Your Life on Earth Philosophy Project
Project Description/Artist StatementThe goal of this project in general was to use a philosophical lens of how you find meaningful and create something artistic with it. The goal of my project was to explore the concept of taking the universal to the particular, specifically in the medium of music. To accomplish this I took 3 Left-wing songs from Britain and applied them to current and past political situations in the US, without changing the original essence of the songs.
As for the specific songs I chose to rewrite, I chose two from Cornelius Cardew, and one English folk song. Cornelius Cardew was a well-known avant-garde composer in Britain in the 70s and 60s, but around 1973 he rejected Avant-garde music and moved more towards openly communist, and lyrical music, taking inspiration from all over the world, including Irish, Caribbean, and American music. During this time he also became a very active Communist, being a member of the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist), and a founding member and leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist). He was an active communist and party organizer until his murder in 1981, which many close friends of his thought was possibly an assassination by the British government. Much of his later music was about the economic situation in Britain in the 70s, and took on a distinctively anti-Labour Party stance. When rewriting two songs from him I kept this edge, criticizing the US government’s handling of the 2020-2021 Economic Crisis. The Blackleg Miner is a traditional English folk song from Northumberland, written about miners strikes in the region during the mid-19th century. The song details miner’s fighting against a strikebreaker. When rewriting the lyrics for this I took inspiration from the Ludlow massacre and wider Colorado Coalfield war, which took place in Colorado in 1914. It began with a strike lead by the United Mine Workers of America, with isolated violence throughout the state. Eventually things came to a head when the Colorado National Guard attacked a camp of striking miners and their families, killing over a dozen (including children). In response to this the UMWA launched an armed uprising throughout the state which 10,000 miners took part in. I rewrote Blackleg miner to be about this event, and also made sure to show the militancy of unionism in this era. I do not condone violence against the government. |
Reflection I can say that this project did not affect my personal philosophy much, and I found myself disagreeing with every philosophy that we studied in this project. Particularly Transcendentalism which I find to be metaphysical and counterproductive nonsense not even worth thinking about in an ironic context. I still stand behind a firmly materialist worldview, and I reject that there is any sort of outside force that guides our world, or that humans are special in any way. In this I believe that objective truths can be found and taken from material reality, and that our knowledge as a civilization will grow with an understanding of the material world. I also disagree with the existentialists because I believe meaning can be found in the material world and from accomplishing a material goal for society as a whole. I can find meaning in life in the fact that a better world is possible, not from some metaphysical outside source or if we just try hard enough, but that a better world will arise from the real world, from real people. I also believe strongly in collectivism, and that an individual on their own cannot make a difference in the world. In this way I also strongly disagree with philosophies that focus entirely on the self. Egoism, narcissism, etc are all mindsets that are counterproductive to society.
I believe that my only way to further my own philosophical understanding is to improve my understanding of the material world as a whole, and the material struggles of real people. |
Original Songs
First Rewritten Song: The Blackleg Miner by unknownIt's in the evening after dark
When the blackleg miner creeps to work With his moleskin pants and dirty shirt There goes the blackleg miner Well he grabs his duds and down he goes To hew the coal that lies below There's not a woman in this town row Will look at the blackleg miner Oh Delaval is a terrible place They rub wet clay in the blackleg's face And around the heaps they run a foot race To catch the blackleg miner And divvnt gan near the Seghill mine Across the way they stretch a line To catch the throat and break the spine Of the dirty blackleg miner They grab his duds and his picks as well They hoy him down to the pit of hell Down you go and fare yee well You dirty blackleg miner So join the union while you may Don't wait till your dying day For that may not be far away You dirty blackleg miner |
Second Rewritten Song: Smash the Social Contract by Cornelius CardewFor the ruling class and Labour government
The situation is getting worse and worse Evrything they try is bound to fail Because they labour under history's inescapable curse From crisis to crisis they lurch and they sway They scratch their heads to find a new devious way They hope the social contract will force the country's health What they mean is healthy profits for ruling class wealth Chorus So smash, smash, smash the social contract It's the cry of workers all over the land No to class collaboration We've sorted out your lies and deception You always call for sacrifice And for sacrifice we're ready But not to save the system But for the victory of our class Liberal, Labour, Tory, all the same They play the part of monopoly capitalist hacks No matter if they call us brothers They want the price of the crisis to be laid on our backs Give up this, give up that, take the cuts and tighten your belts They say the social contract is for the country's health What they mean is healthy profits for ruling class wealth Chorus Now at Leyland, Ford and other factories Class conscious workers are shouting no, no, no Dockers and sailors on the seas And other workers join the battle and the tide is in flood As the masses struggle the mask is ripped away The brutal reality is plain to see The real social contract we see it plain as glass Between the Labour aristocracy and the ruling class Chorus In the fight to smash the social contract We see the need for revolution Grasp it firmly as we organise The seizure of power is the path ahead The proletarian party RCPB and us Leading and guiding the working class Unite to smash the contract It's part of our task Which is to fight and overthrow the ruling class |
Third Rewritten Song: Lords of Labour by Cornelius CardewThe lords of labour they plot together
Their bankrupt schemes to keep us down. Their message to the working class Is to cringe before the rich man's frown. They say that it's in the whole country's interest To tighten our belts and make no demands. But they speak for the class that exploits us and rules us And we must get them off our hands. Our labour power is all we have We must sell it at the rich man's price This system is called wage slavery But democracy sounds a bit more polite. They say that if our wage increases That prices will rise to compensate But the only ones who receive compensation Are capitalist vampire who suck out our life. Oppose all attempts to make the working class pay for the capitalist crisis. Oppose all attempts to make the working class pay for the capitalist crisis. The capitalists fight with one another To corner the market and divide up the world Their quest for maximum profit Is the cause of war and puts us on the dole. Their greed leads them into a crisis Which they try to resolve with a more fascist state Our struggle's against the whole capitalist system So strike at the fascists as well as the cuts. |
Rewritten Lyrics
Rhetoric Project
My project was an open letter to anyone interested in politics from a postmodern perspective, but this project has not changed my ideology in the slightest, in fact it has only strengthened it. By taking the time to actually read Foucault and research Postmodernism, my opposition to it only became stronger, as it's far worse than I thought from past criticisms I have read of, by it's sheer nonsense and lack of real-world viability.
Unfortunately, I can say for this reason I respect supporters of Postmodernism even less than I did before, I genuinely do not understand how someone can read Foucault and believe in it. My project in the end was relatively disconnected from "normal" politics, which my views are disconnected from anyways so it did not really change my understanding of the "democratic" experiment that is the United States, though my project did involve rejecting a Postmodern view of the issues of this country in favor of a materialist one. I ultimately think a better society is possible, but neither the traditional methods or postmodern perspectives are the way to achieve that, and being willing to investigate all views is an important part of that. |
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