When I was 12 years old, there were my parents a
small turntable and 5 vinyl records: Charles Aznavour, Enrico Macias, Claude
François and Yves Montand. Today, my 12 year old son collects in its I.pad more
than 1000 titles (jazz, pop, rock, techno). However, culture Minister Aurélie
Filipetti quietly considers that culture is not compatible with the market.
Certainly, it is not the first stupidity from socialists. But the problem is
that they hold all the powers in France.
For my part, I consider that culture is not
compatible with the power that involves coercion, submission, and monopoly. An
artist, to be accepted by the market, must find its audience. Then the
Socialists tell me that the public is not educated. But is it not yet the State
who has the mission and the monopoly of the education of the masses?
Forgive me,
Madam Minister, but the Beatles, Elvis Presley, Pink Floyd, or Michaël Jackson
were born in capitalist countries where people are free and not socialist
regimes where people are "educated"... or interned. At no time, these
artists have begged grant (from whom by the way?) and they are simply gone to
meet the public, rooms after rooms, concert after concert, that they have
conquered forever
In the 1970s, Swedish intellectuals castigated the
pop group Abba because this group earned money doing disco. What a horror! It
is true that the global success of the Group was such that record sales have
helped to redress the balance of trade of the Sweden. But for the Socialists,
Abba won the money, which was not compatible with the culture. Today, forty
years later, every night in London sold-out musical Mamamia that stages the
songs of Abba, and nobody more because of the musical contribution of this
group is played. Even the lead singer of the group U2 paid them a vibrating tribute.
But the Socialists have always been in this area, very ambivalent. They are
always lionized the people, believing speak on his behalf, but they are the
first to denigrate its choices and cultural tastes. It is true that people
prefer listening to the Disco that Pierre Boulez.
In fact, if
feeding is a physiological need, how to meet this vital need is also a cultural
Act, because eating is an art of living. However, there is a market for
McDonalds, and there is a market for the French or Italian gastronomy. Thanks
to globalization, in London, Paris, Perpignan, can be found Chinese, Thai,
Lebanese or Corsica cuisine. We have never had such diversity. Yet, there are
always beautiful minds to assert that globalization destroys cultural
diversity. But the narrow minds believe that the world is narrow so that's
their vision of the world which is reducing
We always talk about the linguistic imperialism to
hide our structural inability to modern languages. Under the Roman Empire, the
artists spoke Latin. At the Court of Louis XIV or the Tsar, artists and
thinkers expressed themselves in French. Today, it is suicidal to exclude oneself
from English language. John Lennon stated one day, under the Roman Empire, the
cultural center was in Rome but that today ' today, he was in New York. Then
our singers official, internationally unrecognized, hide behind the cultural
exception, away from broadcasting quotas and subsidies, citing the language
barrier and the beauty of the French language (which they happily massacre, by
the way).
But Maurice Chevallier, Charles Trenet, Charles
Aznavour, or Yves Montand had a global career, punctuated by numerous U.S.
tours where they did promote the French language. Americans love them as they
recently loved Jean Dujardin in The Artist. Elton John himself had great
admiration for Michel Berger.
In fact, markets are plural while the State
combines with the singular. There are markets for the "pinard" (cheap
ordinary wine) and there are markets for great Bordeaux. And these markets are
not closed because according to his desires and circumstances, the same person
can taste and appreciate all these products. It is in music or film majors and
more confidential labels.
One invokes
then the American hegemon. But Hollywood is a very small town and the directory
of professionals of American cinema is not as big as the directory of the
Pyrénées-Orientales. Moreover, at the time when in France Lumières brothers
invented the film unit, Italian immigrants founded in Hollywood film studios
while a stranger named Walt Disney, in his Studio, photographed drawings to
produce snow white, the first cartoon feature. Since the Disney empire invented
the first tourist amusement parks and has switched to digital with the purchase
of Pixar studios..
I am told that the culture is not merchandise. It
is true and it is even trite! But the access to culture would be the mere fact
of an elite privileged without the widespread use of its materials that are
DVDs, books or digital. However, the production and distribution of materials
(cultural products) obey logic of the market, to our great benefit to all.
Similarly, thanks to Japanese companies, electric guitars are now accessible to
everyone, in particular children, while only professional guitarists may offer
the dream of playing on a Gibson or a Fender. By the way, I'll challenge you to
find me a French company that manufactures electric guitars (or any other
instrument or equipment of music besides). It is an inexhaustible source of
jobs (but it really wants to work in France while it struggles to suffocate one
by one all the deposits of jobs).
However, as always, the State is very contradictory
on this subject. When the concert place price is exorbitant, it will denounce
the market and the dictatorship of money which excludes the poorest (it takes
so the defense of the consumer). But when you can now download movies or music,
it will denounce this free which threatens the earnings of artists (and
therefore defends the producer). Artists are workers like any other and must
therefore live their working lifetime (concerts, performing arts) that can
never download while the widest possible dissemination of works allows to know
artists.
Should I finally remind our Minister of culture
that the first major literary work, the Iliad and the Odyssey, which staged the
war, love, and Cyclops and sirens, was written to entertain people (make dream,
frighten them, make them cry) and not to flatter the powerful.
The Socialists are so blind by ideology that they
refuse to see the reality of the world as it is, preferring to impose their
world as they dream it. But the dream of some often turns into a nightmare for
others. In the National Socialist regime, the official art was to flatter the
Reich and the Fuhrer while the heretical books were burned. In the Soviet
Socialist regime (of socialism), the official art was to celebrate the
proletarian revolution and the hard work in the service of the objectives of
the plan (Stakhanovism). Should I recall finally that the 'cultural' revolution
initiated by Mao was to run Chinese intellectuals while in Parisian salons,
intellectuals were defending Maoism? In fact, the assessment of cultural
socialism is also distressing that scary. However, official history textbooks
do teach little, preferring to fantasize about "liberal horror”.
The official art has left nothing beautiful
(everything was even ugly) as the official science or official information
leads to propaganda, the opposite of knowledge. Over the centuries, only faith,
passion and freedom were the most powerful artistic sources of inspiration and
creativity, and they are never compatible with the ideology, power and
monopoly. You will understand when Socialists speak of economy, they make the
Economist that I am pounce; but when they talk about culture, they make the
musician that I remain scream!
