Who Says Avant-Garde Is Dead?

Postmodernism Hasn’t Killed It Yet

William Sundwick

When art critic Clement Greenberg wrote in 1939 that the opposite of avant-garde was kitsch, he was referring to the struggle then between artists who had a burning desire to be creative and the exigencies of the commercial art world focused mostly on advertising and consumer products. Kitsch was defined as mass-produced commercial design (as well as academic art burdened by excessive rules).  Avant-Garde was the modernist response seeking to protect true aesthetic value from such crass commercialism. “True aesthetic value” itself was a modernist, absolutist, concept -- coinciding nicely with radical social philosophy.  Like Marxism, this aesthetic was characterized by a scientific determinism.

But Greenberg was far from the first to use the term “avant-garde.” It’s origins in the art world date from 1825 in France. It was used in an essay by a follower of Saint-Simonianism (the philosophical underpinning of a new aesthetic for the industrial revolution). The arts were to be the “advance guard” (French military usage) for the people, leading the way toward massive structural reform of society. Notable followers of Saint-Simonianism in Europe included the composers Hector Berlioz and Franz Liszt.

The next generation of the avant-garde reached its climax with artist Gustave Courbet, who extolled the destruction of the Vendome column during the Paris Commune of 1871. Courbet saw this as a revolutionary act, toppling a symbol of an imperial aesthetic (it was a monument to Napoleon at Austerlitz), to be replaced by a proletarian art with “true aesthetic value.” By this time, modernism was clearly established in art – rules and school credentials dominated who could exhibit their art and who couldn’t. However, the same scientific determinism which underlay the modernist aesthetic also led to impressionism, then cubism, still far too rules-based for the younger creative souls of the age.

It seemed there must be a “deeper truth” in art, much like the deep insights then emerging in psychoanalysis. Surrealism became the new avant-garde. But the tension with kitsch continued. Ordinary people were still barred from participation in “high art” – because of barriers to entry, academic, linguistic or cultural.

By the mid-20^th century, a new art philosophy began to emerge. It became known as “postmodernism” – characterized by acceptance of cultural relativity in standards for art. Even kitsch could be appreciated, if only for its humor! Mass availability of electronically reproduced art (and kitsch) on recordings, radio and television changed the aesthetic experience for the bulk of the population in advanced societies -- especially the United States. But artists still yearned for that creative satisfaction in their art. Many sought it not through their works, but through symbols. Bohemianism became fashionable. Even affluent young people in the 1960s and 1970s became what David Brooks would call “Bobos” (bourgeois Bohemians). Other conservative commentators on aesthetics have lamented the apparent “irrelevance” of the avant-garde in postmodern art. Avant-Garde has now become the “establishment” among the art cogniscenti.

This ferment in style and aesthetics has been playing out in popular music as well as high art. It’s now a question of separating avant-garde kitsch from real avant-garde – or, conversely, ordinary unredeemable kitsch from avant-kitsch. Punk Rock illustrates this postmodern dilemma of aesthetics.

As the popularity of rock-and-roll on radio and records increased through the 1950s and early 1960s, two countercultures in music seemed to emerge. Both were purists. One sought to return to “roots” (early Delta blues and country ballads), the other mainly sought to smash the stranglehold of pabulum-purveying record companies, expressing their creativity through an edgier, more experimental (yes, avant-garde) style. It is the latter group that started to call themselves “Punk.” They were urban, working class in sympathy, and shared a contempt for the commercially successful pop music of the time.

Some of these artists, like Lou Reed and his band Velvet Underground, managed by that modernist/postmodernist crossover icon, Andy Warhol, set out to create an idiom – the idiom of avant-kitsch. Reed expressed Warhol’s aura, but had an inner competitive drive to be successful in the music world himself.

Others, like David Thomas, a long-time Cleveland Punk personality with his two bands, Rocket from the Tombs, then Pere Ubu, seemed to be happy existing for four decades on the margins of the critical universe, never really entering the world of commercial pop music, except satirically.

Then, there was Iggy Pop from Ann Arbor, with his early proto-punk band The Stooges, and later as a solo performer, with backup musicians from previous Punk groups. He did reach “rock star” status himself – but has always explored the boundaries between art and kitsch in a serious way. He continues to ask questions about the Avant-Garde, even as he seems finally to have quit performing (usually shirtless).

But their music is their legacy. It survives. Art always survives. While popular tastes change, the impulse to transcend the rules, the drive for the Avant-Garde, continues generation after generation. Rules and credentials are meant to topple, like that Vendome column nearly 150 years ago. It is not the conventional we remember – it is the breakthrough art.

There will always be a vanguard. The Saint-Simonians were correct – artists will lead the people’s vanguard. Even in our now-maturing “postmodern” world, we ask ourselves: “What comes next?”

Leftist or Liberal?

Where Do You Fit?

William Sundwick

Modern liberalism goes back a long way. Let’s start with John Locke in the 17^th century. He came up with the idea that governments exist to serve the needs of the people. Obvious to us now, but directly opposed to the divine right of monarchs. He was influential even in his own lifetime.  The Glorious Revolution of 1688,  establishing the supremacy of Parliament, was a Lockian idea.

All contemporary democracies are fundamentally liberal structures. The tension with the authoritarian right visible today in the United States and Europe has more to do with anxiety about who should be part of the polity than what that polity should provide its members.

In the 19^th century, tensions emerged with the first industrial revolution. Karl Marx became the icon for those who saw politics as a conflict of power wielded by the owners of capital over those who produce their wealth (workers). That was then. Now, anticipating a “fourth industrial revolution,” it is becoming clear that wealth tends to perpetuate itself – it doesn’t really depend on workers at all! Workers have lost most of the power gained over 200 years of struggle and liberal governance.

Economic prospects seem bleak for all who aren’t plugged into the capitalist wealth machine (mostly residing on Wall Street). It’s the current version of Marx’s alienation of labor. Yet, we’re loathe to divorce ourselves completely from the ideas of freedom and social contract in that very old liberal tradition. The liberal solution to the problem of alienation is based on disincentives for “excessive” accumulation of capital. Primarily, redistribution of wealth via taxation. Real leftists reject this solution as not going far enough to redress the imbalance of political power. And, political power is more than mere economic resources – it’s cultural. Liberals retort that leftists are guilty of “class reductionism.” Liberal societies, after all, allow for social mobility, right?

Class is the focus for the Left in the 21^st century more than wealth -- leave wealth to the liberals, they say. Yes, money is a common denominator in acquisition of political power (especially in the U.S.), but what the Left wants is a reversal of the dynamic behind ascendance of “elites.” Liberals may choose to make everybody happy with more money (Universal Basic Income is the current hot topic in liberal, and neoliberal, circles), but Real Leftists want to throw out the “money people” (Wall Street) from government altogether, feeling that an entirely different class should be in charge. Paradoxically, in the U.S., Donald Trump was supposed to be the kind of person the working class could get behind. Except, of course, he is the bastard child of Wall Street to begin with. Could a Bernie Sanders be the best answer? It’s populism, whether left or right.

Liberals generally counter populism with attempts at making everybody’s life more comfortable. It’s not about power, but comfort. If you give people enough stuff, maybe they’ll go away. Pitchforks come from more than discomfort, says the Left.

If the real contest in democracies is between classes and how much influence they can wield in government, then we should explore what defines these classes – the ins versus the outs. While it sometimes seems that multi-party parliamentary systems have more flexibility in accommodating class struggle, American political history also provides examples of realignments of the two major parties over time.

The Democratic Party of today is a strange (by historic standards) coalition of apparently divergent class interests – Wall Street capitalists find common cause there with communities of color and others who define themselves as marginalized, and with the well-educated minority of the population seeking to protect their privilege. The Republican Party seems to consist of a combination of “self-made” (allegedly) capitalists and culturally conservative religious communities, provincial rather than cosmopolitan in outlook (“people like me” versus “the other”). This bipolar party structure leaves those with strong left-wing convictions no home. It’s usually a story of compromise for American leftists – how much can they stomach to call themselves a Democrat?

So, what do American “leftists” believe? They despise liberals as much as the right-wingers in the Republican Party do. Yet they understand the economic structure of society to be based on exploitation of the labor of people like them. They no longer believe they can achieve “the American Dream” of one day becoming a successful capitalist themselves, probably not even their children. Privilege is so baked into the “elite” classes, who mobilize to protect it, that extraordinary political means are necessary to change it. They don’t want crumbs from the liberal establishment – they want power! How do they plan to seize it?

I have not met a single American Bolshevik – people who believe in a Dictatorship of the Proletariat.  If there ever were such animals, they probably all died out, or were co-opted, sometime around mid-century, during that unprecedented postwar prosperity with high participation of organized labor. Racial identifications with the Left persisted into the 1970s. But co-optation, and intimidation via police violence, mostly put an end to that. Women and young people? We’ve seen some organizing success with women recently (#MeToo movement), but young people will likely be co-opted by forgiveness of student loan debt – and higher starting salaries. That remains to be seen.

Anybody still committed to the Left imagines using social media to mobilize large numbers of people behind left-wing political candidates – and, doing it fast enough to save the planet from ecocide. The media message is crucial, but the goal is to ultimately seize victory through the ballot box. They expect great resistance here, however. Voter suppression and gerrymandering of legislative districts present real threats. And the judicial branch of government appears less friendly with each passing year. But seizing power democratically has long been the hallmark of Democratic Socialists and social democrats alike – the latter not necessarily committed to eliminating capitalism, anyway, hence of questionable “leftist” credentials.

Despite all the sniping at the “Democratic establishment” and resentment of “academic elites,” there remains a basic respect for democracy among the American Left – they have bought into the fundamental liberalism of the last three centuries. My bias here tells me that the liberal project is working. The differences between leftist and liberal will lead to a synthesis: a “Left-liberal” or “Liberal Socialist.” More leftists will be co-opted into the elites, convincing others that, given more attainable education, they too can become part of the governing elite.

The only ones left behind will be those who choose entrenched community traditions over current economic/political reality: otherwise known as conservatives. Looking inward and backward always succumbs to looking outward and forward. 

“I Prefer Not To”

Bartleby and Late Stage Capitalism

William Sundwick

Herman Melville published his short story “Bartleby the Scrivener -- a Tale of Wall Street” in 1853. It has been a staple of high school AP English classes and undergrad American Lit survey courses for at least sixty of those 160+ years.

I last read it as a college sophomore in such a class. That was more than 50 years ago. Something made me want to revisit Bartleby recently. It was probably that resonating statement of freedom that is the iconic Bartleby quote: “I prefer not to.” While there are endless life situations where one might think of Bartleby and his resistance, the one that comes to mind today is the movement of (mostly) young people to resist the dominance of capitalism in every aspect of their lives. Incur crushing student debt, says Wall Street, “I prefer not to” say many young people. Accept medical bankruptcy if you incur a serious health condition, “I prefer not to” say many with inadequate insurance coverage. Vote for the candidates we select for you, “I prefer not to” said many in 2016.

As a short story, Bartleby’s structure is perfect. There is a protagonist (the narrator, a successful corporate lawyer with Wall Street office), a symbolic foil (Bartleby himself, I maintain) and three secondary characters who are Bartleby’s coworkers in the narrator’s law office. There is setup – the narrator is hiring another scrivener (copyist, in the age before typewriters or copying machines); plot development -- tension between Bartleby and narrator over work requirements; climax – where narrator is forced to move his office to escape Bartleby; denouement -- Bartleby’s ultimate death -- and conclusion, where the narrator tells us what he learned of Bartleby’s past (not previously revealed).

Although industrious in his copying, any further request from narrator/employer to do anything special or perform any service outside his standard routine is always met with some variation on Bartleby’s classic line, “I prefer not to.” The narrator does not fire Bartleby, although he is sorely tempted to, due primarily to his own sense of charity and fairness.  The virtue-signaling narrator is an inveterate liberal. His employees, Bartleby included, are prisoners in cubicles (called “screens” in mid-19^th century office layouts) but he is convinced that he has their best interests at heart, so long as it doesn’t interfere too much with his easy life.

The reader asks as the story progresses: “Why doesn’t he fire Bartleby?” The answer becomes clearer as you continue to read. It is a paradox – the nut of the story. Therein lies the best modern interpretation for a timeless work of literature. Bartleby’s alienation increases:

   

“The next day ... Bartleby did nothing but stand at his window in his dead-wall revery”. 

Bartleby, unlike his three coworkers, appears not to want to socialize, but only to stare “in revery” out a small window overlooking nothing more than the “black brick wall” next door. Both narrator and coworkers become more aware of Bartleby’s disturbed state-of-mind. Coworkers tend to make fun of him, the narrator pities him. Bartleby, you see, is homeless. He eats and sleeps in the office with a blanket “rolled up under his desk,” on an old sofa. He is alone. No family. No friends. He prefers it not be this way but is powerless to change it. Very sad.

“It was his soul that suffered, and his soul I could not reach.” 

Bartleby does have a profound effect on the narrator. His occupation of the office begins to drive the narrator to distraction. Yet, this employer persists in doing what seems humane and continuously tries to reason with Bartleby. One critic, shortly after Occupy Wall Street and Zucotti Park, wrote that the OWS movement was inspired by Bartleby, using the occupy trope as their symbolic resistance to capitalism. This was, indeed, Bartleby’s strategy. Bartleby was a resistor. The narrator could do nothing about him, except try to accommodate him. He failed in this objective.

In exasperation, the narrator is forced to move his office to a new address. This leaves Bartleby continuing to occupy the building even with its new tenants. He sits on the bannister of the entrance foyer – having no “screen” any more in the office. He cannot be removed. The new tenants, fellow professionals known to the narrator, implore him to try harder to remove Bartleby. The narrator tries, weakly, but is inclined to wash his hands of the entire matter – to abandon labor. Among other things, he is afraid of what the “papers” will say. Ultimately left at the mercy of the less liberal new tenants, Bartleby is sent to the Tombs as a vagrant.

“Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance.”

Bartleby dies in the Tombs, presumably of starvation – he “prefers” not to eat. This, despite the “Grub-man” receiving a bribe from our narrator to provide Bartleby with better food. Liberal amelioration of conditions fails. Resistance overcomes it. Resistance unto death – it was a hunger strike.

We learn in the conclusion of the story that Bartleby came with a history of working in the “dead letter office” in Washington. He was let go in a “change of administration” (before civil service). There he sorted undeliverable letters, often to dead people, for burning. The narrator attributes Bartleby’s “cadaverous” demeanor to that sorrowful previous job.

The timelessness of Bartleby comes from the myriad symbols and interpretations given to the story. Its language is plain for the time yet encompasses much of the human condition – Bartleby’s ghostly presence, the narrator’s sense of charity, his reluctance to confront social approbation, the question of responsibility for Bartleby, and Bartleby’s alienation from his labor. All these themes are valid, and they point to the inexorable dominance of an employer (owner) over employees (workers), and how those workers can force change by simply stating their “preference” and refusing to move – “occupying” the workplace. The General Motors sit-down strikes of the 1930s come to mind, the birth of American industrial unions.

I found no evidence that Melville was aware of his German contemporaries, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, but there is some evidence to support the reverse (especially Engels from his time in England?) – the soul-crushing job of the scrivener has since been replaced by machines, as it was in the English textile mills of Engels. Bartleby is alienated from his labor, even as he is impelled to repeat it daily. He insists he “prefers not to” do any additional tasks for his capitalist employer. Alienation is clearly an important theme of the story, as with 20^th century existentialist literature. Melville was not a Marxist, but perhaps Marx and Engels had some American literary inspiration?

The closing line of the story is -- “Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!” 

The Homestead: Next Ten Years

William Sundwick

We’ve been here 35 years, among the old-timers now in our Arlington neighborhood. The house began as a simple center-hall colonial, built in 1947, but grew with our family. Two boys went from birth through high school graduation in this house. Both returned for customary “back-with-parents- after-college” periods in their lives. We didn’t become confirmed empty-nesters until about 2014. I retired the following year. My wife has not taken that plunge yet – she still commutes daily between the house and Capitol Hill.

While there is no official timetable, it seems appropriate to begin speculating on how much longer we’ll be comfortable remaining in our now apparently too-large home. The assumption is that at some point, downsizing will be advisable.

But, the usual reasons for downsizing have not settled in for either my wife or me – yet. We can still both negotiate the stairs easily for all three floors. We enjoy the space, the copious storage (especially, empty bedrooms), kitchen and dining room big enough for our friends and family to gather. And, neither of us foresees a reason why this will change in the near-term.

My wife anticipates her second knee replacement will mean a temporary disability for her, as did her first, “I’ll have to live on one floor for a while.” But I can handle the nursing, fetching, and driving. My own physical health remains astoundingly good for my 72 years.

It looks like plans for improvements, once again, have higher priority than plans to move. This happened twice before, when expansion of living space was the driver. This time, it’s enhancement and beautification of living space and outdoor environment that captures our imaginations.

The next ten years should see both a remodeled basement and reconfigured landscaping. In addition, some details too small to be considered “projects,” like replacement of broken bathroom fixtures (a robe hook) and upgrades to technology (new computers) need resolution soon.  Procrastination is a bad habit for me, as my wife keeps reminding me, “When are you going to replace that robe hook?” A ten-year plan shouldn’t mean that we wait for nine years, then try to do it all!

Improvements generally have their greatest payoff when you get to enjoy them, not simply for increasing resale value. We learned with our previous construction that Zillow, at least, doesn’t support the Cost/Benefit ratio of either of those additions. My wife says, “You know, we’ll never get our money out of it!” Now inured to that real estate fact of life, our final round of improvements will focus on our own ability to appreciate them while we’re still living in the house. Our Arlington privilege makes us feel that we wouldn’t be able to sell unless we address the two major projects – basement and landscaping. “Everybody” in our neighborhood has beautiful homes. Logically, we should do basement first, then yard and plantings.

Basement enhancement

We intend to keep the same footprint for the basement – no new foundation. We now have three rooms and bath under the original 1947 house (crawl spaces for our two additions).

One of these rooms is dedicated to laundry and HVAC installation. Another was originally intended as a bedroom (pre-code renovation, no egress), with nice built-in closet space. The third room, with bath, serves as my wife’s office, but functioned as a family room (“playroom”) when our kids were young. There is pantry storage under the stairs and very cheap paneling from Home Depot throughout (we re-paneled the family room shortly after we moved in, with my father-in-law’s help). And, there is an equally passé drop-ceiling with probable asbestos tiles. A fine home like ours, in a neighborhood like this, surely requires an updated basement living space.

It all needs to go. The bathroom will be reconfigured as a larger powder room (minus shower stall). The laundry/HVAC room and ersatz bedroom will be combined into one large open space, while retaining built-in closets. This should allow minor relocation of HVAC unit for more efficient ducting design, counter space for laundry, and moving the refrigerator-freezer from its semi-accessible location in the small laundry room. Being able to fully open the fridge doors would be a real boon -- that’s where I keep my beer!

A newer, more attractive, family room/office will feature recessed lighting and drywall, and egress window in front -- some excavation will be required here, sacrificing our dead compacta holly bushes which now occupy the space in front of the window well. It should contain a play area for grandkids, with juvenile furniture, as well as desk and computer equipment for wife’s office. “I like it here,” she says. We’ll probably get a futon to replace the broken sofa-bed and TV will remain in place. This is our plan. We made drawings and invited one contractor to give us an estimate. It was high. We stopped, but now it’s time to proceed where we left off.

Landscaping renewal

After we finished work on our second addition (2009), incorporating a large kitchen with master suite above it, more or less swallowing up our backyard, we hired a local landscaping company to give us a usable hardscape patio and walkway from our new addition around to the driveway. Plantings front and rear, and river-stone-filled driveway median completed the plan.

The backyard, especially, was a beautiful, compact, outdoor space with photinia, vibernum, skip laurel, inkberry holly, and azaleas. Liriope ground cover for the beds, and a relatively small lawn. It was nice for about seven years. Then, things started going south. Now, there is no ground cover, virtually no lawn, overgrown photinia and scrawny, but tall, vibernum, dead inkberries and azaleas. Moss grows in the cracks of the hardscape patio. We never use our backyard furniture anymore.

Would a pruning routine, as vigorous as lawn maintenance and weeding, have made a difference?

Perhaps, but there’s a limit to how much time I’m willing to spend simply for external appearance – even in my neighborhood.

In any case, it all needs to be replaced. No plan yet, and I’m ready to search for another landscaper. My original company, although presenting an attractive picture at first, has not been very helpful with maintenance. “It’s much too expensive,” says he. I’m apparently on my own for replacing dead plants.

A realistic ten-year plan will likely be:

1)      engage contractors for the two big projects

2)      continue to close off unused rooms (if climate control costs don’t explode), and:

3)      optimize our large front yard for appearance only – although a usable backyard might be nice.

The little things I should get to right away – of course! Robe hook, new computers; yeah, yeah …

  

Mira and Her Big Brother

Grandchildren in the World

William Sundwick

When they first come into the world, they have no idea what’s in store for them. And it will be a long time before they have much influence over it.

They do, however, influence us, their elders – parents and grandparents. We love them, nurture them, are entertained by them. We raise our offspring in a spirit of optimism. They force it upon us.

Grandchildren, perhaps, even more than the immediately present and demanding children, suffuse that spirit. We must make it good for them for, surely, we have the power!

I have two grandchildren (so far). They are almost four and about 13 months. Big brother Owen is bemused by his baby sister Mira, but his primary concern seems to be to keep her from messing with his creations and toys. She is surprisingly mobile – and curious. He mainly seeks peace.

They both are driven by achievement. Mira is now taking her first steps.

She is tall, can pull herself up on most pieces of furniture in her house and her grandparents’ house. Yes, even walk without holding on. This presents an increasing threat to Owen – whose own achievement motivations require imagination, role playing, and manual dexterity. And he is aware of knowledge – he tells us as much when he says: “I’m almost four, I know lots.” He appears to be contrasting his mammoth achievement portfolio to his baby sister’s trivial level of development.

They each have their own communication styles: Mira by smiling, grasping, pointing, vocalizing (not quite words yet); Owen by his politeness (“Excuse Me!” when he wants to talk) and questions (“Why?” is the eternal question). Both seem to have an urge to share – stories, experiences, objects, food – and both seem to crave attention from adults, including their grandparents! “Play with me, grandpa!” commands Owen, and outstretched arms from Mira indicate she wants to be removed from her highchair.

As grandparents not charged with primary care for these two, we have the best of both worlds. We see them and interact regularly, but then can always send them home with their parents. We welcome them at our house, providing accommodations like training potties, highchairs, car seats, step stools, as the need arises. Plenty of books and toys at our place, too. When we babysit at their house evenings, we’ve learned to nail the bedtime routine for both – as well as feeding them dinner (and playing together). But we’re never required to spend more than a few hours devoted to their care. This is good for septuagenarians.

Even such relatively short stretches, however, remind me of the sense of foreboding we all share these days. That commitment to optimism is being increasingly challenged. What sort of world will they inherit? How much of their future misfortune will be our fault? In extreme cases, it appears that some are foregoing having children altogether. Has guilt and fear consumed them to such an extent?

It’s clear that much of Mira and Owen’s education will be focused on dealing with their own uncertain futures. What will they now need to learn? Instead of success tools, it seems they will be learning mostly survival tools! Even their parents – what will they have to look forward to in their own retirement? Will they even have a retirement? Will lifespans increase, or drastically contract? What about economic resources? Will my two grandchildren grow up conditioned to expect less? It seems the moral choice for them would be … absolutely, yes! Nobody should be allowed to have as much in their future lives as their parents had (or their grandparents). At least, that’s the way it looks from the privileged positions we find ourselves in today.

Perhaps the secret for us grandparents is to spend even more time in direct contact with our grandchildren. Then, we wouldn’t have time to think too hard about these questions. Their wonder at the world – at their own bodies, minds, and capabilities -- might consume us as much as it does them. We might discover some of their innocence. Optimism may then begin to climb out of that pit of anxiety and pessimism.

Warp & Woof

v.1.3

Welcome to Warp & Woof, a blog from William Sundwick. Its purpose is to share with its readers some ways to navigate the philosophical, moral and aesthetic dimensions of life.

It is not a scholarly blog, but the author hopes that his own life experience and reading can inform his readers’ journeys through such realms.

He wants to share some things that he believes matter, not “fake news,” and he will offer frequent enough doses to motivate you to keep checking in. Comments are welcome. While Blogger requires you to identify yourself via your email address, the author will anonymize any comments before publishing them.

Warp & Woof has a structure. There are five departments of thinking (pages) -- but some entries may be cross-posted in more than one department. These five “realms of deliberation” are:

The Present

    … what matters, for sure!

 

                     The Past

                              … what used to matter       

                                                               

                                                                              

                                             The Future

                                                      … what may matter, who knows?

 

                             Totems

                                    … objects that matter (or mattered)  

                        

Beats

    … sounds that matter, since we never get tired of hearing them! 

Author’s Introduction

Switching to the first person now and translating -- readers can expect entries dealing with health and wellness for seniors (that’s me) in The Present, along with musings on bigger psychological/philosophical issues. This includes a fair dose of writing on child development (I spend some time babysitting my grandchildren).  

The Past will be filled with lots of hopefully knowledgeable meanderings around politics, sociology and history. I’m a liberal arts type, undergraduate major in history, and professional librarian for something like 30 years before imperceptibly transitioning to IT professional. I retired from the Library of Congress in 2015, after 42 years at that institution. History and politics are very big topics for me, despite their vague and uncertain impact on the present or future.

Exciting (to me) developments in science and technology will be found in The Future, along with a healthy dose of fear about things like global warming and other planetary or civilizational catastrophe! Perhaps I have an apocalyptic frame of reference -- most of my thinking about economics and anthropology belongs in The Future. Economics covers consumer behavior and marketing, both interesting fields for me. Anthropology deals with primitive roots of tribal life, which I claim will become more apparent in the future, as more complex social arrangements break down, putting sociology in The Past. The Future is not the place for invective about the status of American politics -- that belongs on the page for The Past!

On the page for Totems, you will find lots of apparently senseless, but exciting for me, information about cars, past, present, and future. I’m a “car guy”, by virtue mostly of my upbringing as a General Motors brat in Flint, Michigan during the fifties and sixties. I’m not a car guy mechanic, however. I never open the hood or crawl under my own vehicle (much less anybody else’s!), but a car guy who was raised in, and by, mid-century American “car culture.”

Finally, on the Beats page, another personal obsession gets its due: rock music, from the origins in the Great Migration, through the British Invasion, hard blues, acid rock, punk, metal, techno. If anybody thinks these genres are still alive, please let me know! I’ve “got my ear down to the ground” to paraphrase Jim Morrison, When the Music’s Over. Yes, there is audio here, via YouTube videos.

That’s been the concept. Version 1.0 of Warp & Woof launched on Ground Hog Day, 2017.  I made some changes to the layout and design recently, for v.1.2 (sounds better than v.1.1).  And, true confessions, this v.1.3 is informed by two-and-a-half years in my Arlington, VA Writers Group. These folks may be my only audience – except when I beg my Facebook friends and relatives to read my posts. I hope my mission statement remains unchanged at least through version 2.0; i.e., helping my readers see the “big picture” more clearly, making the complex simple, and having fun while we expand both our peripheral vision and depth perception!                      

         

Me, at Filene Center, Wolf Trap, 2018

                                                        

Car Buying: The Experience

William Sundwick

For a life-long car buff like me, shopping for a new car has been an exciting, intensely pleasurable, experience. Cars are fascinating to me: their design, their features, their engineering. I grew up with the industry, and I’ve followed the automotive press intermittently ever since.

My latest experience was no exception. My Excel workbook of all possible competitors compared not only numeric specs, but capsule summaries taken from reviews and road tests. The process lasted two years – my spreadsheet had tabs for 2017 models, 2018 models, and 2019 models. I didn’t pull the trigger in either of the first two model years I tracked. In 2017, I merely collected data on all possible popular-priced SUV/Crossovers. For 2018, I devised elimination thresholds based on certain specs. This, combined with a comprehensive tour of the 2018 Washington Auto Show, allowed a hypothetical emergence of an “elite eight,” then “final four” contenders (roughly on time for the 2018 NCAA basketball tournament).

But I didn’t buy a car. Rinse and repeat for 2019 models. For this model year, I could only reduce to five finalists – I had tightened my elimination standards, but there were simply more cars that met those requirements.

Test drives at dealers finally became a reality this August. Dealers were ramping up their summer clearances, seeking to clear out inventory for the coming model year. They wanted my business. Five contenders quickly became four after a disconcerting phone call to a Nissan dealer where the salesman conceded: “nobody stocks Rogue Hybrids -- they don’t sell!” – the Rogue Hybrid was only model that made Nissan one of the five finalists. “Thank you, I guess I can cross Nissan off my list!” Four different test drives ensued. VW Tiguan was eliminated after a decisive spin – too big, ungainly, slow. A slight delay before following up with the remaining three choices found both my wife and me getting bored with the process. Eager to reach a decision, we arbitrarily crossed Ford Escape off our list: “It is due to be replaced for 2020 with an all-new model,” I reminded my wife. “And Consumer Reports rates its ‘expected reliability’ as low,” granted a statistical assumption. That left a titanic duel between Subaru Forester and Honda CR-V.

We went together to other Subaru and Honda dealers, searching for the one thing that might be key to a final decision. This was somewhat painful until my wife took the wheel of both contenders. Even though she had insisted throughout the test drive process that this would be my car, not hers, the final word belonged to her! The Honda felt more “familiar” – coinciding with my own feeling that it was more “straight-forward” (less “gimmicky”) than the Subaru. And there were no minuses with the Honda, except that it didn’t include a heated steering wheel in the price (a $500 accessory, we later discovered).

The decision was made! Now came the hard part. Where would we buy my Honda? And, how to avoid being taken for a ride by that dealer? Further Internet research followed.

All dealers publish their inventories online. While it is possible for them to trade cars to make a sale, I found that such practices work against the best price – seems reasonable, especially in this annual inventory reduction environment. All dealers may not have equally well-managed stocks of cars. They do compete after all. In our case, a larger inventory worked to our advantage.

With some insight provided by Edmunds.com, I decided the best approach was to email blast all local Honda dealers with my requirements and wait for the best quote for an “Internet price” to come in response. The Edmunds site provided the interface for my blast. The response came same day -- from the dealer which had claimed, when we visited, to be the largest in Northern Virginia (Ourisman Honda of Tysons Corner). The test drive there had been pleasant enough. The salesman said he remembered us from five years previous when we were last car shopping – and, we didn’t even buy from him! It’s possible he could have done advance research on us, since I made the appointment with another sales associate – I didn’t remember him. “What did you buy five years ago, you were looking at a Civic Hybrid?” he offered unprompted. (Winner then, a Chevy Volt!)

One of the best qualities in a car salesman is the ability to put the customer at ease, with personal anecdotes, less-than-perfect knowledge, and general easy-going demeanor. This salesman possessed all these skills. He had some knowledge of features he could demonstrate – hands-free tailgate, remote starting with key fob, personalized settings for almost everything in car. He continued his presentation, even after we announced we were ready to buy his car.

He did, however, gloss over a problem we had with our “Internet price” quote: the fine print said “dealer financing required” – we expected to pay cash! Since Virginia doesn’t allow pre-payment penalties for financing, we all agreed that the “dealer financing” requirement was a mere formality. We could pay it off with only one additional small payment – our salesman insisted. But that was before he went to his sales manager to seal the deal.

Hard-nosed negotiation commenced. Finally, a concession from the sales manager: “I’ll give you two free oil changes if you agree to make at least three payments.” And only the oil changes were in writing! He seemed so pathetic in his desperation to make a small amount in interest for his bank! Margins must be very tight in this business. The law was on our side. He can’t force us to pay interest!

And, he wanted to sell us a car.

Driving away from the dealership in my new Honda gave me a sense of accomplishment. I’m not sure I’ll bother with the two free oil changes, anyway. I still needed to arrange for the towing of our old car, to be donated to Vehicles for Change, as we have for the last two cars we’ve replaced. The satellite radio needed to be registered (first 90 days free), presets set, old car’s radio deactivated. I needed to read the manual cover-to-cover. Fortunately, Honda also provides a website with a collection of videos on how the car’s controls work (the manual is not especially comprehensive or well-written). 

Driving is the best way to learn about the car. And that is what I’ve been doing for the last few weeks. Its HondaLink navigation system now knows where I live!

City Cousins and Country Cousins

What Makes Them Different?

William Sundwick

The Neolithic Revolution occurred approximately 12.500 years ago. It was followed immediately by the urban/rural political divide. As soon as hunter-gatherers coalesced into agricultural settlements, and stopped being nomadic, they established villages, then cities. Yet, the food to feed the population in those cities was grown by the farmers. It was their surplus that sustained the city.

In time, however, the farmers’ natural advantage over the city dwellers became inverted. Farmers became indentured to the lords of the manor (the “city”) under feudalism. Power flowed upward – the cities became creditors and the manor, or vassals, were debtors.

The eternal conflict between debtors and creditors intensified. Mercantilism was about more than international trade. Any power center (e.g., an estate, corporation, or nation) sought to maximize profit by keeping costs (imports) to a minimum while getting maximum price for its products (exports).

As agricultural workers lost their bargaining power, since they had only one buyer (the city), workers in the city found more favorable economic conditions. If they could produce goods and services only a few skilled individuals could provide, like luxury goods for the nobility, they could demand whatever price they wanted, provided there was a market.

The activities of marketing and money lending became concentrated in cities. Other rent-seeking economic behavior followed. And, the emigration from the countryside to the cities began. That’s where the jobs were. Industrialization only aggravated this. Education also became available mostly in the city – to provide the skills necessary for even more specialized production. Capital, both human and material, became the currency of a new age.

But the farmers stayed the same. Indeed, they found they also needed access to capital in order to maximize their surplus. Family farms became businesses -- or sold out to businesses.

And, the emigration of the young to the city continued. The cities began to grow outside of their previous boundaries – they spawned suburbs! So, even the land area devoted to farming shrunk.

This happened throughout the developed world as, first industrialization, then cosmopolitanism with its diverse poly-cultural richness and higher educational levels, drew ever larger populations, magnetically, to urban areas.

But what about those who either couldn’t or wouldn’t leave? The old, the less educated, the poor. Might they not be resentful of all their talented youth abandoning their traditional way of life for the city? In the United States, and some research indicates in Europe as well, there has now developed a political ideology around the “forgotten ones” status. It often takes on racial animus, “us” (white people) versus “them” (immigrants and non-white others). Religious affiliations can exacerbate the feelings – provincialism and tribalism are frequently promoted by religious denominations. Only some of us are God’s chosen, and fewer of us live in cities.

And those suburbs? That’s where city cousins and country cousins can be neighbors! Suburban development is not unique to the United States. European cities have their own suburbs, with similar characteristics. There are poly-cultural, cosmopolitan suburban communities and multi-cultural communities which experience tension between their constituent cultures. Relatively few suburbs are mono-cultural like small towns or rural areas (very wealthy suburbs may be the exception).

Political sensibilities in the poly-cultural suburbs tend to skew left, or liberal, but multi-cultural communities with their tensions might exaggerate political allegiances across the cultural divide. Sometimes multi-cultural tension is not racial, but class based. It could be between “old-timers” who have been there since the community was a mono-cultural small town and the “newcomers” who have moved there from the city, perhaps victims of gentrification in the city center, or to raise a family in more space.

In the United States today, we are currently engaged in a discussion about the urban/rural divide as it relates to legislative districting. There are severe constitutional constraints on how apportionment is handled from state to state. Recently, the Supreme Court decided federal courts must stay away from partisan redistricting. But the fact remains: if state legislatures decide on the boundaries of the districts, they will always draw the maps so that the dominant party’s position is perpetuated, if they are able. Individual states may come up with alternatives (perhaps even proportional representation), but not all have constitutional provisions for ballot initiatives.

Unless you can make a convincing economic case to farmers and small town mono-cultural voters that their life is made much better by immigrants or free trade, it’s not likely that the present contour of rural right-populism can be replaced any time soon by a more urban poly-culturalism. Some folks simply prefer to live around fewer people, and more empty land. They skew conservative in their values.

Cosmopolitanism is seen by many country cousins as the ideology of the elites – for the winners in society, not them! Likewise, many poorer urban residents see rural provincialism as a strategy for protecting what’s theirs from “theft” by non-whites, especially. Perhaps heightened awareness of their privilege might be prudent for both city cousins and country cousins in this debate.