Reflections on Americanization, Escapism

 I've been thinking about what a drive to attend music festivals means, culturally, for our zeitgeist, and trying to collect thoughts on the subject. Here are a few:

"The development of popular culture from the novel via the image to the triumph of popular music and the "center-less'' heterogeneity of television, created forms of cultural expression that are singularly useful for the purposes of imaginary self-extension and self-empowerment. The result is an increasing separation of expressive elements from moral, social, even narrative contexts. Here is the triumph of "mood over morals.'' Americanization, indeed, is carried by the promise of heightened imaginary self-realization for individuals who are freed from the bonds of social norms and cultural traditions.

Americanization, thus, cannot be viewed as a tacitly engineered hidden cultural takeover but as a process in which individualization is the driving force. This process is most advanced in the US for a number of reasons. The promise of a particular form of individualization provides the explanation why American popular culture finds so much resonance in other societies where it has taken hold almost without resistance (mostly carried by a young generation trying to escape tradition).

Cultural Americanization is thus part of a modernizing process. Americanization is not a form of cultural imperialism, but the embodiment of modernity's promise of painless self-realization for each individual, in contrast to the demands made by more traditional concepts of emancipation. Globalization, which often appears as the triumph of cultural standardization, in reality undermines standardization. No single national culture is the driving force but, instead, globalization is powered by a restless individualism drawing on a growing store of mass symbols. So: we are not becoming Americanized. We "Americanize'' ourselves."
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/invasion-of-the-culture-snatchers- 

"But, judging by the appetite shown worldwide for this narrative, it seems clear that identification with such adventures is almost universal. It seems to speak to a deep longing in men – and in the women who also enjoy these films and TV shows – for a time in one’s life when one could dash toward freedom, adventure, and self-reinvention, unencumbered by social ties and family obligations."
http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-great-escapism

But, judging by the appetite shown worldwide for this narrative, it seems clear that identification with such adventures is almost universal. It seems to speak to a deep longing in men – and in the women who also enjoy these films and TV shows – for a time in one’s life when one could dash toward freedom, adventure, and self-reinvention, unencumbered by social ties and family obligations.
Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/the-great-escapism#cad7sqvVLYRCHBpQ.99

The characteristic form by which music activates the imagination is by short evocations of out-of-context images, or a diffuse feeling of boundlessness, both of which need not be integrated into any meaningful context. Listeners to popular music need not ``earn'' their aesthetic experience through participation. Contrary to prior visual forms of cultural expression, including the movies, there is no longer a need for continuity in the flow of images; contrary to what happens with a novel, no mental translation is required because the sensual effect of music creates associations that are shaped not by narrative but by mood.

CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphThe development of popular culture from the novel via the image to the triumph of popular music and the ``center-less'' heterogeneity of television, created forms of cultural expression that are singularly useful for the purposes of imaginary self-extension and self-empowerment. The result is an increasing separation of expressive elements from moral, social, even narrative contexts. Here is the triumph of ``mood over morals.'' Americanization, indeed, is carried by the promise of heightened imaginary self-realization for individuals who are freed from the bonds of social norms and cultural traditions.

CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphAmericanization, thus, cannot be viewed as a tacitly engineered hidden cultural takeover but as a process in which individualization is the driving force. This process is most advanced in the US for a number of reasons. The promise of a particular form of individualization provides the explanation why American popular culture finds so much resonance in other societies where it has taken hold almost without resistance (mostly carried by a young generation trying to escape tradition).

CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphCultural Americanization is thus part of a modernizing process. Americanization is not a form of cultural imperialism, but the embodiment of modernity's promise of painless self-realization for each individual, in contrast to the demands made by more traditional concepts of emancipation. Globalization, which often appears as the triumph of cultural standardization, in reality undermines standardization. No single national culture is the driving force but, instead, globalization is powered by a restless individualism drawing on a growing store of mass symbols. So: we are not becoming Americanized. We ``Americanize'' ourselves.

Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/invasion-of-the-culture-snatchers-#Vq5o4XgFmo2CWZ2q.99

The characteristic form by which music activates the imagination is by short evocations of out-of-context images, or a diffuse feeling of boundlessness, both of which need not be integrated into any meaningful context. Listeners to popular music need not ``earn'' their aesthetic experience through participation. Contrary to prior visual forms of cultural expression, including the movies, there is no longer a need for continuity in the flow of images; contrary to what happens with a novel, no mental translation is required because the sensual effect of music creates associations that are shaped not by narrative but by mood.

CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphThe development of popular culture from the novel via the image to the triumph of popular music and the ``center-less'' heterogeneity of television, created forms of cultural expression that are singularly useful for the purposes of imaginary self-extension and self-empowerment. The result is an increasing separation of expressive elements from moral, social, even narrative contexts. Here is the triumph of ``mood over morals.'' Americanization, indeed, is carried by the promise of heightened imaginary self-realization for individuals who are freed from the bonds of social norms and cultural traditions.

CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphAmericanization, thus, cannot be viewed as a tacitly engineered hidden cultural takeover but as a process in which individualization is the driving force. This process is most advanced in the US for a number of reasons. The promise of a particular form of individualization provides the explanation why American popular culture finds so much resonance in other societies where it has taken hold almost without resistance (mostly carried by a young generation trying to escape tradition).

CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphCultural Americanization is thus part of a modernizing process. Americanization is not a form of cultural imperialism, but the embodiment of modernity's promise of painless self-realization for each individual, in contrast to the demands made by more traditional concepts of emancipation. Globalization, which often appears as the triumph of cultural standardization, in reality undermines standardization. No single national culture is the driving force but, instead, globalization is powered by a restless individualism drawing on a growing store of mass symbols. So: we are not becoming Americanized. We ``Americanize'' ourselves.

Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/invasion-of-the-culture-snatchers-#Vq5o4XgFmo2CWZ2q.99

The characteristic form by which music activates the imagination is by short evocations of out-of-context images, or a diffuse feeling of boundlessness, both of which need not be integrated into any meaningful context. Listeners to popular music need not ``earn'' their aesthetic experience through participation. Contrary to prior visual forms of cultural expression, including the movies, there is no longer a need for continuity in the flow of images; contrary to what happens with a novel, no mental translation is required because the sensual effect of music creates associations that are shaped not by narrative but by mood.

CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphThe development of popular culture from the novel via the image to the triumph of popular music and the ``center-less'' heterogeneity of television, created forms of cultural expression that are singularly useful for the purposes of imaginary self-extension and self-empowerment. The result is an increasing separation of expressive elements from moral, social, even narrative contexts. Here is the triumph of ``mood over morals.'' Americanization, indeed, is carried by the promise of heightened imaginary self-realization for individuals who are freed from the bonds of social norms and cultural traditions.

CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphAmericanization, thus, cannot be viewed as a tacitly engineered hidden cultural takeover but as a process in which individualization is the driving force. This process is most advanced in the US for a number of reasons. The promise of a particular form of individualization provides the explanation why American popular culture finds so much resonance in other societies where it has taken hold almost without resistance (mostly carried by a young generation trying to escape tradition).

CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphCultural Americanization is thus part of a modernizing process. Americanization is not a form of cultural imperialism, but the embodiment of modernity's promise of painless self-realization for each individual, in contrast to the demands made by more traditional concepts of emancipation. Globalization, which often appears as the triumph of cultural standardization, in reality undermines standardization. No single national culture is the driving force but, instead, globalization is powered by a restless individualism drawing on a growing store of mass symbols. So: we are not becoming Americanized. We ``Americanize'' ourselves.

Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/invasion-of-the-culture-snatchers-#Vq5o4XgFmo2CWZ2q.99

The characteristic form by which music activates the imagination is by short evocations of out-of-context images, or a diffuse feeling of boundlessness, both of which need not be integrated into any meaningful context. Listeners to popular music need not ``earn'' their aesthetic experience through participation. Contrary to prior visual forms of cultural expression, including the movies, there is no longer a need for continuity in the flow of images; contrary to what happens with a novel, no mental translation is required because the sensual effect of music creates associations that are shaped not by narrative but by mood.

CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphThe development of popular culture from the novel via the image to the triumph of popular music and the ``center-less'' heterogeneity of television, created forms of cultural expression that are singularly useful for the purposes of imaginary self-extension and self-empowerment. The result is an increasing separation of expressive elements from moral, social, even narrative contexts. Here is the triumph of ``mood over morals.'' Americanization, indeed, is carried by the promise of heightened imaginary self-realization for individuals who are freed from the bonds of social norms and cultural traditions.

CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphAmericanization, thus, cannot be viewed as a tacitly engineered hidden cultural takeover but as a process in which individualization is the driving force. This process is most advanced in the US for a number of reasons. The promise of a particular form of individualization provides the explanation why American popular culture finds so much resonance in other societies where it has taken hold almost without resistance (mostly carried by a young generation trying to escape tradition).

CommentsView/Create comment on this paragraphCultural Americanization is thus part of a modernizing process. Americanization is not a form of cultural imperialism, but the embodiment of modernity's promise of painless self-realization for each individual, in contrast to the demands made by more traditional concepts of emancipation. Globalization, which often appears as the triumph of cultural standardization, in reality undermines standardization. No single national culture is the driving force but, instead, globalization is powered by a restless individualism drawing on a growing store of mass symbols. So: we are not becoming Americanized. We ``Americanize'' ourselves.

Read more at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/invasion-of-the-culture-snatchers-#Vq5o4XgFmo2CWZ2q.99

NY Times Review of Bonnaroo 2012: Understanding one of the largest American music festivals

 I really liked this analysis, and wanted to save a couple relevant quotes.

"Never mind me and my choices: put those acts together, and what’s the message? What does it express? Not newness, really, but something about grooves and songwriting and resonance; perhaps, all together, a desire for longevity. The Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival is not about “authentic” music — beware of that word — but it might be about music that either has had a long life or expects to. Music that isn’t instantly forgettable. Music that you would want to deposit in the correct recycling bin."

"Bonnaroo is mainly a camping festival, sold out this year at 80,000. It’s an experience festival ... because Bonnaroo really is understood as a marker in people’s lives. And experience trumps aesthetic sensibility."

"I have an unrealistic fantasy of a music festival purely of excellence, with no responsibility toward any aesthetic or sound or region, only toward the principles of unity and purpose in sound. Bonnaroo is not that. But it allows you, at least, to dream in those terms."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/18/arts/music/bonnaroo-music-and-arts-festival-in-all-its-multiplicity.html?pagewanted=1

Maslow on Health as Transcendence of Environment

"The danger that I see is the resurgence, in new and more sophisticated forms, of the old identification of psychological health with adjustment, adjustment to reality, adjustment to society, adjustment to other people. That is, the authentic or healthy person may be defined not in his own right, not in his autonomy, not by his own intra-psychic and non-environmental laws, not as different from the environment, independent of it or opposed to it..." (pg 168)

Notes on "The impact of music festival attendance on young people's psychological and social well-being"

 "I felt something that I hadn't really felt before and I've been chasing it ever since." (pg 169)

While the cognitive, emotional, psychological and cultural benefits of exposure to and participation in musical activities (such as playing, dancing, listening, etc.) are well documented and thoroughly researched, I've found little research into the benefits of music festival experiences. This article, released in Psychology of Music in 2010, provides a thorough investigation of the topic, and some additional quantitative data in support of the benefits of music festival attendance. While it's specific to young people, I posit that the impacts would be similar across age ranges.

So we know music is a good thing, and good for you. But what about the whole festival experience, the full immersion in a musical community context, paired with that?

Music festivals don't just contribute to 'a transitory state of subjective well-being' but also become 'party of the way a person defines themselves' (pg 169). 

The study focused on four facets of a music festival experience: the music experience, the festival experience, the social experience, and the separation experience.

As for the music experience, which affords participants 'unstructured and informal music learning':

"Rather than being passive recievers of music, participants felt they played a central role in the music experience" (pg 168)

The festival experience:

"The experience was seen to start weeks, even months before the festival commenced. The anticipation and preparation contributed to a gradual build-up of excitement, and when the festival was over the cycle started again, with anticipation of the next festival" (pg 169)

"The sheer enjoyment of festival participation was expressed strongly by participants and was so satisfying that they were continually drawn back to repeat the experience." (pg 169)

The social experience:

"Sharing the same taste in music led to more positive appraisals of others and the desire to befriend them" (pg 170)

"...once a group is formed, its members benefit. They attain the emotional gratifications of belonging to an 'elite' group that they themselves define as distinct from other groups" (pg 171).

The separation experience:

"By providing a new social context that was removed from the expectations and routines of everyday life, it allowed participants to reflect and re-evaluate their own self-understanding and self-acceptance" (pg 172).

Similar to my survey results, this study found that many of their participants would endorse the statement that "I feel happier with myself as a person", "I feel I have grown/developed as a person" (pg. 177).

So, at least for young people (aged 18-23), festivals can provide a crucial space for self-development and exploration. As the article concludes, "for some participants the music festival experience was not only meaningful in itself, but gave meaning to the rest of their lives" (pg 178).

In summary: getting away from everyday life and routines and off to a music festival, is, more often than not, really good for people and their lives.

Rough Conceptual Modeling: An attempt to map out the music festival 'microcycle'

I've been playing with conceptual diagramming my understanding of what attending a music festival really means - that is, what it usually requires in terms of logistical processes, and the behaviors and general activity phases that most audience members move through each time they attend a music festival. In addition to exploring the effects of music festival experiences on people, both in terms of internal perceptions of the self, and external perceptions of the world at large, and how these could be coordinated through some kind of service proposition, I've been trying to look at the procedural cycles both on a micro, and macro level, that any individual must go through in order to attend whichever music festival they choose. 

Here's a rough model of what I'd call the 'music festival activity microcycle' that characterizes the experience of attending each music festival. I believe it holds even if people choose to attend music festivals throughout their life, and perhaps into more advanced life stages than I'd initially considered.

My survey data suggested that a lot of music festival fans were interested in participating in music festivals until they were no longer physically able. This raises lots of interesting questions about what an aging festival audience needs or wants, or what the music festival of the future might actually look like, or be for its audience members.

Given the idea of long-term engagement with many (or at least a few) music festivals, whether this means repeat attendance of the same festivals or attending new ones, this process would become rote as a festival attendee becomes an expert, yet would be repeated over and over throughout an individual's life. I'm also interested in the relationship between the high levels of quantifiable, tangible, personal investment are that are required to attend any music festival (e.g. energy, money, planning, etc.), and the largely intangible, nearly unquantifiable return on this investment. Frequent traveling for music festivals is a thoroughly modern phenomenon, as an act of highly-motivated, pure, high-value experience seeking.

Positive festival review, from local government perspective: TommorrowWorld Comment from Comm. Pitts at BOC Meeting

Notes on Abraham Maslow's Toward A Psychology of Being

Maslow's analysis of peak experience meshes well with the descriptions of great experiences at music festivals, which I had corroborated by the information in my survey. I've pulled a few quotes from his work which echo the sentiments I saw in the responses to my survey on music festival experiences below.

The huge number of people who suggested that they *do* feel more positive, confident, inspired, open and accepting of others after a music festival seems to parallel Maslow's descriptions of the healthiest states of being and cognition (the highest moments of which are peaks - or peak experiences). I argue that a good music festival experience is akin, or simply is, one arena in which many people may simultaneously share a peak life experience.

On the aftereffects of peak experiences:

"The person is more apt to feel that life in general is worth while, even if it usually drab, pedestrian, painful or ungratifying, since beauty, excitement, honesty, play, goodness truth and meaningfulness have been demonstrated to him to exist." (pg.95)

"The peak experience is felt as a self-validating, self-justifying moment which carries its own intrinsic value with it.
....
The contrast is very sharp with the ordinary experiences of life, especially in the West" (pg. 75)

Maslow writes further about how in our daily lives and behaviors, nearly everything we do "is done for the sake of some further goal, in order to achieve something else." (pg 75). It seems to me that the ideal music festival experience is its own goal, and usually not pursued by individuals and audiences for any reason other than to have the experience of being there (and the music, of course!). The goal is the experience, and the experience of living and being at a music festival, unwinding in real-time, is the goal. Seen this way, the behaviors indulged in by participants at a music festival are not necessarily goal-oriented as they are undertaken in the span of time in which a person may be actually 'living' in a goal state.

I think this is a unique and powerful thing. Maslow continues to describe the elements and attributes of a highly actualized person, or the Cognition of Being (he calls it B-cognition) and the cognitive processes he sees as the highest health and goal for humans in general. People in B-cognitive states are "universally tolerant, B-amused and B-accepting". (These sound a lot like the things people said over and over about changes in perception and outlook after a music festival in my survey.)

"There seems to be a kind of dynamic parallelism... here between the inner and the outer. That is to say that as the essential Being of the world is perceived by the person, so as does he concurrently come close to his own Being (...to being more perfectly himself). ... this thereby enables him more easily to see the B-values in the world. A he becomes more unified, he tends to be able to see more unity in the world." (pg 90)

He also writes about the maturity of the highly actualized individual; but that this maturity is unique in the following sense: "they were very mature ...at the same time, also childish. I called it "healthy childishness," a second naivete".

And this seems to suggest why a good music festival experience, with all its challenges and novelty, can actually inspire confidence: "Only the flexibly creative person can really manage [the] future, only the one who can face novelty with confidence and without fear." (pg 15)

Finally, this seems to speak to the high numbers of people who reported 'wanting to be a better person' or 'share the positivity' after a music festival experience; "Very often this feeling of gratitude is expressed or leads to an all-embracing love for everybody and everything, to a perception of the world as beautiful, and good, often to an impulse to do something good for the world, an eagerness to repay, even a sense of obligation" (pg 107).

Music technology and live shows

"The popularity of music festivals, such as San Francisco's Outside Lands or the upcoming Treasure Island Music Festival this month, directly parallels the rise of the Internet, said Kevin Arnold of San Francisco-based Noise Pop Industries, a speaker at Tuesday's event.

The reason is the Internet democratized access to these smaller bands," he said.
Festivals have also become more tech-centric, particularly with their tie-in to hackathons, where developers create apps to use at the festival. Outside Lands hosted its first-ever hackathon in August just days before the festival.

But Arnold said it isn't all about the apps; many fans use "music sherpas" -- a friend or fellow concertgoer -- to guide them from stage to stage to find their favorite bands.

"The fan-to-fan, human connection is still what matters," Arnold said."
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_24217223/sf-music-tech-event-plays-up-importance-live