Last year, wait, really, one year ago today, I went to a concert. It was the best concert I had ever been to; it was Anberlin headlining with some great opening acts, in one of my favorite places to see a show, the House of Blues in Cleveland. I have a lot of personal reasons for really loving everything about that night (one of them, rather innocuously, being that I caught a drumstick at show's end, and that was quite the thrill).
But it was at that show that I began to realize who many of the people in that crowd were, who, indeed, even I was,in the great cultural flow of the United States.
If you're not familiar with Anberlin, I can best describe their music as "post-punk, indie,with shades of emo." I don't really believe emo exists as a musical genre because, at this point, it's been applied to basically everything from hardcore punk bands that sing about relationships to the heavier side of soft rock (ala The Fray). But many would call Anberlin "Emo" so that might help you understand their musical style. Quite honestly, they're one of very few "rock bands" I like these days, at least current rock bands. This post isn't about Anberlin though...it's about their existence and the existence of bands like them.
Genre issues arise often in music; from questioning validity (pop vs. hardcore punk) to just simply having no idea what to call something (hence the radical diversity and even, the existence of, the "singer-songwriter genre"). But I noticed something, standing there in that glorious throng of concert goers, one year ago this evening, something that undid what I had always thought with regard to the arguments and perplexities of genre-pidgeon-holing. It just doesn't matter, at least not there, not at that Anberlin concert.
There were four bands that night and they each had their own differences. I could probably assign genres to each of them if pressed, but for that night, I just don't think it mattered. The music sounded different but the message was always at least a variation on the same theme: we want to belong, we want to belong somewhere, despite our flaws, we want to love, despite our past, we want to be loved. It comes out all over the places and in many different ways. It's prevalent in all forms of music, of course, but I had never realized it until that night, that the music I was listening to and seeing performed live, was the anthem of a generation of people (kids, really, most of them younger than me) with no rallying cry and very little cultural currency.
Another common thread? Nearly everyone in that room was white. Not just the crowd, not just the H.O.B. staff, but the bands too.
For the last 50 years, white culture has been maligned and entirely justifiably so. 3/4 of my ancestors, and, most likely nearly all of yours (although I don't know who really reads this..) has become the ethnic majority in much of the world through the lie of innate superiority. That was eventually revealed as a lie, and the public discourse at least tries to be racially friendly these days. That is great. But what now exists is an entire generation of people- white people- my age and younger (and probably older too) that have largely grown up ashamed of their past. Even after civil rights, we represent cultural imperialism and hidden racism; corruption and greed; venomous humanism and destructive concepts of sexuality. This is true of other races as well, to an extent, but in America, the majority culture represents the major mood of the country, and I'm finding that it has nowhere to fall for support. That's where the most important side of post-modernism comes in. We don't just strive for community and experiential truth because we have given up on absolute truth and sound. We strive for community and experiential truth because we just need something that makes us feel whole, makes us feel human, because the truth of the past says we've been wrong forever. If we don't live in the moment and the future (and if that future doesn't look right), then the world looks, quite rightfully and understandably abysmal, because we have seen time and again how great individuals fail. At least together, at least, even, in failing together, we are together, and there is something to be said for love that transcends failure. Celebrating success is natural, but loving despite certain failure is beautiful. That's a paraphrase of Jesus actually, and a post-modern idiom.
From Matthew 5: "44But I tell you: Love your enemiesi]"and pray for those who persecute you, 45that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?"
The Kingdom of God is about decentering the reality we see. Post-moderism is about decentering the reality we've created. Put the two together....you've got the Christian worldview in a nutshell. Christianity is, essentially, the filtering of all things through the knowledge that God is over all, through all, and in all, in light of both the world's fallen state and the redemption through Christ's death and resurrection. It is the decentering of the world we see, by claiming it to be truly God's, and the decentering of the world we've created, by realizing that we see it with fallen eyes, and we must recenter it on God to actually know anything....and anything we know we only know through God's decision to allow it.
All of this is to say that white people of my generation are necessarily post-modern because our shared history has left what has been held as cultural centers and points of meaning to be worthless and ultimately harmful to the larger world. That is good though; with white culture, the culture I'm a part of, acknowledging that it is not the center (Post-modernism being, in its purest, most succinct form, the decentering of conceptions of reality), actual reconciliation can take place. There is no longer the either-or dichotomy, wherein helping others comes at the power-cost of the helper, or the empowerment of the downtrodden at the cost of the untrodden. Certainly, equaility has its hardships and cost, but they are transparent; while a white CEO may need to lose much of his power over his corporation to enter a co-CEO partnership with a black partner in business, the reality is that diversity has true, intrinsic value in allowing for the true wholeness of all humanity to be expressed. This is the unity of Ephesians; this is the chorus of all nations from Revelation.
-Zack
"If you are thinking, you are winning"
-Flobots
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