The brain, politics and music
by Steve Wallis (http://www.stevewallis.org)
version 2, 29th March 2005
There are two key classes in society - the working class and big business. Working class people tend to be in favour of a democratic socialist world - free from poverty, famines, unemployment, environmental destruction, deaths from preventable diseases, discrimination and of course wars (although most do not know how this can be achieved or have confidence that it can). Big businessmen and women (and the richest pop stars) tend to be in favour of maintaining capitalism, as it is the only way to preserve their wealth. Middle class people can be on either side.
Which side of the class struggle you are on at any moment in time - specified by a variable that is either GOOD or EVIL within your brain (representing the working class or big business respectively) is the most important determiner of your behaviour in whatever you do (in particular in your job or education, hobbies, friendships and love life). Processes within your brain use models of the past and present state of the world (to some degree of complexity) in order to predict the future and determine what you need to do to achieve your desired outcome. This was dubbed "psychohistory" by the science fiction author Isaac Asimov in his famous Foundation series, which described a galactic revolution and had a very left-wing ending to the galaxy called "Galaxia" - when he wrote "Foundation's Edge" and "Foundation and Earth" to add to the original trilogy which had right wing language to get past the censors. Psychohistory can be performed on computers as well as brains - e.g. by using my language SDML (see http://sdml.cfpm.org or go to its discussion group that I have recently set up, for a left-wing layperson's slant on SDML, at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/strictly-declarative-modelling-langauge). In fact, I believe that the strongest conspiratorial organisations on both sides of the class struggle use SDML to perform psychohistorical modelling and try to outwit the other side.
Psychohistory is also necessary for day to day tasks, to achieve all sorts of minor sub-goals, but the process at the deepest level of your subconscious is dedicated to either helping or hindering a world socialist revolution (according to whether the variable is GOOD or EVIL at any point in time). That variable can be changed as a result of internal or external processes, except for a very small number of individuals on the planet who are permanently GOOD (including myself) and whom I have dubbed "angels". Ordinary people's brains contain a mixture of processes, some GOOD trying to help socialist revolutions take place and some EVIL trying to stop them, whereas all processes in angels' brains are GOOD. Even for somebody who is GOOD overall, the EVIL processes inside their brains can stop them from being as GOOD as genuine socialists would like. One way in which they do this is by dissuading the brain from reading left-wing material, particularly my documents on paper or the internet (completely or at all). In the past, I thought that internet censorship was responsible for the relatively small number of people who have accessed my website - 79 is the maximum number of hits recorded for my socialist home page (http://www.stevewallis.org) in one day, with double figures in one day being rare - despite distributing messages far and wide on the internet (and sometimes on leaflets). I now realise that EVIL processes in people's minds need to be overridden by more powerful GOOD processes to persuade them to access my website, although sometimes access has been stopped completely (e.g. at the time of the Stalinist SWP's "Marxism 2004" event in the summer and just after my visit to a big protest organised by the Scottish Socialist Party in Edinburgh on the 9th of October).
Big business needs to resort to forms of "mind control" (such as hypnosis) to outwit a working class which massively outnumbers them. Whereas I think that some people, like Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Saddam Hussein, George W Bush and Muqtada al-Sadr are aware that they have committed/are committing evil acts which keep big business in power across the globe, most people whose internal variable is EVIL are not aware of it and the role that they are playing. Putting the happiness or success of people in your own family, friends, race, religion or nationality above that of homo sapiens as a whole is however a sign that your internal variable is currently EVIL (but of course it can be changed in various ways, e.g. by rational argument, or in the course of a strike in which black, Asian and white workers are brought together in their battle against big business).
Music has always been used as part of the class struggle, because songwriters, singers and musicians can influence other people's views (in subtle or blatant ways) by putting messages in the music. Most songs are about love, but even if the songwriter is unaware of it, his or her subconscious is planting messages in songs.
Every genre of music originated from a particular class, either struggling to overthrow its oppressors or maintain its oppression. Note that capitalism was progressive in the past in its struggle to overthrow feudalism, during the French revolution for example, where small businesspeople and peasants united to overthrow the existing order.
Some genres of music originated from the ruling class (which today is big business), others from the oppressed class (generally the working class but alongside the peasantry in the underdeveloped countries: the so-called "third world"). Of course there are many examples of musicians who were on the opposite side to the originators of the genre of the track that they have performed.
In my opinion, classical, heavy metal and rap originated from the ruling classes, whereas folk, rock and roll, reggae, soul and gospel originated from the oppressed classes (usually black people, but I think that folk originated amongst ordinary white people in Britain and Ireland). Classical was convenient for the ruling classes because members of the oppressed classes have found it very hard to decipher the meaning of symphonies, due to the lack of words. Heavy metal is also convenient because you often can't hear the words. [Indeed, a lot of modern pop music that has reached the charts, in other genres like soul and R&B, contains words that are sung in such a way that is very hard to hear them; I believe that this is a deliberate policy of the record industry, backed up by people on the side of big business working in the TV industry (in particular those who decide what songs to promote before they reach the charts on the ITV1 programme "CD:UK") and the bureaucrats who choose the Radio 1 playlist which restricts what the DJs are allowed to play.]
Rap originated with black gangs in the USA I believe, many of whom were into drugs and guns, with inter-gang rivalries leading to many murders. Such gangs have historically played a negative role in the struggle for black liberation, in contrast to Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and the Black Panther Party (the latter armed themselves for self-defence, and argued against the waste of lives caused by gangs, so their use of guns was a different matter entirely). Rap music tends to play a negative role today, because it is often played loudly out of car stereos by black men, irritating white neighbours (and turning some of them into racists) due to the way it tends to grate on the ears. Softer forms of rap, perhaps combined with other genres (such as performed by the Fugees, Ms Dynamite or Kelis with her excellent "Milk shake" song, all of whom I like) can play a positive role. Eminem has rightly been criticised for homophobic and sexist lyrics in some of his songs, but I liked two of Eminem's earliest songs "Stan" and "The Real Slim Shady" (particularly "Stan" since Dido sang very well on it); they didn't grate on the ears and there were no dodgy lyrics that I recognised. However, Eminem then started coming up with material that sounded absolutely dreadful, but I recently heard a much better song by his band D12 called "How Come". I'd like to believe that he has learnt from the criticism of homophobia and sexism and ceased to have such attitudes (but I don't know for sure).
I tend to prefer songs and artists which combine genres, since they are generally more original than those who stick to one. I like good love songs, but I tend to prefer songs with explicitly left-wing lyrics.
I now regard Katrina and the Waves as my favourite band of all time. I was very keen on their song "Walking on Sunshine" when it came out (and liked most of the songs on their albums as well) but didn't realise how good they were politically at the time. When I recently bought "The original recordings: 1983-1984" and read comments about the genres of that band, a considerable list were mentioned, which helped explain why I liked them so much. I finally found out how good their politics were when I bought their CD "Roses" in Canada, the only country in which it is available because it is so good. I recently got hold of again via ebay, having had it stolen along with most of my collection a few years ago; the thief or thieves nicely left me with most of my better CDs but not that one. On that CD is my favourite song of all time, "Walking Where the Roses Grow" - which I interpret as meaning a socialist society where people in the city are very well off and environmental problems have been solved (the countryside is full of roses). The CD also contains a great anti-war song called "23rd Psalm". Katrina and the Waves also performed "Love Shine a Light", which won the Eurovision Song Contest by far the biggest margin ever - because it spread a message of love around the world which would mean an end to wars. It appeared on the "Walk on Water" album which is good but not as good as "Roses", and there is a brilliant "Xenomania club mix" on the CD single. I've created the following discussion groups around those songs - but discussion of music and/or politics generally will be very welcome on those groups:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/walking-where-the-roses-grow
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/23rd-psalm
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/love-shine-a-light
My favourite overtly political band of all-time is Latin Quarter. Their only hit was "Radio Africa" - it was flawed because it said that there was only bad and sad news on Radio Africa at the time that there were revolutionary movements in South Africa. However, there are two brilliant songs on the album "Modern Times" on which it appears: "America for Beginners" (about the devious means in which big business stays in power in the USA) and "Cora" (about a working class woman's life through the ages). Their third album "Swimming Against the Stream", which is very hard to get hold of (like "Roses") is their best album. It includes my favourite overtly political song of all time "A Slow Waltz for Chile" (describing life and death under the Pinochet dictatorship), plus "Dominion" (about animal rights) and "Something isn't Happening" (an excellent anti-war song). I have been repeatedly thrown off the Latin Quarter discussion group called "alittlelatinquarter" and the moderator has even deleted messages I had already sent, so that those who read them via the web may not have seen them. Therefore I've set up the following discussion groups around particular songs:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/america-for-beginners
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cora-latin-quarter
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/a-slow-waltz-for-chile
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dominion-latin-quarter
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/something-isnt-happening
My karaoke speciality is Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire"; it never fails to go down a storm. The version of that on the soundtrack of the film with the same name is much better than any other version I have heard, but I think I can sing it even better (but there is a need for a brilliant keyboard player to accompany me). Although outwardly a love song, I think the great balls of fire could be interpreted as fireballs travelling from one planet to another to destroy the latter, which is what would happen if George W Bush or Tony Blair was allowed into outer space. My view is that there is an advanced socialist society out there, keeping an eye on us, and that people who are ultimately GOOD and willing to cooperate after the world socialist revolution takes place (perhaps after attempted counter-revolutions by the forces of big business) will be allowed to travel the galaxy. The rest, who are ultimately EVIL, will be kept on the earth which will then be destroyed. There are "van Allen belts" around the earth which emit so much radiation that they would kill anybody who attempts to get through them, and the "moon landing" of 1969 was a hoax made in a desert (to deliver a propaganda blow for the USA). If you don't believe that it was a hoax, how come that there have hardly been any visits to the moon in the 35 years since, never mind manned journeys to Mars or Venus? The following discussion group is based around "Great Balls of Fire":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/great-balls-of-fire
I've also set up the following discussion groups around the artists Colin Vearncombe (a white singer/guitarist/songwriter formerly known as "Black") and the female Scottish singer Eddi Reader (who performed the hit single "The Patience of Angels" and was previously in Frairground Attraction and sang the number one hit "Perfect"):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/colin-vearncombe
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/patience-of-angels
My favourite duet of all time, which is very political because it gives hope to a man in a suicidal frame of mind due to the capitalist system he lives in is "Don't Give Up" by Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush. The only music newsgroup (accessible via Google) that I have been able to send messages to is rec.music.gaffa for fans of Kate and similar kinds of music (it is named after Kate's song "Suspended in Gaffa"), because of the heavy censorship of other music newsgroups. If you join the "love hounds" mailing list (named after Kate's album and single "The Hounds of Love", see http://gaffa.org/faq/faq_1_2.html) you can send messages straight to the list and newsgroup. Therefore I have sent a lot of political messages to it over the years (some to do with music, others not). I have set up the following discussion group based around the song "Don't Give Up":
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dont-give-up
For more information about my views on music and politics, read my message on plans for the democracy campaign and the band Galaxia. Galaxia is the name of a revolutionary socialist band that I am planning to form, named after the left-wing future of the galaxy in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series, partly with established musicians (including the three Waves and Eddi Reader) and partly with people I know. I can't play any instruments at all well, but I do have a talent for singing, as people who hear me at karaoke or singing along to a CD player can verify. I have participated in a lot of conventional political campaigns over the last fifteen and a half years, but that alone won't achieve socialism; I am confident that Galaxia can lead the way in educating young (and not so young) people and inspiring them to play leading roles themselves in overthrowing the multinationals that control the planet inflicting so much misery and death on ordinary people around the globe. To find out about or discuss Galaxia, go to: