This article summarizes a series of reflections that I had after reading the book “The Civilization of Entertainment” written in 2012 by Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa.

The issues discussed in this article, will be linked to the analysis of the piece “Tarkus” by Emerson Lake & Palmer, that will appear in issue # 3 (January 2017).

These are some of the central ideas developed in Vargas LLosa’s book:

Culture, has ceased to be erudite and has become a “culture of the masses”. The aim of this new culture is to entertain, to allow for an easy way out of everyday reality. It starts with the predominance of image and sound over text, through the screen, a process which has accelerated along with the massification of the Internet.

This “democratization” of culture, far from fostering individual growth, has turned individuals into members of a flock that reacts gregariously.
We have experienced a degradation of culture where “mediocre artists with no talent «but colorful and pyrotechnic, experts in advertising and self-promotion [reach] extremely high levels of popularity. »” (p.181 in the Spanish version)

To summarize: there is no distinction between culture and entertainment, and in this transformation process culture has lost its reflexive and profound nature, and has been trivialized.

As an example, Vargas Llosa refers to the most representative literature of our time: light literature. The predominant group of readers that search for easy reading cannot encourage writers to venture to write works that require intellectual effort. Of course, this Vargas Llosa example can be applied directly to the field of “Art Music” which is our primary concern.

The entire artistic process starts with the creation of the work and ends with the assimilation by its beholder. In order for this process to be completed in its entirety, the recipient of the work must invest enough effort to reach a thorough understanding, with all its nuances. This is incompatible with mass consumption. I don’t mean massive in the sense of proliferation of works, but rather on their consumption. But I will refer to this later in the article. Let’s return to the summary of Vargas Llosa’s book.

The book has a very interesting reflection on traditional vs. current role of critics. In the past, intellectuals guided societies, issuing judgements on the basis of an extensive cultural background. Nowadays, publicity has taken over the role of critics. Fashion designers today seem to have the prominence that belonged to scientists and philosophers; soccer players and TV stars now have more influence on the tastes and customs than thinkers and intellectuals.
Beyond culture, Vargas Llosa states that society in general has trivialized. The notion of transcendence has been lost in the activities of human beings. The majority of what humans produce today, is ephemeral. Even in art music, in genres like art rock or jazz, there is a case in point: most posters advertising concerts do not include the year, only day and month. Nobody thinks that this poster might have some sort of historical value.

Much of the artistic production is, like almost all electronic devices, disposable. They are created assuming that they will be valid for a few years, at the most. This fact is reflected in the lack of concern about the media where these works are fixed, which will not endure the passage of time. None of the current media (CDs, DVDs, flash drives, documents and photos printed with domestic printers, etc.) will achieve the longevity of a painting by Rembrandt or a Greek sculpture. This fact seems to go unnoticed by the vast majority of artists.
In addition to these reflections on culture, Vargas Llosa describes how this trivialization of society has affected other vital aspects of life such as education, politics, religion and sex.

This book resonated strongly within me because the trivialization of human life is something that I have been meditating about for many years. A profound change has taken place in the approach to life, and it has happened within a few generations. As an example, my father had me when he was almost 48; he was born in 1911. For him, concepts like honor or honesty were important and the subject of frequent discussions during our meal conversations. Today, it is difficult to find people who even keep in mind something that, until just a few generations ago, was a matter of life or death. Therefore, I have been a direct witness to the profound changes in values that have occurred within a couple of generations.

Culture, of which Art Music is a subset, has undergone a huge transformation. From a vigorous and deep river, that required effort to transit, it has transformed into an enormous static lake, just a few inches deep, that anyone can cross effortlessly. But beware of a curious phenomenon. The river, however abundant and difficult, is measurable. With effort and dedication, it is possible to learn its topography and identify each twist and turn in every section. It is also full of contrasts, so we can focus on studying a specific portion: a haven of calm waters or impetuous rapids. On the other hand, the lake requires no effort to transit but distances are overwhelming. It is impossible to wander through all of it and, since it is similar everywhere, you cannot focus on getting to know a specific area. If there is a treasure hidden somewhere, it is almost impossible to find. Since the landscape is similar whichever way you turn, there’s nothing there to help you decide which direction to take. It doesn’t matter where you are headed. It doesn’t matter what you consume.

Another aspect that defines this civilization of entertainment is the use of information. We call this the “information era”. But we’re not conscious of the fact that, when seeking information, excess of data can be as bad having little. Some years ago, if we wanted to know about a particular subject, we went to the library and collected the reference cards of maybe a dozen books. Today, if we were placed in a silo and asked for all the data related to a particular subject, a gate would open and the amount of cards would be such that they would cover us completely and we would suffocate to death. We are suffocated by an excess of information. We lose our capacity to contrast information and we take as accurate whatever Google presents in its first two pages. We go back to what I mentioned in my article “Tonality and the Purpose of Life”: without contrast, we lose movement and vitality.

Igor Stravinsky, in his essay “Poetics of Music”, refers to the loss of contrast:

For the majority of human beings, the desire to transcend, to leave a trace as one goes through this life, has ceased to be a concern. “Carpe Diem” is the mainstream attitude and this is reflected in everything we do: how we work, how we relate to each other (including couple relationships and sex), how we have fun, what we eat, what we buy – what our priorities are.
When I talk about the vast majority, I’m not referring to those who are reading this. We belong to a minority that still understand what culture means; that more than once has felt shivers when listening to a music passage and thus understands what I mean when I define the artistic phenomena as a process that starts with the creation of the work and only ends when it has been assimilated. A work of art comes to life the moment it sparks an emotional or intellectual reaction on someone. However, we – this group of art lovers – have allowed ourselves to get intoxicated by the civilization of entertainment.

This intoxication directly affects the development and evolution of Art Music.

Again, Stravinsky describes the situation very well in his “Poetics of Music”:

It’s incredible that this was written in 1942, well before the global deployment of commercial music.

Stravinsky was able to clearly see the incipient phenomenon of culture trivialization, that nowadays has reached its zenith in the music consumed by the vast majority of human beings. It is entertainment music that requires no intellectual effort. In order to produce it, no extensive musical training or technical dexterity is necessary. I think this fact is what has propelled the enormous interest that Art Rock has sparked among musicians all over the world. Musicians that reach a certain academic level and become proficient performers feel frustrated when they cannot develop their potential within the restricted domain of mainstream music. Depending on their aesthetic taste, some lean towards classical music or jazz, but others partial to rock end up in the sub world of progressive rock.

The enormous quantity of musicians interested in this genre, has created an imbalance between supply and demand. The proliferation of bands and albums does not correspond to the small group of people interested in listening to this kind of music. And I’m not referring to those who occasionally dust off their old Yes or ELP records (hundreds of thousands – millions) but to those who follow the current progressive scene (tens of thousands). The technical means at our disposal allows us, legally or illegally, to access an enormous amount of music. Trivialization, lack of sense of transcendence (cult to the ephemeral) and flock behavior are compatible with the characteristics of mainstream music. It is music to use and dispose, therefore, it’s no issue to download an album, listen to it a couple of times, and substitute it for another. But this banalization is incompatible with true art, to which many progressive works belong. It makes no sense for a follower of this genre to adopt the same mechanism and become a mass consumer of this type of music. But, unfortunately, this is what is happening. In the social networks we see followers of progressive music and critics talking about dozens of albums in a span of a few weeks. No matter how good a new release is, in a few days it will end up on the shelf because there are new albums that need to be listened to. Valuable works, and there are many, end up submerged in a vast ocean of works with very different quality levels.

I believe that the outcome of this situation will be the disappearance of the genre. Or, better stated, not its disappearance but rather its dissolution into this enormous tasteless and homogenous mass that humans produce and consume each day.
Current progressive musicians know that their new album will attract public attention during a few weeks at best. This creates a tendency where quantity prevails over quality. If a musician wants to make a living from music, he must generate music continuously. Like everything else in this society, novelty is what sells.

Reversing this situation is mainly in the hands of fans. How? BY going back to the essence of what artistic phenomenon entails. Art is communication. Serious Art is the means humans have at their disposal to communicate the most sublime aspects of their being. As recipients of this information, we must be willing to carefully taste each work, until we assimilate as much as possible its message, with all its nuances.

If we invest the time that the selected works deserve, a direct consequence is that the total number of works we listen to, will diminish.

This change in attitude by the fans would imply a drastic reduction in mass consumption and, as a consequence, would affect the supply. The number of bands would reduce significantly, but the genre will improve in quality and depth. In a way, we would return to a situation similar to what we had back in the 70’s, when we only had vinyl records. Those who experienced those years know that sometimes when we bought an album, initially we were not able to appreciate its music. However, since it was not possible financially or technically to have unlimited access to all the music produced, we had to content ourselves with listening to the new album until we had enough money to purchase another one. In many cases, this “forced listening” would allow us to discover what had previously gone unnoticed so an album that nowadays would have been discarded, became a faithful travel companion all our life.

To a certain extent, current technology can help us revert this order of things, if we change our attitude. Let me explain myself. One of the Internet’s major virtues is that it allows the development of innumerable niches, where a group of people with very specific interests can establish a relationship. Before the massification of the Internet, it was very difficult for these groups to achieve critical mass. But thanks to technology and globalization it is now possible to generate very specialized niches formed by thousands. Therefore, another way to reverse this massification in art music is to foster a greater specialization in what we listen to. This doesn’t mean that we should wear blinders and ignore everything outside a certain subgenre (prog fans are generally very curious people) but we should pay more attention to the genre that best fits our preferences. For example, if a fan has a predilection for neo prog, he should be willing to invest more time and listen more thoroughly an album by Pendragon, than one by Magma. If, on the contrary, he abandons a neo prog album recently acquired, even though he is still enjoying it and discovering its details, because of a new release in other subgenre, he would be reinforcing the tendency to trivialize the artistic phenomenon, which is what we are fighting against.

Remember Stravinsky’s words: “The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees oneself from the chains that shackle the spirit.”

In summary, we must provide our grain of salt to fight against this process of cultural trivialization and the best way to do it is not behaving like compulsive mass consumers. Let’s be selective and take the time required to taste and enjoy thoroughly each work of art. Less is more.

Credits

Mario Vargas Llosa. La Civilización del Espectáculo. © 2012 Mario Vargas Llosa. © 2015 Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial. España.

Tatiana Alvarado Teodorika. « Mario Vargas Llosa, La civilización del espectáculo », Bulletin hispanique [En ligne], 115-2 | 2013, mis en ligne le 14 février 2014, consulté le 23 septembre 2016. (In Spanish).
http://bulletinhispanique.revues.org/2951

Ígor Stravinski. Poética Musical. © 1942 The President and Fellows of Harvard College. © 2006 de la edición en castellano Acantilado – Quaderns Crema, S.A. España. www.acantilado.es