when we listen to black American music, we are unconsciously resisting the capitalist ethic by enacting a secular version of African religious devotion. We are slipping the bonds of our mercantile identity to enjoy our bodies, our social connections, and the pleasure of the moment. It comes as no surprise, then, that white people consider black music to be such a “guilty pleasure,” since it stands in such direct opposition to so many of our dominant cultural values.

To illuminate the conflict between ancestral Protestantism and African spirituality, we can turn to Durkheim’s theory of the roots of religion.

Religious representations are collective representations which express collective realities; the rites are a manner of acting which take rise in the midst of the assembled groups and which are destined to excite, maintain or recreate certain mental states in these groups (Durkheim 1912, 10).

If we substitute the word “music” for “religion” throughout this paragraph, it rings precisely true. We will return to this idea below. But first, let us explore Durkheim’s theory in more depth. Gods are conveniently anthropomorphic mental representations of the tribe.

The god of the clan, the totemic principle, can therefore be nothing else than the clan itself, personified and represented to the imagination under the visible form of the animal or vegetable which serves as totem (Durkheim 1912, 206).

The modern world has seen an explosive growth in the totem population: national flags, sports logos, band logos, brands, cartoon characters, Pokémon.

[W]herever we observe the religious life, we find that it has a definite group as its foundation. Even the so-called private cults, such as the domestic cult or the cult of a corporation, satisfy this condition; for they are always celebrated by a group, the family or the corporation (Durkheim 1912, 44).

Durkheim is probably not referring here to the modern corporation, but this sentence would be no less true if he were. Corporations with strong company cultures, like Apple or Google, have an unmistakable cult-like quality.

If religion is the name we give to social norms and pressures, then there is nothing irrational about it. We are utterly dependent on our social groups for our basic survival and for every aspect of our emotional well-being.

Religion ceases to be an inexplicable hallucination and takes a foothold in reality. In fact, we can say that the believer is not deceived when he believes in the existence of a moral power upon which he depends and from which he receives all that is best in himself: this power exists, it is society (Durkheim 1912, 225).

We do not feel a clean distinction between our individual selves and the social forces acting on us from outside; the two are inextricably bound up together. We do not obey social rules entirely out of fear. We obey voluntarily, out of reverence. We sacrifice ourselves to the demands of the collective, and do so eagerly.

Now society also gives us the sensation of a perpetual dependence. Since it has a nature which is peculiar to itself and different from our individual nature, it pursues ends which are likewise special to it; but, as it cannot attain them except through our intermediacy, it imperiously demands our aid. It requires that, forgetful of our own interests, we make ourselves its servitors, and it submits us to every sort of inconvenience, privation and sacrifice, without which social life would be impossible. It is because of this that at every instant we are obliged to submit ourselves to rules of conduct and of thought which we have neither made nor desired, and which are sometimes even contrary to our most fundamental inclinations and instincts… If we yield to its orders, it is not merely because it is strong enough to triumph over our resistance; it is primarily because it is the object of a venerable respect (Durkheim 1912, 206-207).

All religions divide the world into profane and sacred. In Durkheim’s theory, the profane is the realm of our individual selves, our animal bodies. The sacred is the social realm where we can “transcend” our individual bodies and join in the oceanic group mind. This framework is unexpectedly useful for understanding fandoms. The overlap between fandoms and religions is more a matter of degree than kind. For examples, fandoms have canons that they debate to Talmudic depths. Everything in the world of the fandom is “sacred,” made dramatic and intense by the infusion of feeling of belonging. Everything outside the world of the fandom is “profane.”

If sacredness is really the realm of the collective consciousness, then charismatic leaders are people unusually in touch with that consciousness.

When we obey somebody because of the moral authority which we recognize in him, we follow out his opinions, not because they seem wise, but because a certain sort of physical energy is imminent in the idea that we form of this person, which conquers our will and inclines it in the indicated direction. Respect is the emotion which we experience when we feel this interior and wholly spiritual pressure operating upon us. Then we are not determined by the advantages or inconveniences of the attitude which is prescribed or recommended to us; it is by the way in which we represent to ourselves the person recommending or prescribing it… The representations which express them within each of us have an intensity which no purely private states of consciousness could ever attain; for they have the strength of the innumerable individual representations which have served to form each of them. It is society who speaks through the mouths of those who affirm them in our presence; it is society whom we hear in hearing them; and the voice of all has an accent which that of one alone could never have. The very violence with which society reacts, by way of blame or material suppression, against every attempted dissidence, contributes to strengthening its empire by manifesting the common conviction through this burst of ardour (Durkheim 1912, 207-208).

The group is inside each of us, and that part of us is eager to feed off the leader’s energy. When we are infused with religious faith, we behave more confidently and energetically, and can move “beyond” ourselves.

There are occasions when this strengthening and vivifying action of society is especially apparent. In the midst of an assembly animated by a common passion, we become susceptible of acts and sentiments of which we are incapable when reduced to our own forces; and when the assembly is dissolved and when, finding ourselves alone again, we fall back to our ordinary level, we are then able to measure the height to which we have been raised above ourselves (Durkheim 1912, 209-210).

Durkheim cites the French revolution as examples of social consciousness driving people to extraordinary behavior. We can see this phenomenon at work at Trump rallies, sports riots, and, most significantly for this paper, rock concerts. When Durkheim describes the bearing of a charismatic religious figure addressing a crowd, he might as well be describing a pop star.

His language has a grandiloquence that would be ridiculous in ordinary circumstances; his gestures show a certain domination; his very thought is impatient of all rules, and easily falls into all sorts of excesses. It is because he feels within him an abnormal over-supply of force which overflows and tries to burst out from him; sometimes he even has the feeling that he is dominated by a moral force which is greater than he and of which he is only the interpreter. It is by this trait that we are able to recognize what has often been called the demon of oratorical inspiration. Now this exceptional increase of force is something very real; it comes to him from the very group which he addresses. The sentiments provoked by his words come back to him, but enlarged and amplified, and to this degree they strengthen his own sentiment. The passionate energies he arouses re-echo within him and quicken his vital tone. It is no longer a simple individual who speaks; it is a group incarnate and personified (Durkheim 1912, 210).

Pop stars do their communicating through song and dance rather than speech, but the effect is the same. Sometimes exhortatory speech enters the picture as well. Bono and Kanye West are given to interrupting their concerts with long speeches about politics or spirituality or whatever else is on their minds.

One can readily conceive how, when arrived at this state of exaltation, a man does not recognize himself any longer. Feeling himself dominated and carried away by some sort of an external power which makes him think and act differently than in normal times, he naturally has the impression of being himself no longer. It seems to him that he has become a new being: the decorations he puts on and the masks that cover his face figure materially in this interior transformation, and to a still greater extent, they aid in determining its nature (Durkheim 1912, 218).

Durkheim refers here to the masks and decorations used by tribal priests and shamans, but again, he might as well be describing pop stars’ flamboyant costumes and stage sets.

And as at the same time all his companions feel themselves transformed in the same way and express this sentiment by their cries, their gestures and their general attitude, everything is just as though he really were transported into a special world, entirely different from the one where he ordinarily lives, and into an environment filled with exceptionally intense forces that take hold of him and metamorphose him (Durkheim 1912, 218).

The ecstatic transport we seek in music is directly in conflict with the sober industriousness that capitalism demands of us. Remnick (2010) describes our fascination with Keith Richards: “It’s the titillation of hearing from someone who has never seen the inside of a factory or an office.” Richards’ unapologetic hedonism and drug use may drive some of his media attention, but he became a star by channeling the sound of his blues heroes. Perhaps it was only possible for him to gain the internal permission he needed to resist his white Protestant upbringing by rejecting the entire edifice, not just European classical musical values but all the Protestant norms that go with them.

Durkheim sees explanatory power in his theory of religion that extends far beyond religion itself, to encompass our entire faculty for imaginative thought and abstract reasoning. This faculty must necessarily include musical creativity. We use music the way we use religious rites, as a physical manifestation of our tribal solidarity. Vinyl records, ticket stubs and vintage synthesizers are every bit as totemic as fertility statues or ceremonial masks. Just as political leaders can become living totems of their following, so too can musicians become totems of theirs. Keith Richards, the musician, is a significant enough figure, but he has been utterly eclipsed by Keith Richards, the embodiment of rock star anti-Puritanism. The fact that Richards has become extremely wealthy from his rejection of our dominant social norms is no small irony, but it speaks to the power of his role as an icon. Until we are able to able to reconcile the conflict between the Protestant work ethic and our needs as social animals, our musical culture will continue to be filled with such contradictions.

References

Brennan, T. (2008). Secular devotion: Afro-Latin music and imperial jazz. London: Verso.

Durkheim, E. (1912). Elementary Forms of the Religious Life.

Emerson, K. (1998). Doo-dah!: Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture. Boston: Da Capo Press.

Remnick, D. (2010). Groovin’ High. The New Yorker, November 1, 2010.

Turino, T. (2008). Music as Social Life: The Politics of Participation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Weber, M. (1930). The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.