The article, in spite of the somewhat annoying expectation that Iron Maiden should have the answers to class warfare writ large in their lyrics (made all the more annoying by the author’s presumption that those answers would have to lead them directly to Leninism), rang fairly true for me. Iron Maiden, despite Steve Harris’ assertions that his band doesn’t do politics, still do seem to allow social themes to seep into their songs, which can be incredibly deep at points. Many of their songs come off very much as anti-war, anti-colonialism and anti-greed – and they do occasionally give vent to some conservative sexual ethics (on songs like ‘22 Acacia Avenue’, for example). A good example of their reaction to the rampant usury and speculation that heralded the 2007 financial crisis comes in on their most recent album (The Final Frontier) in ‘El Dorado’:
I just love that line, ‘I’m just a clever banker’s face, with just a letter out of place’. Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith are incredibly witty songwriters, as is Steve Harris – just one of the many, many virtues of Iron Maiden as a band. And of course, there is the broadly anti-war tone of songs like ‘For the Greater Good of God’ and ‘The Trooper’:
Naturally, the reason I got into Iron Maiden had more to do with my Anglophilia than with their political views. But a highly interesting article all the same; puts a fresh perspective on the band for me. Up the Irons, friends!
Political and social themes in Iron Maiden's music and lyrics? Who would have thought it.
ReplyDeleteDid see them a couple of times in the early 80s, were very good.
Welcome, Chris! Thanks for the comment!
ReplyDeleteI would have loved to have seen Maiden in the '80's, particularly during their Number of the Beast and Powerslave eras! Their more recent stage performances are still packed full of energy, but I still kind of feel like I was born about twenty years too late... :D
Very interesting. Regarding the Histomat article, I found this passage very intriguing
ReplyDelete"There was therefore always a tension in 'Romantic anti-capitalism' - it hated the new system of wage slavery but had no idea about what to replace it with and so just idealized pre-capitalist relations of production, harking back to a mythical 'golden age' where everyone supposedly lived together in harmony and peace."
I actually think this is true of some (but not all) Distributists and similar Romantic anti-capitalists, especially those who refuse to recognize any significant role for the State in modern economies. I would not mind being wrong, but I think there will likely have to continue to be a major role for the State in most advanced industrial economies, even if all or most private enterprises were transformed into cooperatives or small businesses. I suspect we would still need Keynesian macroeconomic policy, for example.
That being said, I think Marxists are much too dismissive of other strands of anti-capitalism, especially given the track record of actual Marxist regimes. Simply saying that those states were "distorted" or not "really communist" is not good enough in my mind, as some libertarians make similar claims about historical capitalism.
Additionally, the critique of "medievalist romanticism" is often abused both in politics and in music. I hate hearing music critics use terms like "Dungeons and Dragons" to essentially put down lyrics that do not conform to what they expect from rock bands.
Sorry for the rant.
Hi John! Welcome back, and no problem about the rant! :D
ReplyDeleteDistributism, I think, is somewhat prone to over-romanticising the past and yearning for a stateless future. But then again, both libertarianism and Marxism do exactly the same thing: libertarians, particularly American libertarians, attach practically religious importance to the Founding Fathers and long for a return (basically) to the Articles of Confederation; whereas Marxists tend to romanticise historical figures (like Spartacus) and point to a 'scientific' end to the state after the revolution.
Modern distributism at its best (and I'm thinking John Médaille and Jeremiah Bannister here, primarily) has a realistic view of the state: it should be present, it should be active, it should be interventionist, but it should be normatively (as well as institutionally) bound by the civil society.
I should say, though, that I don't particularly mind it when critics label bands or types of music with 'Dungeons and Dragons' (or 'Lord of the Rings', for that matter) - that's as good a sign as any that I will like it!
All the best,
M