Cobb

At this very moment, I am listening to "The Weary Ways of Mary Magdalene" by Delfayo Marsalis. Prior to that on the playlist was "Shango" by Angelique Kidjo. Next in the stack is some Sonny Rollins, then Nancy Wilson, Herbie Hancock, Kronos Quartet, Johann Strauss Jr, Rachmaninoff and oh, well Black Sheep and Nelly Furtado.

One's taste in music can give very deep insights to one's personality. But I'm not certain music inscribes itself on the strategic mind so much as it does the soul. So I would much rather entertain questions of dueling playwrites than banjos. Yet I'm eliding my deep belief that West African influences on European music and liturgy has given America its soul and is one of the primary reasons that America does a good job attracting and integrating foreigners, as contrasted to Sweden, but more on that much later. I know Benzon understands this and knocks out the detail with far more precision than I could muster, thus the deferral & referral.

Me, I have a taste for Jack Daniels and Jim Beam rye, because I'm a blackneck too. Nothing says America to me quite like roadhouse blues rock ala Eric Sardinas. In that vein, I find much to admire in the personality of James Carville despite the fact that I think he's some kind of megawhore (but I'll never prove that). He just smacks me as an authentic kind of asshole that I'd love to sit down and rap with. But after a while if I found that he were actually a Southern Baptist who has no taste for vegetables and wouldn't be caught dead at a Shakespeare play - if I found he was nothing but horseshoes, barbecue and football around the homestead, I think I'd get really tired of Carville really quickly. In fact, that stereotype is exactly what I think of Phil Gramm, and it wouldn't surprise me a bit if Tom DeLay read Reader's Digest in the john.

Yes I am talking about class snobbery which is different from class warfare. You know the French have a saying I'll slightly mangle (because my spell chequer n'est-ce pas Francaise). "Tout comprenner c'est tout pardonner". It means to know is to forgive, and it implies that the more you know, the more forgiving you are. I like it because it works for noblesse oblige, which I inherit from the Talented Tenth. And so I think that in a certain aspect we are all liberal in the classic sense of the word. We learn more we expand our world, we appropriate, integrate and move on to a higher plane, thus leaving forgiving spaces below us for the huddled masses yearning to learn what we already know. It's condescending, but it works. Snobs need elbow room, may as well go up. But what is at the top? Do Americans on the left and right agree?

I'm also implying that the stridency of much conservatism is rooted in ignorance, which is exactly what my cultural spidey senses tell me about the likes of the Freepers the majority of which appear to be devotees of redneck radio. Again, I love Jack as much as anyone, but there are limits to how much whittling sticks I can do on a Sunday afternoon. There are, after all, higher pursuits in this great nation of ours.

Bill Bennett has taken a drubbing at the hands of some bloggers recently. I forget the issue. He's also appeared more stridently partisan these days as I recall the last time I saw him bloviate on some talk show. But Bill B. was one of the highbrow cats that first got me interested in whatever it is I'm doing - way back in the "Closing of the American Mind" days. I also dug (who didn't) the dry wit (and occasional lip licking) of William F. Buckley.

So where in the porno stained world of television is the alternative? Where is conservative highbrow? Did that all go out of the window with the Contract with America? Where is the cultural conservative ball and what are they dancing to? Because if it's the Texas two step, as Eminem says "We're going to have a problem here."