Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation Of Language And Music And Why We Should, Like, Care

Rating:
Summary: Rambling indignation masquerading as thoughtful analysis.
Review: (Since I have limited review space, I'll talk only about the part of this book that deals with music. As the title suggests, it's a very important part, and I personally think that the problems with it say a lot about the book as a whole.)

McWhorter's main theme, in this part of the book, is that music, as an art form, was greatly trivialized and degraded by the big, bad, evil sixties counterculture. Yet, for some reason, he brings up musical theatre, talks about how some musicals were still somewhat true to the old ideal of music, then suddenly asserts that even the best of them were only "minor" accomplishments. This has no bearing on the evil counterculture or the music that it spawned; if anything, it contradicts McWhorter's point by implying that the decline of music began long before the sixties. McWhorter goes on these digressions all the time, and the more aimless they are, the more he seems to think that they strengthen his main point.

Another such digression is McWhorter's idea that post-sixties music is above all driven by the desire of white people to emulate black people. I don't think this says anything about the quality of that music, even if it's true, but McWhorter thinks it's really important. In support of this idea, he gives the following evidence: a) rock stars such as Mick Jagger affect a Southern accent, despite not being from the South, and b) the song "Play That Funky Music, White Boy" implies that a "white boy" is unsuccessful at emulating the "black" concept of being "funky," and thus fails to attain the ideal of rock music. One might ask why this ideal would be so important in England, the homeland of many classic rock bands, or in Russia, Japan, Finland, or any other country where rock bands exist. McWhorter doesn't, though. Instead, he rambles about songs sung by black slaves in the nineteenth century. The conclusion? The evil sixties counterculture destroyed music!

In reality, the evil counterculture's musical ideas had numerous precedents. For instance, the musical aspect of the notion of "doing one's own thing," which McWhorter ridicules so much in this screed, might be seen as having risen out of the emphasis placed by jazz music on improvisation and "free-form" playing. As for imitating black people, the tiny grain of truth in that claim can be traced back to nineteenth-century European artists' fascination with African art and the self-styled "primitivist" movements that resulted from it. But McWhorter doesn't raise his mighty fist against Coltrane or Picasso; instead, he chooses to present the evil sixties counterculture as some kind of sudden, extreme turning point that single-handedly destroyed music (including jazz). What's funny is that, when jazz was on the rise, it was subjected to these exact same arguments from music critics of the time. Now, it has become an important musical genre, and nowadays one can listen to it in big concert halls as if it were classical music.

As for how the evil counterculture destroyed music: according to McWhorter, rock and roll shifted the focus of music from skilled songwriting to "the way one sings." That is, McWhorter claims that in today's music, an aura of "genuineness" surrounding a singer is more important than the quality of a singer's voice or songwriting. Naturally, he completely ignores the fact that a rock singer's role is by no means just that of singer and musician, but that of actor, storyteller, and commentator as well. This is not a new phenomenon, either: opera singers, for instance, are not only singers but also actors, and since they spend their time onstage singing, they have to "act" with their voices. Why it is so egregious that modern singers place a heavy emphasis on this exact same thing, I'll never know. Additionally, many renowned singers in history, prior to the evil sixties counterculture, wrote none of the songs they sang, and weren't expected to write them. If anything, the rock era brought a new emphasis on singers also being songwriters instead of downplaying it. But that's not all: in support of his dubious thesis, McWhorter claims that Bob Dylan and Tom Waits are well known solely because of this aura of "genuineness" that they have, and not for their songwriting or singing. While it's true that neither Dylan nor Waits has a very good voice, anyone can go to allmusic.com and see that both of them are in fact praised for their songwriting (e.g. "...The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan...firmly established Dylan as an unparalleled songwriter..."), and that Waits's post-1983 albums are all noted for their original musical ideas. Their aura of "genuineness," in contrast, is discussed very little, meaning that McWhorter has no idea what he's talking about, and fails to honestly talk about the songwriting of either Dylan or Waits.

In fact, for a book that's supposed to prove the "decline" of music, this one shows very little familiarity with the music in question. McWhorter has a lot of contempt for rap, for example, but he appears to know of practically no rappers aside from Eminem. I don't know much about rap, either, but that's precisely why I'm not qualified to issue blanket condemnations of it. Also, McWhorter appears to be completely ignorant of electronica, and even his rock knowledge doesn't go beyond a few of rock's most well-known figures. He tends to get things wrong when talking about them, too, like with Dylan and Waits. Nowhere does he approach the level of familiarity with his subject that would be necessary to even begin to analyze it. Of course, one can't really expect an honest, in-depth discussion from a 280-page, sparsely printed pamphlet that claims to demolish modern music, and rhetoric, and literature, and everything else, and neatly pin the blame on the evil sixties counterculture in the process. As far as its discussion of music goes, at least, this book delivers only hot air.

Rating:
Summary: crass, jackass spumes about that of which he knows naught.
Review: I didn't make it up- it's on the book jacket. Only a complete dunce would be blind to this tome's innumerable inconsistencies. Tripe. Pure and Simple. You are warned.

Rating:
Summary: Yes, but. . .
Review: I was disappointed in this book. Several times while reading it I was tempted to toss it aside and pick up something more worthwile, but I plodded through it to the end.

The author, a linguist, has an admitted distaste for "traditional" rules of grammer. (Which explains why he butchers grammer throughout the book.) He decrys the degradation of literature (and music), but at the same time his own writing style is casually-styled (he even admits this at the end) and even vulgar throughout. On top of this, there are numerous places in which he misuses words (e.g., "anymore" instead of "any more" on p. 115).

From another author on another topic, errors like that would be overlooked. But, for a LINGUIST writing a book lamenting over the degradation of language???

In the end, I had to give him two stars, simply because I agree with the premise of his book. I just wish it had been better written. It's not one I can recommend to other readers.

Rating:
Summary: McWhorter should learn grammar
Review: In only the first chapter of McWhorter's nmew book, I found a half dozen grammatical errors, nor to mention the fact that McWhorter believes that "artful" means something that is praiseworthy for being artistic. "Artful" means sleazy, sneaky, dishonest. Doesn't this professor of language know that?
In addition, there is repeated flouting of the rules on the use of pronouns. Here is a sentence that you must re-read a few times to parse: "The person who only processes information beyond their immediate purview in nuggets is not educated in any meaningful sense." What does "their" refer to? Is it really what McWhoreter wanted to write?
And he commits what this retired copy editor regards as the cardinal sin: "He might not have even made it off of the lectern."
The "of" after "off" is a crime. But beyond that, the "even" belongs before the "have."

Rating:
Summary: A Fabulous Book By A Fabulous Scholar
Review: John McWhorter has made the gay/lesbian community proud once again by publishing yet another scholarly sociological masterpiece! After having been abused himself as a child, he gives a formula for other abused African Americans to embrace their sexuality and achieve success in spite of, and TO SPITE their abusers, while analyzing the decay of urban African American society at a scholarly level. This is such a wonderful work at so many levels that I give it 5 stars wholeheartedly. Gay/Lesbian Black American rejoice, because we have yet another prodigy in our midst! John McWhorter, I tip my hat to you!

Rating:
Summary: Intelligent look on a contraversal subject
Review: John McWhorter's "Doing our own thing" is one of the many books that examine the decline of formal English in 20th century America, along the same vein as George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language". McWhorter's thesis is, that the anti-authoritarian attutide, prevalent to the North American (youth) culture, is responsible for erroding the art of written English.

In supporting this thesis, McWhorter presented plenty of examples from literature and mass media alike. In my opinion, this is an excellent book on trends in (written) American English, and McWhorter's comments are both insightful and humourous, particularly his footnotes.

Despite the richness in evidence, they are merely circumstancial. Nowhere in his book did McWhorter directly discuss the "anti-authoritarian" movement, that was central to his argument. He did, however, admit this shortcoming in various occasions. Most of these examples, in his words, are "symtoms" to a bigger phenomenon. By that, he also implied that Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, and Britney Spears were products, not causes, of said movement.

On two points I would disagree with McWhorter. First is on his discussion on performing operas in translation, of which he is a strong advocate. McWhorter did contradict himself when he rediculed the French language edition of Seinfeld, confirming by belief, that the issue is simply a matter of taste.

The other point is McWhorter's criticism of students preparing for the SAT. Quite clearly, if given the means, McWhorter would propose a more rigorous school curriculum for the English language. The point which he (delibrately) missed, is that these students are preparing not to further their understanding of the language. They will have little understanding of the nuances and the shadings behind the words which McWhorter strived for throughout the book.

Going back to the theme, McWhorter emphasised, that the problem goes much deeper than poor grammar, and he proved the point by writing the entire book with "poor" grammar. Formally written English is higly processed and demands conscious participation from both the writer and the audience. The thinking process stopped with the gradual substituion of spoken English. The people are effectively reduced to a bunch of automatons, effectively throwing their liberty away, an ironic consequence of the counter-culture revolution.

Although McWhorter's opinions are somewhat contraversial, and I do not agree with every one of them wholeheartedly, "Doing our own thing" does make me question the way I perceive the English language, and become conscious of my own thought process.


Postscripts:

1) In response to Mr. Stephen G. Esrati, who commented on the meaning of the word "artful", which Mr. McWhorter generously used throughout said book. All assured, the context of the term in question is perfectly acceptable for this book. In Mr. Esrati's defence, the word "artful" does imply an act of cunning and trickery, indicative of one's mental faculty. This, however, is but one particular aspect of the definition of it's root term "art", and the implication is far from the sinister interpretation provided in Mr. Esrati's review.

2) A lot of people think McWhorter is a sellout for his views on racial issues. I think otherwise. The Chinese identity in America, though emerges much later than the Blacks, is no longer built upon head tax, piggy tails, and laundry stores, and yet we still preserve the core of the Chinese culture. Along the same argument, the Black identity needs not be built upon slavery, violence, and poverty. McWhorter urges others not to yielf to social pressures and break free from the invisible boundage, a struggle that is universal and transparent.

Rating:
Summary: Doesn't deliver
Review: Mr. McWhorter says it is inconceivable that anyone in America today would make a statement such as, "Wow, I love the way she (or he) uses English". But, in fact, that's a close approximation to what I said to myself when I heard Mr. McWhorter interviewed and why I went out and bought his book. Although he documents with trained ease the decline of written and spoken English, I was left with the impression that he's not going to take his hands off the keyboard and do any dirty, heavy lifting to reverse the trend. Makes me think of the young man in the FedEx commercial who has an MBA and doesn't "do shipping". An interesting read but in the end disappointing.

Rating:
Summary: Is it Decline, or is it Just Change?
Review: Putting pen to paper with the same poigniant gusto of a great composer interweaving libretto to music, Mr. McWhorter hath produced such an entertaining writing on writing that little escapes his astute gaze and even less escapes the oppertunity to pique our interest and satisfaction.

Okay, enough with the joke. We do not write like that anymore and this book (notice I just said 'book' rather than 'entertaining writing on writing') tries to explain why that might be - why we've become so much more accustomed to and expectant of an informal style in our writing as the years have gone by.

McWhorter's answer, at the risk of sounding cliche, is that we Americans are not in love with our language anymore and that the sixties are partly the pivot point. The anti-establishment, anti-conformity, and anti-tradition notions of the sixties, he writes, made it beneficial NOT to use the highfalutin (some called it artful) languatge of yesteryear, as it connoted tradition, the establishment, and authority.

For those expecting a piss-fest by McWhorter on this point, you are half wrong and half right by that expectation. While he never out-and-out bemoans the happening (and gladly admits that he is imbued with the sixties informalism as much as anyone else), McWhorter will (possibly inadvertently?!) come off as a bit preachy in this book. He goes through chapter after chapter citing what he exalts as florid and artful prose, only to remind us that we'd never even dream of talking like that today.

In fact, this is where my strongest criticism comes. The book is TOO repetitive in that sense. While citing examples is obviously needed to prove his case (and he does a good job of it) it starts to make the book terribly repetitive after the third chapter. Every chapter save the first, in fact, follows this format: take a slew of examples of what writing (music, oratory, or prose) was like in the past, quote some examples from today, and say, "See, we don't do it like we used to and wouldn't dream of it in this day and age." While I understand why McWhorter does this ad nauseum, when done in such high doses, it tends to make one want to skip chapters as I started feeling I could guess them word for word without reading them.

Now I return to a previous point: McWhorter doesn't do a whole lot of side-taking in this book. In a sense, actually, he oscillates. While he occasionally makes explicit the benefits of informalization of language and reminds us that he has been affected by it as much as anyone else, he also seems, with this book, to be bemoaning the fact that the love for colorful and poetic language of the past is gone today. While it is noble to try and remain this agnostic (or at least, ambivalent) it also becomes a detriment as the reader (at least this reader) thought it made his point less clear than it might have been. Was McWhorter taking a stand on this issue? Was he opining for days of old, or neutrally demonstrating a trend? He seemed to oscillate between them, fully comfortable with neither. While in a sense that is good, in antother sense, it gave his book a lack of direction as we don't know, and never find out, which direction he is trying to go with us.

Thus, the reader that holds this book in their eager hands, holds a book that will exhibit tendencies to simultaneously frustrate and fulminate, to unsettle and entertain, to amuse and bemuse, at the self-same instant, that the reader will find herself....oh, screw it. Just buy the book and see for yourself!

Rating:
Summary: a very bad reason to kill trees
Review: The' author's "polemic" basically consits of numerous, misinformed, tendentious tracts soldered together into a rusty heap. You've heard this spiel before, most likely from your grandparents or parents who just don't get it- that they had their time. This is our era. Our use of language reflects and underlines our differences from those who came before.

I particularly didn't like his seeming dismissal/blanket statement on hip hop. He really ain't down with the brothas, which is not surprising, given that he's a black intellectual, and there's nothing established black academics like more than a long-winded, whingeing harangue about the endemic evils of hip hop Kulture. Ugh. He doesn't even seem to possess much of a knowledge of hip hop artists or their work... Nada... There is much that I find execrable in said culture and in it's major 'artists' but still how can one overlook its myriad unifying and artistic elements... Even I manage not to fall prey to an all-too-easy reductionist formula, which seems to be the The main point here- the author views the degredation of the english Language through the lens of pop culture at large (as a bad thing, mind you), it begins in the evil counterculture 60's and... you know...

Digressive, ranting out-of-context mixed with counter-intuitive psuedo-linguistic gibberish. For example, the author holds up both Dylan and Tom waits as examples of artists who are reverred not for their songwriting abilities, but more for their authenticity, thir 'genuineness'. This is plain false. Laughably false. I've never met a fan of either artist who wasn't struck by their strange and completely idiosyncratic use of language. Moreover, the author seems to feel that pop culture music is driven by whites emulating blacks. True, up to a point. I love this stance, and from Chuck Berry to James Brown to Miles Davis to Funkadelic to Fishbone to Bad Brains, to the innumerable black influences on The Clash, I will never tire of pointing out that, basically, it's all black music. One would think that, at least on some level, this is a good thing... But no, it leads back to the counter-kulture (with a k) ideals that have subverted language...????

HUH?

The saddest thing is that, as a reactionary elitist, I'm inclined to agree with many of the author's basic points. But both his presentation and his defense of his points were so hare-brained and wrong, I just felt sullied. With friends like these...

Rating:
Summary: A Study of America's Linguistic Transition to the Informal
Review: There was a time not long ago in our history when an elaborate command of the English language was considered part of the fabric of American culture. Orator Edward Everett kept a crowd hanging on his every word during his three-hour speech (yes, three hours!) at Gettysburg in 1863 because he was an excellent orator in a time when American society valued excellent orators. Even during the first half of the 20th century, a command of spoken and written English on a level that today would confound many college students was not only required by the time one finished the eighth grade, but was the social norm; ain't so anymore.

In Doing Our Own Thing: The Degradation of Language and Music and Why We Should, Like, Care, John McWhorter examines this cultural decline in the use of high-fallutin English in contemporary America. He shows that people were taught from grade school, whether or not they went on for higher education, to always put the English language in its Sunday best. W.E.B. Du Bois stands out in particular. Du Bois's first assignment in a composition class at Harvard in 1890 was to write about himself. This is what he wrote:

"For the usual purposes of identification I have been labeled in this life: William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, born in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on the day after Washington's birthday, in 1868. I shall room during the present twelve-month at number twenty Flagg Street, Cambridge. As to who I really am, I am much in doubt, and can consequently give little reliable information from casual hints and observations. I doubt not that there are many who could supply better data than the writer. In the midst then of personal uncertainty I can only supply a few alleged facts from memory according to the usual way."

And if that's not enough, he finishes with this closing linguistic zinger:

"I have something to say to the world and I have taken English twelve in order to say it well."

This example speaks volumes about the cultural currency that a high command of English possessed back then, and which no longer exists. Can you imagine anyone writing or speaking like this today and not be viewed as pretentious, arrogant or just plain uppity? What happened to cause American society to no longer value such an elevated command of our language?

The authors shows that the 1960's, which scorned the American Establishment as oppressive and constricting, also caused modern-day America to view the highly stylized English of earlier generations as old-fashioned and morally suspect - hence the linguistic shift from the formal to the informal. Americans of an earlier time went out of their way to write and speak good English, and the gap between written and spoken English was indeed wide. The 1960's (McWhorter puts it around 1965 exactly) changed all that. Now, we just talk - and we write how we talk. Using dressed-up English is just so "old school." This counter-cultural revolution is also reflected in poetry, music and journalism. Furthermore, the author points our how this phenomenon is uniquely American: we just do not love our own language today like other countries love theirs (most notably France).

What new American dialect, then, best embodies this new linguistic counter-cultural paradigm? Why, Black English, of course. McWhorter points out how Americans of all stripes since the 1960's have incorporated Black English and its accompanying body language and vocal cadence into this counter-cultural toolkit. By no means criticizing Black English, he devotes considerable space in chapter five analyzing the cultural meaning of the 1970's funk music hit "Play That Funky Music, White Boy." For the P.C. crowd, try to tell a white guy to "Perform with spiritual dedication the bewitchingly vernacular songs familiar to us, young Caucasian male," and see how far that gets you.

Although the author points out that the natural evolution of language in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, as all world languages evolve, he does point out some important drawbacks to the modern-day tendency to "dress down" English. This can be seen particularly in the modern education establishment, where the emphasis on the formal language acquisition of earlier generations has been all but tossed out the window. This does not bode well for anyone, but it is particularly damaging to black and immigrant schoolchildren.

McWhorter covers a lot of ground in Doing Our Own Thing, giving the reader plenty to chew on. It is a fascinating look into how the 1960's transformed American society from one that spoke the language and held it in high esteem to one in which people just talk. Regrettably, it looks as if this trend in linguistic informality (some would call it pure laziness) will continue.