If you can believe in the possibility of 'relative autonomy', utopic dreams (a possibility, by no means a given), then things may not be wholly bleak. No music is wholly autonomous of its social context and function, but that doesn't mean it has to passively accept that role and not attempt to look 'beyond'.
As Adorno pointed out :)
On the other hand, what you say might mean that one should put musical artistic questions to one side, and work for revolution...
Ian
I've heard worse suggestions :). 'Relative' autonomy is just that ... relative.
It's a form of resistance, perhaps?. Of saying no to the system.
Burning banks, trashing city institutions is another form of resistance. But it isn't unrisky. Or, indeed, universally popular on the so-called left.
But I take the point about art as a non-way out of the horror. I just wonder ("apart from burning banks, trashing city institutions") what else is to be done?
Look at the anti-Iraq 'democratisation' demos. And the G20. The powers that be didn't take much interest, did they? Apart from asserting the right to demonstrate (and be kettled, beaten senseless by the police. In the interests of public order).
I lived in Brixton at the time of the riots, and it got so close to an invasion of Parliament. But, instead, people started looting (frrom other poor people) and that's how it culminated and is (mostly) remembered.
One day, perhaps. One day.
