Fritz Feger <mail(a)fritzfeger.de> wrote:
>Herb, I'm sorry of being (co-)responsible for redundancies in your posting,
>and to contribute to talking issues to death.
>
>I did neither mean nor say that me or anyone else will read Zorn's use of
>the term "radical" ONLY politically, or that it has to be understood
>STRICTLY in its political sense. You are reading that into my remark that
>"it would be naive to believe that it isn't read politically". Why didn't
>you read it like: "by some and maybe among other readings"? That is how I
>meant it. (I'm tempted to quote Dave Douglas with his advanced interview
>technique, but I won't)
>
>My own (hypothetical) political reading of RJC's "radical", for example,
>resulted from my inability to figure out in which other e.g. musical or
>"cultural identity" or whatever sense it could be intended. In case that,
>as you "wrote earlier, the aesthetic radicality of any particular musical
>item is a matter of taste & prior knowledge more than anything else" (what
>one could well dispute, but I won't), then I can claim for me the right to
>find RJC music not overly radical, or at least less radical than certain
>non-RJC Zorn disks, can't I? To set that straight: I'm perfectly fine with
>Zorn calling a CD series RJC, and I'm aware that you cannot change such a
>label after a bunch of instances. I just had this unexplainable desire to
>learn what this is meant to tell me. Maybe I should rather be peacefully
>waiting until suddenly the, as you put it, "sort of self-defining" process
>occurs.
>
> >If you try to reconcile your theory with the actual practice you're
> >supposedly analyzing, you'll find a lot of practice that this particular
> >theory fails to take into account.
> >As Wittgenstein wrote, Look to the use.
>
>Are you trying to tell me that my use and understanding of "radical" is
>"theory", and yours is not only the same as Zorn's (inevitably so by the
>two of you being American?) but "actual practice", as if there were only
>one actual, i.e. right practice? If you like to rely on Wittgenstein on
>that matter, you'd better respect my "European" discourse (and Zorn, who
>has travelled Europe and sells I don't know how much of his records over
>here). But anyway I don't believe that there's so much of a difference in
>the use of the term in Europe and America as you imply: some Germans have a
>radical haircut too, and "radical animal rights activist" or "radical
>muslims" refers to the same kind of people/non-lingual practice on both
>sides of the Atlantic ocean.
>
>Just for the record. Even the latest Wittgenstein knows to tell adequate
>use from inadequate. To advocate an account where the meaning of a concept
>is determined by its use doesn't mean that I am free to use the word
>"radical" in some sense which I pick to my taste. On the contrary: a
>meaning theory of use demands that my use of "radical" is the same use as
>(one of the) uses other speakers fancy. You may not leave the game; there
>is no private language with Wittgenstein. If this is true, then you could
>simply teach us Europeans what the American Zorn means by "radical". Go ahead!
>
> >I also suspect that the definition of what Zorn includes in the series
> >may have drifted over the years: while he may have had some more strict
> >ideas early on, these ideas may have loosened, to the point where the
> >title is a quite effective marketing ploy which he'd be a fool to drop.
>
>That may well be the case. I don't mind. I'm simply curious what it was
>intended to transport some day.
>
>Fritz
Fritz,
Earlier in this discussion, I proposed that the phrase "Radical
Jewish Culture" is primarily a marketing term for a subset of discs
released by Tzadik. For better or worse, what the phrase "really"
means is that series of discs, regardless of whether the three
component words of the phrase accurately reflect the content of the
series. Any theory or analysis of what the phrase "really" means that
doesn't explain the inclusion of all the discs in the series must, by
definition, be wrong. The series is the practice being analyzed, not
the name of the series. Quibbling about the accuracy of the term
after many years and 70 discs is pointless.
There are many disc in that series that I don't care for, and many
that I don't think are particularly radical. There is some overlap
between these two categories, though if I thought about it, I'm sure
I could come up with several discs in the series that I liked but did
not think were radical and vice versa. That's a matter of taste.
Whether or not I think a particular recording in the series is
"radical" based on my experience of other music I've heard, if its in
the series, it's part of "Radical Jewish Culture." My sense of the
words "radical" "Jewish" and "culture" is entirely irrelevant to the
inclusion of any music that's in the series.
If you have questions about why Zorn chose a particular recording to
be in this series rather than another, you'll have to ask him. If you
want to know why Zorn picked those three words, you'll have to ask
him.
Bests,
Herb
--
Herb Levy
P O Box 9369
Fort Worth, TX 76147
herb(a)eskimo.com
