[Marxism] Leon Botstein

["bkelly" <kellyr818@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I've just joined the mailing list, and after reading Louis Proyect's article 
this morning and finding it's subject (music) to be one I know something about, 
I figured I'd use it to drop a comment and introduce myself in the process.

Regarding jazz appreciation by whites as a form of condescension....from my own 
experience as a white musician and listener, that is rubbish. What does 
condescension mean here? The only meaning I can decipher is that whites would 
have to be outwardly appreciating jazz while inwardly holding on to the thought 
that either the music, its practioners, or both are somehow deficient in some 
quality or other. That sounds more like projection on Botstein's part than 
anything else. Musicians learn to play jazz because it is a challenging, 
expressive, and vital music form. It takes years of hard study and practicing 
to become an accomplished jazz musician. That kind of dedication can't co-exist 
with condescension, regardless of the player's race. As to 
listeners.....American music is so laced with Afro-American influence that 
outside the classical world (and even in it with Gershwin and such), it's hard 
to find much music without that influence (bluegrass maybe?) That's a lot of 
condescension.

As to myself....hello all. My name's Bob. I'm not a Marxist scholar. I am 
reading Capital with the help of David Harvey's online course. Over the past 
few years I've been following the financial crisis, having been alerted to it 
by either Mike Whitney or maybe Michael Hudson via the Counterpunch site. Went 
along trying to educate myself on all the financial mumbo-jumbo and poking 
about the net. Via the World Socialist Web Site I started reading Marxist 
analysis of what was going on. It seemed to me to better describe what I was 
seeing in the news than other things I was reading. So I found David Harvey's 
course, picked up a copy of Capital and dove in. 

So that's it. I'll probably be mostly reading posts for the most part, but may 
pop up with a Capital question or two from time to time.

     
________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: 
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40archives.econ.utah.edu