Cult War: Divide Et Impera

(Art collage by Rachel Botting - DIAD Studio & Gallery; Dayton, OH)

Cultures devolving into cults.  Wars engaged as ignorant acts of self-destruction, ones regularly stoked through culture but always and inevitably serving the interests of class.

Culture not as a shared space we all contribute to, that we’re all a part of, but the kind which is artificially created and propagated (usually for money), in order to serve the narrative-shaping interests of class power.

It’s the oldest and most successful tool in the authoritarian handbook - dividing societies through purposefully stoked cultural division in order to conquer and rule from the top, for the top.

All the while the proles are encouraged to keep fighting the ultimate culture war, the one over who’s God is bigger and badder and better.  And even real.  Rather than debating about the inherently unprovable, perhaps we should instead be discussing whose earthly interests a particular definition of who and what those gods are actually serves.  It’s within the politics of culture where those questions are defined, and where answers are, when power is left unchecked, forcefully imposed.

We’ve got a civic culture of people right now being exploited by the most sociopathic, even psychopathic agents of oligarch power, one threatening the very fundamentals of the last vestiges of what makes 'freedom' in America actually something real and worth having. It's utterly tragic to see our common social well-being so threatened by these present day cultural kamikazes of self-destruction, where the unwitting infliction of increasingly obvious self harm somehow is made to feel like a price worth paying in order to ‘own the libs,’ or some such kind of power tripping phantasm. The fleeting sense of ‘victory’ from that is now and will forever be as short lived as it is unreal.  Rationalizing concentration camps (and genocides) as long as the people being put in them don’t look or sound like you.  For the moment.

These are pretty dark times, there's no getting around that, but that is very much why we have art and culture, and why programs like this exist.  The timeless elevation and inspiration that comes through music and culture, and the common understanding and experience that it bonds us through.  These are absolutely essential to organizing and creating communities, and even whole societies. The ones that are worth living in and working for, and even fighting for when threatened in the manner they are now.

I’ll leave you with these words from my friend and cultural compatriot Tod Weidner, which seem very much appropriate for our present moment, as well as a related mission statement for what IAH is all about, where music serves as an amplifying and elevating antidote...

"Music - Art in general - is important.  It keeps us tethered to our humanity, and our humanity is something we desperately need to hold onto these days.  That’s how we get our courage.  That’s how we prevail.  I’m doing my level best to stay tethered, and I hope you are, too.  You’re not alone.  Don’t let the bastards grind you down."

We are indeed not alone.  Don't let them grind you down.  Instead, Turn up and TURN IT UP...

...and pass it on

Listen to

IT'S ALL HAPPENING - "CULT WAR"