(Second in a three-part series on where American culture currently sits, and how we can course correct.)
Jazz and blues musicians are constitutionally oriented toward thinking on their feet, of living in the moment. While there’s generally a theme — a melody — to the song they’re playing, when they get to the solos each musician is expected to improvise off the melody: Extrapolate from it, build off of it, add new notes and passages and harmonies not part of the composed melody.
Make it something new.
This holds true for other musical styles that regularly feature improvised passages meant to display a musician’s command of their instrument as well as of the vocabulary of song: Tango from Buenos Aires and Montevideo, the sons of Havana, Spain’s flamenco, Portuguese fado, the klezmer of Eastern European Jewry, and more.
This well-honed skill to improvise obviously extends to comedy, where many troupes have “improv” in their name. The performers have a general theme, and a character to portray, but the specific action and dialogue of that skit is made up on the spot.
In years past, intellectuals and political leaders also were at least partially judged on their ability to do something similar during debates: Take what their opponent said, react to it in the moment, and perhaps even upstage them through clever wordplay.
President Kennedy did this famously, and rather brilliants, during a 1961 summit with Soviet dictator Nikita Kruschev — who claimed that the Soviet Union was a “young” nation, while the United States was old. Without missing a beat, Kennedy shot back, “If you’ll look across the table, you’ll see that we are not so old.” (Kennedy was a youthful 43, while Kruschev — a survivor of the Stalinist purges — appeared older than his 66 years.)
These days, too many Americans — particularly those in the media — need a script. They are unpracticed at and uncomfortable with improvising in most any situation.
The don’t like winging it.
This may be partially why actors and politicians — who rely on a script to guide them — are increasingly speaking out in favor of censorship (i.e., “countering hate speech”), while jazz and blues musicians — and stand-up comedians — not so much.
Until Elon Musk purchased Twitter, the woke camp of the left was able to exercise control over much of our national conversation. As has been shown by Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss’ reporting on internal Twitter communication, patently false claims that conformed to mainstream left-of-center thought were allowed: That Donald Trump had coordinated with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election. That the Hunter Biden laptop was the work of Russian spies. That Stacy Abrams hadn’t really lost the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial race.
At the same time, statements far more grounded in facts that were from right of center (Kyle Rittenhouse acted in self-defense) or even the far left (Bernie Sanders’ 2016 primary candidacy was sabotaged by the Democratic National Committee working with the Clinton campaign and CNN to give her debate questions ahead of time) led to suspensions or outright banishment.
All of this was known, of course, long before Musk purchased Twitter: One only had to look at the lists of those who were banned to see a significant partisan tilt, one that favored the conspiracy theories of the woke over the everyday reality of the rest of America, left and right.
The over-the-top reaction by many media members and other celebrities to Musk’s initial loosening of allowable speech on Twitter (before he pivoted and began banning his own critics just as the previous Twitter regime had) is indicative not of a concern about supposed “misinformation,” but rather who gets to define just what could constitute “misinformation.”
It was the angry reaction of people who never expected to lose control.
Anyone who has a friend in law enforcement knows that the old adage about no one hating a dirty cop as much as a good cop knows it contains more truth than stereotype (although obviously the victims of crooked police officer possess the greatest moral high ground). And so it’s little surprise to see that some of the most strenuous pushback against the woke takeover of the Western Left has come from old-school leftists. Bill Maher and Nadine Strossen, Noam Chomsky and Margaret Atwood and Ira Glasser.
Of course, outside Maher — a brilliant comic, in addition to possessing an incisive wit — the others are heavyweight intellectuals, folks raised to think that if you couldn’t defend your beliefs, then you didn’t understand them well enough.
Even television talk shows used to host such conversations from time to time. Left-wing novelists such as Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal were frequent talk-show guests, as were conservative thinkers such as William F. Buckley and Norman Podhoretz.
They expected to have their views challenged, and came prepared to defend them. They relished it!
Most universities from the late 1800s until a few decades ago hosted debating societies. Anyone in a formal logic class or a public speaking class would find themself given a position they didn’t necessarily agree with, and then be expected to defend it.
You could only know what you believed, and be able to defend it, by having a full grasp of the ideas and beliefs you didn’t agree with.
Such practices built confidence in a young person, in their ability to navigate life’s philosophical — and political — setbacks, to think clearly and be able to communicate their beliefs and values to others.
Today’s supposed intellectual vanguard is far more interested in silencing the opposition than in besting them in the arena of ideas.
Some ideas are simply too dangerous to be let loose, we’re told. We’re not supposed to question state directives allowing underage minors to consent to irreversible surgery, the cost trade-offs of “green” energy, or arguments in favor of defunding the police.
Questioning any of these will get one exiled out of polite society — branded with the dreaded “phobe,” “denier” or “-ist” suffix.
And, to judge by the efforts to stifle public discussion of and debate over issues such as the efficacy of different approaches to the COVID pandemic, it’s not just opinions that are off-limits: So are some facts.
If all of the above were as indisputable as their supporters claim, then they would encourage their opponents to speak out so as to expose and humiliate them.
Nobody tries to censor those who argue the Earth is flat or that dinosaurs never lived.
We know that musicians who are able to improvise are more confident than those consigned to playing the arrangement straight.
The behavior of the woke trying to stifle debate betrays the unmistakable odor of fear, born of a lack of confidence.
Social media has given Americans — particularly urban dwellers — the ability to shut themselves off from any contrary views, to live in a silo of like-minded fellow travelers.
But when you’re never exposed to divergent views, you are never forced to examine your own beliefs and values — and you certainly never learn to defend them.
And so when feeling threatened, rather than rising up to defend their philosophies or their politics, they instead lash out — seeking to silence those whose views make them uncomfortable.
Improvisation is the ultimate freedom — the ability to discard the script, to create in the moment, to blend all your accumulated knowledge and skill and spin out something new.
But freedom is only for the confident. Those who fear freedom — who argue that we must clamp down on certain ideas, certain arguments — are, it seems to me, most in fear of their own weakness.
Perhaps a bit counter-intuitively, improvisation does not indicate a lack of discipline, but is instead the mark of a highly developed self-discipline.
Improvisation — in jazz, in comedy, in oratory — is ultimately all about timing. It’s hitting the right note at the right time — perhaps in an unexpected manner, but in a way such that the end result is balanced, that it affects the audience in a way they find fulfilling.
And that only happens after hours and hours of practice. Of failing and then trying again, fine-tuning the delivery, the preparation, finding the right approach through a painful process of trial and error.
There are three ways to react to being exposed to a fully developed improvisational skill set in someone else:
Admiration — a willingness to be a supportive member of the audience
Inspiration — a desire to emulate the work and dedication to someday achieve that same level of skill
Resentment — feelings of being threatened and wanting to make those feelings go away
It is the last that we are witnessing from the political-social movement that calls itself “woke.”
There seems very little desire to engage with the larger world of ideas out there — instead condemning any viewpoint outside it’s own narrow, self-defined script as heresy.
Woke disciples comb the Internet at all hours, hunting down every possible example of heresy — and then hold the authors of said heresy up for professional (and often personal) destruction, or what the woke termed “cancellation.”
It is not an ethos of the intellect or scholarship, but of rank fear.
That so many authentic leftists are increasingly standing up and calling out the woke is heartening. Not that they are allies of conservative views or voices — but, rather, they are allies of all who desire to lead a civilized life, one based on free inquiry, discussion, and a willingness to live peacefully in a discordant world.
Next week: Optimism itself has the power to heal our divisions.
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Rather than lash out, does anyone know those that just refuse to hear (not listen) an opposing viewpoint by stating, “ I don’t want to talk about it.” They just want to crawl into a hole and live oblivious to anything else. Sad, but challenging them to a different viewpoint would destroy their beliefs. They actually worry if what is said is true?