The Politics of Youth Culture: Some Observations on Rock and Roll in American Culture Author(S): Lawrence Grossberg Source: Social Text, No
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The Politics of Youth Culture: Some Observations on Rock and Roll in American Culture Author(s): Lawrence Grossberg Source: Social Text, No. 8 (Winter, 1983-1984), pp. 104-126 Published by: Duke University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/466325 . Accessed: 06/04/2013 10:43 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Duke University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Text. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 158.135.1.176 on Sat, 6 Apr 2013 10:43:17 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Politicsof Youth Culture: Some Observations on Rockand Rollin American Culture LAWRENCEGROSSBERG INTRODUCTION The riseand visibilityof youthculture in theUnited States after the Second World War is marked,most prominently,by the emergenceof rock and roll.' Some have arguedthat this reduction of art to commodityis merelythe finalstage in the pro- ductionof the human subject as consumer:passive, acriticaland unable to define politicalopposition. Others have argued that rock and roll, preciselyas a formof leisure,has a culturalpolitics based on its representationof the psychological,cul- turaland politicalaspiration of youth.The alternativequestions that I wishto pose concernthe relations between the heterogenous uses and contextsof rockand roll on the one hand, and the specificityof rock and roll as a culturalform with its own evolvingpolitics on the other.Rock and roll is not onlycharacterized by its musical and stylisticdifferences; it apparentlycan be used in radicallydifferent ways by dif- ferentfans. Contemporarycultural theory-from Williams to Foucault-agrees upon the need to locate any particularcultural text within a specificreconstruction of its historicalcontext.2 However,how does one describesuch reconstructionsand identifythe functionsor effectsof rock and roll withinthem? Furthermore, despite the diversityof the locallyproduced effects of rock and roll, it seemsto constantly reproduceitself as havinga certainunified historical identity. How does one move beyondthe set of reconstructedcontexts to a readingof rock and roll as a cultural form? My approachto thesequestions depends upon two assumptions.First, particular rock and roll textsonly produce effectsinsofar as theyare located withina larger "rock and roll apparatus" throughwhich the music is inflected.This apparatus includesnot onlymusical genres and practices,but stylesof dress,behavior, dance, etc., as well as economicand politicalrelations. Second, the powerof rock and roll is locatedin itsaffectivity, that is, in itsability to produceand organizestructures of desire.But the organizationof desireis always the siteof a strugglefor power, of a resistanceto the regimentationof affectiverelations.3 The culturalpolitics of any momentin the historyof rock and roll is a function,then, of the affectiverelations existingbetween the music and othersocial, cultural,and institutionalfacts. I will use "affectivealliance" to describean organizationof concretematerial practices and events,cultural forms, and social experiencesinto a structurewhich partly determines(always in a strugglewith ideological formations) the historicalpossibili- ties of desire. Thus, not only must the effectsof the rock and roll apparatus be definedcontextually but its effectivityis definedprecisely by its productionof the LawrenceGrossberg teaches English at theUniversity of Illinois,Champaign. 104 This content downloaded from 158.135.1.176 on Sat, 6 Apr 2013 10:43:17 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions AmericanRock 105 materialcontext within which its fans use the music. The rock and roll apparatus organizes the disparate pieces of that contextaccording to certain structuresof affectiveinvestments rather than throughsemantic representations,experiential homologiesor emotionalevocations. Hence, such a descriptionof the effectsof rock and roll is neitherphenomenological nor ideological. In fact,this view of the affectivefunctioning of rock and roll allows us, not only to examinethe concrete politicsof particularmoments of rock and roll but also, to move beyondsuch con- textualismto describethe unityof rock and roll. We can identifythe culturalform withthe structuresby whichthe rock and roll apparatushas consistentlyproduced and positionedits fans withina limitedset of affectivealliances.4 I will suggestfive general characterizations of rock and roll framedwithin the problematicof poweras theorganization of affect.The firstsuggests that the domi- nantaffective context of rock and roll is a temporalrather than a sociological one. While class, race, gender,nationality, subculture and even age may be partlydeter- minativeof specificaffective alliances, the emergenceof rock and roll should be locatedin thecontext of growingup (in theUnited States formy purposes) after the Second World War. The second hypothesiswill propose the particularstructure of oppositionthat constitutes one momentof theunity of rock and roll, its particular affectiveeffectivity. This cannot be sufficientlydescribed as the constitutionof an identityor the productionof a utopian fantasy.Rather, rock and roll inscribesand cathectsa boundarywithin social realitymarked only by its otherness,its existence outside of the affectivepossibilities of hegemonicalliances. In more traditional terms,rock and roll inscribesthe particularmark of postwaralienation upon the surfaceof othersocial structuresof difference.Nevertheless, this mark of difference -its productionand effects-arenot alwaysthe same. The thirdhypothesis suggests a way of describingthe range of effectiveboundaries that rock and roll appears capable of defining.The fourthhypothesis discusses the notionof cooptation,i.e., theprocess by whichrock and rollis appropriatedinto the contextsof the dominant organizationsof affectso thatit loses whateveroppositional force it may have had. Finally,the last hypothesiswill describethe aesthetic-textualpractice of rock and roll as a postmodernistone: a practiceof "excorporation" located at the site of particularcultural contradictions within the hegemony.My conclusionis thatrock and roll is a formof culturalrebellion and neverof politicalrevolution.5 HYPOTHESIS I: ROCK AND ROLL IN THE POST-WAR CONTEXT Anyreading of rock and roll mustbegin by identifyingthe contextwithin which it is to be located and its relationsidentified. The dominantfeatures are almost alwaysidentified as sociologicalvariables (i.e., thesociological characteristics of the music's producersand consumers).These variables,while often locally significant, must constantlyconfront their own exceptions.Such sociological descriptionsdo not provideconvincing accounts of theemergence and continuedpower of rock and roll; theymust continually appeal to an a prioridefinition of the musicembodied in a particularhistorical moment. For example,the adolescenceof the rock and roll This content downloaded from 158.135.1.176 on Sat, 6 Apr 2013 10:43:17 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 106 Grossberg audience is obviouslyan importantdeterminant of the musicitself as well as of its culturalpolitics. The frustrations,desires, fears and resentmentsof pubertyprovide much of the energyand manyof the concernsof rock and roll. However, even this apparentlysimple determinationis mediatedby other emotions,experiences and events.And whilethe firstaudience of rock and roll was almostentirely teenagers, thisis no longerthe case. Anotherexample is theplace of class determination.While the class experiencerepresented in rock and roll may functionsignificantly in one context,it maynot functionsimilarly in all musicor contexts.Attempts to generalize Hebdige's readingof punk as working-classmusic mustconfront, not only Frith's argumentthat it emergedout of a largelyart school and "bohemian" context,but also thosecontexts in whichpunk functions in a largelymiddle-class context without anyromanticization of theworking class. The factthat particular forms of rock and roll have specificclass roots or referencesdoes not necessarilydetermine its recep- tion and social effectsin particularcontexts. On the otherhand, thisis not to deny thatthe fact of (class) originmay have specificmediated effects, particularly through local iconographies. Alternatively,if we startwith the assumption that rock and rollis relatedin some way to youth'soften articulated experiences of alienation,powerlessness and bore- dom, can we locate the contextwithin which these experiences emerge and rockand roll functionsas a specificresponse constituting a "youth culture"? Consider the obvious factthat rock and roll emergedin a particulartemporal context, variously characterizedas late capitalism,post-modernity, etc. The dominantmoments of this post-warcontext have been widelydescribed: the effectsof the war and the holo- caust on the generationof parents;economic prosperityand optimism;the threat of instantand total annihilation(the atomic bomb);6 the cold war and McCarthy- ism withthe resultingpolitical apathy and repression;the rise of suburbiawith its inherentvalorization of repetition;'the