Here's a Marxist POV against multiculturalism. Lenin's Tomb argues that the language of multiculturalism is ultimately about tolerance, which accepts differences but lets the dominant culture remain superior. It's easily appropriated by the far Right, who are happy to have different white & black cultures - preferably in different neighbourhoods, cities & countries altogether.

Sobering stuff. I don't know if I agree. I still think the political fall-out from the death of multiculturalism would rain down on the Left, not the Right. In fact, the Right could claim "See? We told you there was no point promoting integration. These people are irretrievably different. Take off that head scarf."


Theta Nu Xi Multicultural Sorority, Inc. See what happens when we're one big happy family?

Lenin's Tomb proposes focusing on the economic issues that unite us - a politics of universal social justice. Which is fine. White and immigrant workers are natural allies, facing the same issues of housing, wages, etc. However, a minority culture - particularly for immigrant communities - is often the last line of defence against a racist society. White workers can have the privilege of being universalist; brown workers may not have that space.

I'd argue that multiculturalism is useful when it provides real, concrete gains to immigrant communities - whatever patronizing white attitudes it comes from. Universalism is the ultimate goal, yes. Let's not forget that it's equally patronizing to claim immigrants only care about culture. On the contrary, immigrants care more about housing & working conditions than non-immigrants, because they generally have it worse on all fronts.

However, the way to that universalism can only be through a recognition of the particularities - the cultural identities - immigrants have. (Note: white culture is also a particularity. It's just the dominant one.) I still think multiculturalism is a part of that recognition - at least in the face of the Right's attacks on it.

My music at work

I'm going through my papers, singing along to "The Songs of Jimmy Webb". For the uninitiated, Jimmy Webb was the songwriter behind such hits from the 70s as "By The Time I Get to Phoenix" and "MacArthur Park". Webb was the master of wild metaphor, writing songs on love & loss using images of overloaded electric cable ("Wichita Lineman"), sand boxes ("Where's the Playground, Susie?") and the famous green icing from MacArthur Park:

Someone left the cake out in the rain
All that sweet green icing flowing down
I don't think that I can take it
Cause I took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again... oh no...

This is bad music. Overblown, histrionic, maudlin. And I like it. Sometimes it's just what I need.


Glen Campbell, one of Jimmy Webb's proteges - back when real men wore brown polyester suits

I've noticed two responses to this type of music: uncritical appreciation, and ironic kitsch masquerading as uncritical appreciation.

#1) Uncritical appreciation

I've been shocked by how many working people like bad music. Months back I posted a letter to the local lite-rock station. I never posted the reply, in which the manager told me his station was number 1 in the city. Now, we can go back & forth about the cultural hegemony of pop music: how it's written according to a crafted formula that is pleasing because it's so familiar (verse verse chorus verse chorus key change!) Most importantly, it has huge amounts of capital behind it, in marketing, publicity and airplay. It's natural people would like Britney Spears and Maroon 5.

That doesn't make the music - or their taste in music - any better. I'm not a populist on this. There are objective ways to judge good music: by its originality, skilled craftship and depth of imagery. I like good music from many genres: hip-hop, indie, electronic, even (old) country music as of late. I think good music is also a class issue: the energy for decent, original music in the past 30 years has come from working class youth. (To get technical, youth who used music to create a unique synthesis of their surrounding culture and material environment.) Think of psychedelic rock, funk, disco, punk... let's skip the 80s... grunge, hip-hop and electronica. Those were all genres some working class kids threw themselves into, later appropriated by the record label capitalists.

I'm not a snob, either: I also like bad music. I listened to - and enjoyed - Billie Piper's 'Walk of Life' well before she became Rose Tyler on Doctor Who. That's absolute pop shite, more processed than Cheez Whiz. But sometimes I wanted to hear it. The difference is, that genre is all my coworkers (from many different workplaces) listen to. And whenever I bring in 'different' (i.e. non-radio play) music, they cringe or tell me, "That's interesting."


Billie Piper - No worse than any other musical toiler. But no better, either.

#2) Ironic kitsch

Nor will I go the other direction, like some cultural studies students, and claim bad music contains genuine musical insight. I think most pop, RnB, rock and dance music is sorely lacking in insight, originality or feeling.

Put down your pens, folks, I'm not arguing against analysis of pop culture. However, I do think it's disingeneous, a false populism, to celebrate the kitsch in Abba as real art and then go home and listen to Enon. If one really likes pop - as my coworkers do - then one doesn't judge it according to intellectual criteria. One says "This music helps get me through the day," that's it. (Believe me, the key to bad music is repetition. You have to love Leila, or The Rocketman, to hear it once a day, every day.) To claim otherwise is playing with working class identity, which veers dangerously close to making fun of it. This is the same kind of tongue-in-cheek 'tolerance' liberals reserve for their non-white 'best friends'. (Which is a nice link back to multiculturalism.) I don't begrudge the workers their crappy music (except when I'm forced to listen to it). But I also don't claim the class-in-itself is creating or listening to music-for-itself.

Note that I'm not saying we shouldn't listen to or enjoy bad music. The most bespectacled, shaggy-haired student can listen to whatever s/he wants, it's a wholly personal decision. All I'm saying is we should admit it's bad. It's no more art than advertising design is painting. There may be artistic elements that slip through. But it's crafted strictly to formula, created to sell a product: CDs, concerts, merchandise.

Underneath this inability to admit to liking bad music is the same fragile ego that drives most students - a fear of being looked down upon, and thus a desire to aggressively defend the indefensible. As my coworker told me after seeing Mamma Mia, (a show The Guardian called "far naffer than it thinks it is"), "I like all types of music! Classical, country, opera, whatever." I respect her candour.