Pop-Music as Religion; Pop-Music as Culture

This week, I have been rolling over two key questions regarding the relationship between traditional religious discourse and popular music discourse within the culture industry:

1. How does that popular music act as a new religious movement?

2. What is the role of popular music in the religious discourse of the modern culture industry?

Traditionally, religious songs were “pieces of music with reference to religion and spirituality in the lyrics that were performed in a communal setting that had religious context and ritual setting” (Till, 2010: 167).  Overwhelmingly, this seems to be the nature of contemporary popular music. It is enjoyed in ritual settings, at rites of passage like birthdays, weddings and funerals. It almost always involves a reflexive component, be it to consider the secular consciousness, notions of love and compassion, life and death, or the metaphysical nature of the world.  If not explicitly religious, popular songs are almost always broadly spiritual in nature and enjoyed in a ritualistic fashion.

John Lennon's Imagine: a popular song which transgresses the borders of popular culture and religious experience.

Like traditionally religious music, pop-music bridges the public sphere of socialization and integration with the private sphere of self-awareness and inquiry.

The difference is that where traditionally religious music like hymns were experientially mediated by traditional religious culture, pop-music is mediated by the dynamic socio-political machine of modern culture.

A sociological approach to modern culture points to the loss of support of objectively established religion, dissolution of the remnants of pre-capitalism and new modes of technological and social differentiation as the source of a form of cultural chaos (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1994).

Religions, like popular music, have discrete functions in culture, structuring and controlling behavior. Where religion once provided an outlet for youth fulfillment and identity, pop-music has filled this void. It too provides the context for “powerful emotions and passions surrounding human behaviours”, representing the youth experience in line with secular, individualistic cultural attitudes and beliefs (Till, 2010: 170).

This is of course natural and unsurprising. A sociological approach to modern culture points to the loss of support of objectively established religion, dissolution of the remnants of pre-capitalism and new modes of technological and social differentiation as the source of a form of cultural chaos (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1994). In modern culture, where traditional religion is on the decline at the behest of an individualistic, liberalistic socio-political and economic discourse, people are influenced by the mediums that speak to their neo-conservative experiences.

Pop-music can fill the void left by the decline of religious experience by still appealing the ecstatic states of consciousness, reflexive consciousness, socialization and integration and ritualistic participation offered by the traditional religious experience.

Where traditional religion was structured in a hierarchy where few controlled many, the machine of the culture industry in which pop-music exists is fundamentally democratic. Millions participate in it. We are all listeners. The rise of new technologies like social media mean we can all act as agents and producers of culture as well. Cultural products are framed first in terms of consumer needs, rather than on the objective projections or beliefs of a higher few.

However, fundamental to our involvement is the need to fit in to be part of the economic mechanism of selection. Because millions participate in it (in fact, arguably, everybody participates in culture, willingly or otherwise) reproductive processes are necessary and “inevitably require identical needs in innumerable places to be satisfied with identical goods” (Adorno and Horkheimer, 1994). In this circle of retroactive need, the modern culture industry is, as Adorno and Horkheimer rightly observe, “the achievement of standardization and mass production”. That is to say, culture sees the coercive, selective nature of society alienated from itself, and then operating under the very processes of domination themselves. 

The consequence is a “ruthless unity” in the culture industry, where differentiations between cultural products are marked not on the basis of subject matter but on typifying and classifying the consumers who participate in those products culture according to their indexed type. Pop-songs earn their religious significance more on the basis of the types of consumers who enjoy them than on the subject matter itself. The nature of pop-music as a form and as an experience means that all pop-music has the potential to take on this religious experience.

The spiritual/pop and indie scene represent resistance to the commodification of the popular scene. They do not, however, represent a resistance to commodification itself. In fact, their success, and growth, is owed entirely to their place within the economic mechanisms of selection. Anyone who resists can only survive by fitting in. The indie scene survives, neigh, thrives, because it appeals to the consumer who rebels against the mainstream discourse of neo-conservatism and liberalization. Hence we see the growing popularity of a new-wave form of spirituality, one that opposes the liberalistic, atomistic, technological trends of the liberal growth mechanism and empowers raw, organic, stripped-back music. As Foucault observed, wherever there is power there is resistance. And perhaps wherever there is pop-music, there is potential for religiosity and spirituality.

References

Adorno T & M Horkheimer. 1973. 'Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception', in The Dialectics of Enlightenment, trans. J. Cumming. Verso, London.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/adorno/1944/culture-industry.htm

"John Lennon: imagine." Online Video Clip. YouTube.com. 2 February 2007. Uploaded by Aviv Ben Israel. 25 March 2013 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLgYAHHkPFs> 

Till, R. 2010. Pop Cult: Religion and Popular Music. London: Continuum International Publishing, Ch. 9, Do You Believe in Rock and Roll. Musical Cults of the Sacred Popular. 168-192. Ebook.

Christ in Contemporary Cinema? A Response to the Secularization Thesis

A Recourse to Reason and Intuition in the Secularization Thesis

According to the secularization thesis, the rise in secularism in the west is thought to have heralded the mutation and evolution of theological references and Christ-like figures in media as “a legitimate pop culture phenomenon” (Koslovic [0]). In a somewhat post-structuralist recoil against this thesis, Christopher Deacy argues that “simply because theological motifs can be discerned in unconventional places does not mean that the quest for cinematic Christ-figures is an intellectually and theologically legitimate undertaking” ([2]).  “Finally”, I thought, when reading Deacy, “a recourse to reason and intuition in the secularization thesis”.

Deacy’s argument is premised on the notion that it is misleading to describe a character as a Christ-figure or preponder the Christological motifs in contemporary cinema because it is not certain what this “legitimate pop culture phenomenon” is all about ([4], Koslovic [0]). His premise opens the conceptual domain to question the very application of Christ-like criterion to a character, and perhaps more broadly even, average people, without discrediting the validity and merit of the work of the secularization theorists. Although not expressly stated by Deacy, his questioning of this ‘phenomenon’ opens the discursive space to not only question the normative application of distinct (and in some cases very superficial) criterion to determining the ‘Christ-like’ nature of something, but the purpose of identifying a ‘Christ-like’ figure in media in the first place.

My own intuition is that considering the ‘Christ-like’ nature of a character in a popular film in no way validates the secularization thesis any more than considering the ‘Christ-like’ nature of my friend Eilish, a staunch atheist but highly charitable, compassionate girl, means that she indicates the return of the Messiah. All it shows is that we are searching for figures like Christ in our readings of modern popular phenomenon. This is far from saying that modern popular phenomenon in fact represents Christ-like figures. It is simply a reading, and texts by no stretch, are stable in their meaning.

The increasing popularity of this kind of literature itself, rather than the media it explores, is perhaps the greatest validation of the thesis. What the work of secularization theorists shows then is that there is an audience that is searching for the characteristics of Christ as modern examples of behavior. It shows that these characteristics are universalisable and a solid foundation for ways of living and loving in a virtuous way. It shows that we, as humans, aspire to this virtue.

I agree that there is a danger in stretching our conception of Christ to cover characters in pop phenomena for want of doing “an injustice both to Christianity and to the films in question” (Deacy [4]; Lyden 24). Applying an ultimately arbitrary criterion of likeness to Christ does not further the relevance of a film to a contemporary audience nor does it enhance our understanding of Christ. On the other hand, tracking the popularity of films that feature characters who have traits similar to Christ, and audience reaction to such characters, reveals much about what society does or does not admire in an aspirational, virtuous figure. The secularization thesis literature suggests that a Christ-like figure is still as predominant a guide for virtue and compassion today as he was when he lived.

References

Deacy, Christopher. Reflections on the Uncritical Appropriation of Cinematic Christ-Figures: Holy Other or Wholly Inadequate? Journal of Religion and Popular Culture, 13, Summer. <http://www.usask.ca/relst/jrpc/art13-reflectcinematicchrist.html>

Kozlovic, Anton Karl. 2004. “The Structural Characteristics of the Cinematic Christ-figure.” Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 8, Fall. <www.usask.ca/relst/jrpc/art8-cinematicchrist.html>

Lyden, John C. 2003. Film as Religion: Myths, Morals and Rituals. New York: New York University Press.

What does the presence of Christian theology in the media mean for Christianity in modernity?

Elaine Graham's chapter, "What we make of the world" explores the complex and delicate relationship between religion and popular culture. She accounts the differences, and in some cases binarism, between the Christian Church and its representation in the media to the modern experience of secularisation, individualisation and religious pluralism. Graham's primary concern is whether this relationship makes Christian dogma and social practice more accessible and relevant, or whether it is commercialised and destabilised by its interaction with media in all its resources (2007: 65).

Advertising Poster by Frid'rick for 'Le Bible Amusante' an 1890 French publication by Leo Taxil.

Photograph published by Emile Levy, 14 November 2012, from WikiMedia Commons, 14 March 2013. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:La_Bible_amusante.jpg

The primary motivation of theology's "turn" to popular media might be to make more accessible an engagement with the sources and norms of religious tradition (Graham, 2007: 66). In what is likely a conceptual stretch at best, Graham argues that culture "may be viewed as the entirety of human creative activity" (66). In this sense, culture both produces, and contextualizes, human meaning making and creating. Any "turn" by theology to popular culture therefore represents the encultration of religious doctrine, and the mingling of that theology with the everyday, lived experience. By defining culture in these terms, Graham commits the argumental  fallacy of affirming the consequent. If culture is the lived experience then theology's relationship with culture simply represents its relationship with the human lived experience. The rest of her argument, namely that the presence of theology in the popular culture medium makes it more accessible and relevant, is weakened by this rhetorical error.

In saying this, her position on culture as the entirety of human creative experience (intuitively at least) places religion and culture on the same conceptual terrain. This a helpful and accessible way of assessing how religion is viewed in modernity, namely, as part of an individual spiritual life rather than within the boundaries of doctrine and institution. Religion, like culture, might be read as the domain for meaning-making and self-actualisation, which speaks to the core principles of Christianity.

Whether the doctrine and dogma of traditional Christian theology is commercialised by its interaction with popular media is considered only in application to very specific examples. The example used in the article of the "Jerry Springer" satire serves more to demonstrate the difference between programs of a religious nature in the popular media and the popular media referencing religion as as source of satire. This, in itself, is not particularly helpful to the question at hand. All it does is demonstrate that the satirization of religious principles will destabilise the boundaries of meaning and belief within a religion if the audience is receptive to that satirization. That is to say, making fun of Christian dogma is only damaging to that dogma if the audience believes that humour is warranted. This is a matter of taste, audience and context more than it is of popular culture as a whole. In saying that, if the boundaries between the discourse of popular media and the discourse of Christianity are collapsed, each domain loses some of its autonomy. This creates an environment where there is little room for critical space, of both the media as a mode of representation and of the substance of theological claims. While, for the discerning viewer, this should not pose any serious threat to the stability of their own belief set, the slipperiness and subjectivity of representation and meaning in media discourse should be taken with a grain of salt.

References

Graham, E. 2007. "What We Make of the World: The Turn to 'Culture' in Theology and Study of Religion'. In Between Sacred and Profane: Researching Religion and Popular Culture. New York: IB Taurus & Co. Ltd. Ebook.