The future dystopia was, ironically, predicted in Fritz Lang's 1927 film "Metropolis", which depicted the dehumanized workers, and the inevitable ascent of machine over man that we now see. Similarly, Charlie Chaplin's 1934 film "Modern Times" deftly portrayed a man caught helplessly in the grinding gyres of industrialism, driven mad by the harsh dictates of the machine. Go to any dance club nowadays, and you will see young people, like marionettes, furiously dancing to the mechanized, lifeless unhuman beat of a machine, sometimes accompanied by chanted lyrics. This so-called "music" is without melody, harmony or spirit; its breath is the frigid sound of the abyss. As depicted by Lang's "Maschinenmensch", the machine who broke free from her master to create destruction, our machines have truly become our masters, because we have refused to serve God and one another.
Along with this new obsessive fixation on nudity and sexuality, came the sexualization of children. Pandora's Box of "sexual liberation", once opened, couldn't so readily be closed again. America now exports tons of hard-core pornography, featuring torture, abuse, defecating and urinating on others, bestiality and child porn. The producers of such smut are paraded on TV talk shows as "businessmen", just like any other- after all, who can argue with success? California, once a land of promise to weary immigrants, is now the center of the porn racket, ensnaring millions of women, men and children, many coerced into becoming so-called "sex workers".
At the beginning of the 20th century, American Gospel music, both the "white" country gospel, and the "Negro spiritual" tradition, was characterized mainly by its rhythmic and harmonic simplicity, its heartfelt, humble lyrics, and contemplative character. Indeed, the plaintive sounds of black American singing often had such a profound effect on its listeners that it could be credited, in part, with helping to end slavery and promoting the cause of civil rights. At this point, black gospel and spiritual music was noted for its innate dignity and nobility of character.
As Gospel music became more and more a commodity and a form of entertainment, it, too, started to become "Dionysian"- emphasizing emotion over substance, becoming less and less introspective or meditative. Soon, what mattered was flashy arrangements, florid vocal displays, dramatic vocal leaps and hypnotic repeated choruses. This has, in our time, become so much the norm that we hardly question it.
In a "Christian" society, secular music tends to imitate the church's standard. In previous centuries, singers and musicians, schooled by the church, could "branch off" and turn to making "light" popular music, if they wished. The highest art was always that commissioned by the churches. In a fallen society, however, the church seeks to imitate the world. Hypnotic, paganistic music is now the norm in most churches. Contemplation and introspection are considered suspect, because that would mean that one would have to think for himself. Better to appeal to the rawest emotions- pride, vainglory, envy and malice. And all the better without that pesky conscience. It's a peculiarly Nietzschean form of Christianity, one that emphasizes the self above all, and declares each and every one of us a mini-god in the making.
As the church goes, so goes the society. And as church music goes, so goes popular music. Today's singers, coached in the histrionic excesses of America Gospel, eschew deeper, spiritual singing, and strive towards expressing pure ego.
The heart of these changes was in the rejection of God as moral authority. Although much about the nature of God and religion could be argued, in previous centuries, people had always agreed on the existence of a higher moral and spiritual authority. It was taken for granted that God was a God of order, that the universe followed logical laws and that music was an expression of order and logic, not chaos. The urge towards chaos, towards what Nietzsche described as the "Dionysian" side of the Arts- that which is irrational, emotional, and chaotic- came to the arts after it had thoroughly permeated the humanities- from Darwin, Freud, Marx and others.
This new era proclaimed great ideals which contradicted each other; Darwin proclaimed that we, mere mammals without souls or spirits, are descended from apes. Nietzsche told us that we will rise to become godlike "Supermen", through our own efforts. No higher power or higher authority would be needed. Social Darwinism has been used as the basis for both Mussolini's fascism and modern neo-liberal "free trade" capitalism; at its root is a fundamental denial of the sanctity of human life, reducing man to the status of animal. With any of these modern philosophies, man could freely find justification to oppress his fellow man.
Moreover, without the intrusion of a guilty conscience, man could become the "noble savage" so fondly depicted by Rousseau in the 18th century. What Rousseau couldn't foresee, however, is that man without God is perhaps savage, but seldom noble. The senseless bloodbath of WWI, with technology being put to use to kill men in ever-more efficient ways, should have been a wake- up call to humanity, to put an end to the worship of the self, and turn to God. Unfortunately, man's pride will seldom give quarter to God's mercy.
What we have seen in this past century is that man, refusing to submit to God, claims his "freedom", and in turn becomes a slave. Science, meant to serve man and humanity, becomes a servant of death and destruction, and the master of mankind. So the mis-use of aviation and chemistry in WWI begat the mis-use of physics in WWII, which will beget the mis-use of computer science, biology and genetics in WWIII. We cannot expect to survive WWIII.
We are now at a point in which America's music and entertainment industries have reached a zenith of cultural babylonism. No nation escapes Babylon's spell- all submit to her writhing melodies, hypnotic drumming, cunning, profane, seducing lyrics and visions of semi-nude dancing girls.
Mammon, the god to whom all things are sacrificed, stands at the apex of cultural Babylon. As with ancient Babylon, children are the preferred sacrificial victims. Unlike the God of love and Prince of Peace of Jesus' teachings, the new god is a god who demands blood- and hence, the nonstop hedonistic bloodbath of America's popular culture, in which death and murder are forms of entertainment. The spell of Babylon is completed by its "magic": technology which can bewitch young minds, and compel them to evil, murder and torture. We see ever-greater numbers of children succumbing to suicide, depression and violence- all sacrificed to the god of Mammon.
Sir Isaac Newton's third law states: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." The moral descent is, inevitably, coupled with cries for law and order. Moral anarchy is quickly followed by tyranny, for as Jeremy Bentham states, "Tyranny and anarchy are never far apart."
As the moral anarchy rose in the aftermath of WWI, so did the people's demands for a restoration of order. Fascism soon spread in Europe and abroad- Mussolini, Hitler and the rise of fascistic communism in the east. Robert Paxton describes fascism as encompassing "a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of traditional solutions" as well as "a need for authority by a natural leader above the law, relying on the superiority of his instincts". In place of a spiritual force informing the human conscience, a man is placed in the position of god. In the moral vacuum of a world without God, this leader removes the need for self-inspection and moral responsibility. In the inevitable bloodbath that follows, "We were only following orders" becomes the new mantra of the self-hypnotized masses.
Is it too late to turn the tide? So-called conservatives want to usher in a new era of Cromwellism- by enforcing morality, imposing prayer in the schools, banning "sinful" acts, and expanding America's gulag system (which currently holds 2 million prisoners). Their calls for morality by force of law are accompanied by record levels of corruption in government, law and religion. Scandals involving pedophilia among priests, evangelist "church leaders" visiting prostitutes and "conservative" politicians soliciting sex in toilets or whorehouses are endemic of a culture that has rotted. Merely changing laws will not undo the decay that has set in. Allowing people to choose to follow their conscience, and keeping the separation between church and state is now more necessary than ever. America has never lived up to its promise of liberty and justice for all, but there has always been a force for good that had no need to be impelled by political force.
Cromwell and his Puritans proved themselves to just as intolerant of non-puritans as the oppressors they sought to replace. Repression and violence are the fruits of "moral" pseudo- Christianity, not the peace and love of Jesus' teachings. England soon tired of the dictates of Puritanism, and threw off the shackles of forced morality. Similarly, a fascist police state such as Mussolini's will not preserve, but rather, will destroy whatever vestiges of morality and Christianity America might have. These are the very shackles of pseudo-Christianity that the right-wingers implore us to put on. Morality, however, comes from within, and forcing non-Christians to live as Christians will merely produce a generation of hypocrites.
Along with this new obsessive fixation on nudity and sexuality, came the sexualization of children. Pandora's Box of "sexual liberation", once opened, couldn't so readily be closed again. America now exports tons of hard-core pornography, featuring torture, abuse, defecating and urinating on others, bestiality and child porn. The producers of such smut are paraded on TV talk shows as "businessmen", just like any other- after all, who can argue with success? California, once a land of promise to weary immigrants, is now the center of the porn racket, ensnaring millions of women, men and children, many coerced into becoming so-called "sex workers".
At the beginning of the 20th century, American Gospel music, both the "white" country gospel, and the "Negro spiritual" tradition, was characterized mainly by its rhythmic and harmonic simplicity, its heartfelt, humble lyrics, and contemplative character. Indeed, the plaintive sounds of black American singing often had such a profound effect on its listeners that it could be credited, in part, with helping to end slavery and promoting the cause of civil rights. At this point, black gospel and spiritual music was noted for its innate dignity and nobility of character.
As Gospel music became more and more a commodity and a form of entertainment, it, too, started to become "Dionysian"- emphasizing emotion over substance, becoming less and less introspective or meditative. Soon, what mattered was flashy arrangements, florid vocal displays, dramatic vocal leaps and hypnotic repeated choruses. This has, in our time, become so much the norm that we hardly question it.
As the church goes, so goes the society. And as church music goes, so goes popular music. Today's singers, coached in the histrionic excesses of America Gospel, eschew deeper, spiritual singing, and strive towards expressing pure ego.
The heart of these changes was in the rejection of God as moral authority. Although much about the nature of God and religion could be argued, in previous centuries, people had always agreed on the existence of a higher moral and spiritual authority. It was taken for granted that God was a God of order, that the universe followed logical laws and that music was an expression of order and logic, not chaos. The urge towards chaos, towards what Nietzsche described as the "Dionysian" side of the Arts- that which is irrational, emotional, and chaotic- came to the arts after it had thoroughly permeated the humanities- from Darwin, Freud, Marx and others.
This new era proclaimed great ideals which contradicted each other; Darwin proclaimed that we, mere mammals without souls or spirits, are descended from apes. Nietzsche told us that we will rise to become godlike "Supermen", through our own efforts. No higher power or higher authority would be needed. Social Darwinism has been used as the basis for both Mussolini's fascism and modern neo-liberal "free trade" capitalism; at its root is a fundamental denial of the sanctity of human life, reducing man to the status of animal. With any of these modern philosophies, man could freely find justification to oppress his fellow man.
Moreover, without the intrusion of a guilty conscience, man could become the "noble savage" so fondly depicted by Rousseau in the 18th century. What Rousseau couldn't foresee, however, is that man without God is perhaps savage, but seldom noble. The senseless bloodbath of WWI, with technology being put to use to kill men in ever-more efficient ways, should have been a wake- up call to humanity, to put an end to the worship of the self, and turn to God. Unfortunately, man's pride will seldom give quarter to God's mercy.
What we have seen in this past century is that man, refusing to submit to God, claims his "freedom", and in turn becomes a slave. Science, meant to serve man and humanity, becomes a servant of death and destruction, and the master of mankind. So the mis-use of aviation and chemistry in WWI begat the mis-use of physics in WWII, which will beget the mis-use of computer science, biology and genetics in WWIII. We cannot expect to survive WWIII.
We are now at a point in which America's music and entertainment industries have reached a zenith of cultural babylonism. No nation escapes Babylon's spell- all submit to her writhing melodies, hypnotic drumming, cunning, profane, seducing lyrics and visions of semi-nude dancing girls.
Mammon, the god to whom all things are sacrificed, stands at the apex of cultural Babylon. As with ancient Babylon, children are the preferred sacrificial victims. Unlike the God of love and Prince of Peace of Jesus' teachings, the new god is a god who demands blood- and hence, the nonstop hedonistic bloodbath of America's popular culture, in which death and murder are forms of entertainment. The spell of Babylon is completed by its "magic": technology which can bewitch young minds, and compel them to evil, murder and torture. We see ever-greater numbers of children succumbing to suicide, depression and violence- all sacrificed to the god of Mammon.
Sir Isaac Newton's third law states: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." The moral descent is, inevitably, coupled with cries for law and order. Moral anarchy is quickly followed by tyranny, for as Jeremy Bentham states, "Tyranny and anarchy are never far apart."
As the moral anarchy rose in the aftermath of WWI, so did the people's demands for a restoration of order. Fascism soon spread in Europe and abroad- Mussolini, Hitler and the rise of fascistic communism in the east. Robert Paxton describes fascism as encompassing "a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of traditional solutions" as well as "a need for authority by a natural leader above the law, relying on the superiority of his instincts". In place of a spiritual force informing the human conscience, a man is placed in the position of god. In the moral vacuum of a world without God, this leader removes the need for self-inspection and moral responsibility. In the inevitable bloodbath that follows, "We were only following orders" becomes the new mantra of the self-hypnotized masses.
Is it too late to turn the tide? So-called conservatives want to usher in a new era of Cromwellism- by enforcing morality, imposing prayer in the schools, banning "sinful" acts, and expanding America's gulag system (which currently holds 2 million prisoners). Their calls for morality by force of law are accompanied by record levels of corruption in government, law and religion. Scandals involving pedophilia among priests, evangelist "church leaders" visiting prostitutes and "conservative" politicians soliciting sex in toilets or whorehouses are endemic of a culture that has rotted. Merely changing laws will not undo the decay that has set in. Allowing people to choose to follow their conscience, and keeping the separation between church and state is now more necessary than ever. America has never lived up to its promise of liberty and justice for all, but there has always been a force for good that had no need to be impelled by political force.
Cromwell and his Puritans proved themselves to just as intolerant of non-puritans as the oppressors they sought to replace. Repression and violence are the fruits of "moral" pseudo- Christianity, not the peace and love of Jesus' teachings. England soon tired of the dictates of Puritanism, and threw off the shackles of forced morality. Similarly, a fascist police state such as Mussolini's will not preserve, but rather, will destroy whatever vestiges of morality and Christianity America might have. These are the very shackles of pseudo-Christianity that the right-wingers implore us to put on. Morality, however, comes from within, and forcing non-Christians to live as Christians will merely produce a generation of hypocrites.
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