Brad DeLong confesses to a guilty pleasure: Pete Seeger (link). But Brad seems discomfited: He learns that Dave Boaz recalls Seeger’s Stalinist past (link).
Boaz is right, but it’s worse than he realizes. I will play the old guy card here: I don’t remember the Hitler-Stalin pact, but I remember the Seeger with the Weavers from the 40s and Seeger solo from the 50s. I attended Seeger performances in little tiny halls where his long-necked banjo seemed to extend half way over the audience. I was enchanted by his banjo playing, thrilled by his energy and drive.. His “Wimaway” (back before Disney kidnapped it) was enough to knock me flat..
And as much as I loved the music, I always felt a creepy uneasiness at the Seeger schtick: it was sheer manipulation—no, worse, it was tacky down-market manipulation, vulgar Stalinism, proletarian art.
I grant there’s a complicated relationship between an artist and his art. At the same time that I was enchanted by Seeger’s “Tzena, Tzena,” I was dazzled by what Walter Gieseking could do with a Beethoven Sonata. It bothered me that Gieseking seemed to be a bit of a Nazi; but at least he didn’t get in my face about it. I could listen to the music and pretend that the politics wasn’t there.
I grant in general that the 50s were a treacherous time in American politics, a time when it was almost impossible to get everything right. Who would have guessed that I would live long enough to think that accused wife-killer Dr. Sam Sheppard was probably innocent and Alger Hiss, almost certainly guilty? Seeger is no more than a bit player in that story and the sensible path might be just to remember the good stuff, and forget about the vulgar Stalinism. But I really wish he had stuck to what he was good at; Id’ rather not have to remember him as part of a mean, dishonest, thuggish lot. Paraphrasing a great man, it was worse than a crime, it was kitsch.
Fn.: Yglesias doesn’t even like the music (link).
1 comment:
The "pure Stalinism" of Pete Seeger? Oh yeah, we all remember "Sing along with Joe," and how Stalin just loved that folksinging. And who could ever forget the many times good ol' Joe spoke out for nonviolence and against racism and for grassroots democracy and independent labor unions. That's what Joe Stalin is known for, of course, his championing of grass-roots democracy, that and just singing his heart out.
"Vulgar proletarian art" - yes, of course, its folk music, which by definition is vulgar, sentimental, and yes, - how terrible - proletarian.
Being a Stalinist means a hell of a lot more than just belonging to the CP, as many Party members discovered. If you don't understand that by now then you're a hopeless idiot.
It has to do with a mind-set that supports a Gulag and murderous purges and brutal policies that result in the starvation of millions, to say nothing of dictatorship. When you find any quote from Pete supporting any of the above, or a quote from Pete saying something of the effect of, "Sure Stalin made some mistakes, we all make mistakes, but he wasn't such a bad guy." When you come across any of the above, then you might have an argument that Seeger was a Stalinist, until then you're just a ignorant blowhard.
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