{"id":31899,"date":"2012-11-19T12:45:58","date_gmt":"2012-11-19T18:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=31899"},"modified":"2012-12-02T21:52:53","modified_gmt":"2012-12-03T03:52:53","slug":"bruce-springsteen-is-americas-greatest-conservative-songwriter-part-ii-yapping-in-the-back-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=31899","title":{"rendered":"Bruce Springsteen Is America&#8217;s Greatest Conservative Songwriter, Part II:  Yapping In The Back Seat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Before I get into the beef of the series, it seems I need to do a little remedial art appreciation, logic and rhetoric.<\/p>\n<p>For starters, my thesis, and the case I&#8217;m making, is &#8220;Why Bruce Springsteen is America&#8217;s Greatest Conservative Songwriter&#8221;. \u00a0Not &#8220;Bruce Springsteen is a Conservative&#8221;. \u00a0He&#8217;s not. \u00a0That&#8217;s all duly noted and stipulated in advance.<\/p>\n<p>Not &#8220;Everything Bruce Springsteen Has Ever Written Resonates with Conservatives&#8221;. \u00a0It does not. \u00a0Merely most of his best stuff.<\/p>\n<p>But as Socrates showed us a few millennia back, the best way to teach is to ask and to answer. \u00a0In other words, it&#8217;s time for one of my Frequently Asked Questions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>&#8220;But Springsteen is a teh liberal!&#8221;<\/strong>: It doesn&#8217;t matter even a little. \u00a0The series isn&#8217;t about him or his personal politics. \u00a0They are, in fact, utterly irrelevant. \u00a0Art is in the eye of the beholder. \u00a0Many conservatives find resonance, even inspiration, in his music, though; this series merely explains why.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8220;But what if Teh Boss himself were to tell you you were wrong?&#8221;<\/strong>: \u00a0Again, doesn&#8217;t matter. \u00a0It&#8217;s not about him. \u00a0It&#8217;s about what he wrote.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8220;What does Nate Silver say?&#8221;<\/strong>: \u00a0Nothing.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8220;Don&#8217;t be teh smartass. \u00a0You know what I mean. \u00a0How can you empirically prove your thesis?&#8221;<\/strong>: \u00a0There is no &#8220;empiricism&#8221; in art criticism. \u00a0It&#8217;s stating a critical case for a subjective point.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8220;You are just trying to make teh music fit your intellectual template&#8221;<\/strong>: \u00a0Nope. \u00a0I&#8217;m stating a case for why the music not only fits my worldview, but reinforces it.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8220;But did you ever REALLY listen to it?&#8221;<\/strong>: \u00a0As we&#8217;ll see in coming days, clearly, more than you have. \u00a0Whoever you are.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>OK. \u00a0Wednesday or Thursday, we&#8217;ll get into the fun stuff!<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Before I get into the beef of the series, it seems I need to do a little remedial art appreciation, logic and rhetoric. For starters, my thesis, and the case I&#8217;m making, is &#8220;Why Bruce Springsteen is America&#8217;s Greatest Conservative Songwriter&#8221;. \u00a0Not &#8220;Bruce Springsteen is a Conservative&#8221;. \u00a0He&#8217;s not. \u00a0That&#8217;s all duly noted and stipulated [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,14],"tags":[240,172],"class_list":["post-31899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatism","category-music","tag-conservatism-and-springsteen","tag-springsteen"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31899"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31901,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31899\/revisions\/31901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}