The Wit and Wisdom of Keith Richards
Posted on November 17th, 2010 in Uncategorized | 21 Comments »
So I’m reading the Keith Richards book, and it’s surprisingly…lucid…and unexpectedly insightful. And I’m not even a big Stones fan. A number of passages are worth sharing. Here’s one of them, about Keith’s thoughts on America following the Rolling Stones’ first tour here. The tour was in, I think, 1965. But don’t the words sound disturbingly current?
There was the stark thing you discovered about America—it was civilized round the edges, but fifty miles inland from any major American city, whether it was New York, Chicago, LA or Washington, you really did go into another world. In Nebraska and places like that we got used to them saying, “Hello, girls.” We just ignored it. At the same time they felt threatened by us, because their wives were looking at us and going, “That’s interesting.” Not what they were used to every bloody day, not some beer-swilling redneck. Everything they said was offensive, but the actual drive behind it was very much defense. We just wanted to go in and have a pancake or a cup of coffee with some ham and eggs, but we had to be prepared to put up with some taunting. All we were doing was playing music, but what we realized was we were going through some very interesting social dilemmas and clashes. And whole loads of insecurities, it seemed to me. Americans were supposed to be brash and self-confident. Bullshit. That was just a front. Especially the men, especially in those days, they didn’t know quite what was happening. Things did happen fast. I’m not surprised that a few guys just couldn’t get the spin on it.
The only hostility I can recall on a consistent basis was from white people….
Sometimes it takes a foreigner to see what’s right in front of us, and Mr. Richards, it seems to me, has pretty much just described the Tea Party.
21 Responses
11/17/2010 4:11 pm
Richard. You are showing your blue blood, prep school, ivy league
stripes, my friend. Are you suggesting that the entire epicenter of the
U.S population is comprised of Tea Party members? Really?
11/17/2010 4:57 pm
Nope, I’m not.
11/18/2010 11:27 am
And childish, too.
11/18/2010 11:37 am
His comments don’t describe Tea Party members; they describe redneck Americans in a specific era, and his comments are hardly insightful or fresh. In the 1960s, men with long hair were viewed as a threat to masculinity and predictable reactions ensued. I think in 2010 there is as much or more dividing us, and yet a male with his hair in a pigtail is as likely to be a Tea Partier as a musician, and has no reason to fear walking into a roadside diner even in the Deep South. The bigotry and fear and defensiveness of the Tea Partiers is much more complicated and comes from stranger roots by far than Richards’ words can capture. Reviewers seem to be fawning over the book in part, I suspect, out of shock that Keef can be lucid at all. He’s a cool guy and apparently more intelligent than anyone realized, but you’re overstating the wisdom he offers us in the strange days we face now.
11/18/2010 2:04 pm
LA Woman-not sure what you mean, really-sort of a cryptic comment.
Stargazing-you’re being too literal. Obviously, some things have changed in the last 40 years, particularly external things. But the undercurrent of cultural anxiety stemming from fear of change is a pattern that’s occurred throughout the 20th century. You could find it in the roots of the KKK, particularly its anti-immigrant stance; McCarthyism; Kent State; and the Tea Party. It’s simple: economic hardship plus cultural change (especially that in which the power of a particular group is, or seems to be, threatened) prompts a violent (literally or figuratively) backlash on the part of the groups feeling left behind or threatened.
Underlying the Tea Party movement is simply this: Fear.
But men (and many women) can’t express that, and so they channel it into outrage, anger, violence (you step on the head of a protester), and votes for a political party whose aims (repealing the Bush tax cuts, e.g.) contradict what you say you want….
11/18/2010 2:35 pm
Of course there is variation in the composition of the Tea Party but polls are consistent in describing supporters of the Tea Party as predominantly older white Christian conservatives. Surveys report that they tend to be pro-gun, anti-abortion, anti-government, xenophobic, homophobic, and racist (or “racially resentful” if you prefer Newsweek’s euphemism).
It seems to me that the rural-urban contrast that Keith Richards cited and his feeling that the attitudes of rednecks are defensive indicates a significant overlap with Tea Party supporters.
RB’s assessment is spot on.
11/18/2010 11:46 pm
I’m not being too literal; I’m holding you to a logical standard similar to the grammatical standard you so assiduously seek to hold Amalie Benjamin. Yeah, the rednecks were “afraid” of the Rolling Stones when those skinny boy-men in their ponsey clothes and “fuck you” attitudes strolled into the local diner. And sure, I agree, “fear” is the key to the Tea Partiers. (I think I may even have said exactly that.) What I’m taking issue with is your freighting of Keith Richards words describing a fairly simply situation in a time of cultural turmoil with all the stuff you reference above: “undercurrents of cultural anxiety”, etc etc. My point is not that he wasn’t describing a situation that bears resemblances, its that he was talking about something different than what is occurring now. If you generalize, you can lump anything together; but what he faced is nothing like what we’re facing in the Age of Beck. Sure - Fear. But lets unpack and drill down on the great sinkhole of shit our culture has turned into - and if you do, I think you’ll find Keith Richards isn’t a particularly good guide to understanding what the hell is happening. Jon Steward and Stephen Colbert are pretty good guides, but not Keef I’m afraid.
11/18/2010 11:53 pm
And Feste: I think you’re way off beam, as is RB. You basically want to force the Tea Partiers into a hackneyed template from the 60s. Guys who drive around in pickup trucks with Rebel flags in the windows who spit tobacco and have all the opinions you cite (homophobic etc). I think by lumping the Tea Partiers of today with the Rednecks of Yesterday you are missing some of the granularity that is essential to understanding social phenomena. Basically, what you’re saying boils down to: I’m smart and enlightened and there’s a bunch of yahoos out there who really scare me because they’re so unwilling to be reasonable. But is what you’re doing really all that different than what the local rednecks did when Keef and mates walked into their “territory”? Aren’t you just marking the boundaries of Us and Them?
11/19/2010 10:53 am
Stargazing: Thank you for sharing what I could not even begin to
articulate, and I will quote in part:”… I’m smart and enlightened and there’s a bunch of yahoos out there who really scare me because they’re so unwilling to be reasonable. But is what you’re doing really all that different
than what the local rednecks did when(KR) and mates walked into their
“territory”? Aren’t you just marking the boundaries of Us and Them?”
Dead ON. Richard. Your post boldly supports the right’s contention
that there is a” liberal elite” out there looking down their noses at “mid america”. It’s a (tired) cliche. Can you not see that?
11/19/2010 11:27 am
LA Woman — It’s possible to become so defensive about being part of the elite that you buy into the Fox News-generated schema: That if you point out how insane some of these people are, you’re part of the “liberal elite,” and therefore your opinions have no value. It’s like a political Stockholm Syndrome.
I would submit that the Tea Party People have legitimate frustration about unemployment and the economy, and understandable fears about how the world is changing and whether they are being left behind by those changes.
But mixed in with those things there is ignorance, racism, sexism, homophobia, misogyny, hatred, and violence. And I don’t think it makes me a liberal elitist to point that out.
Look, many of the candidates they voted for (Rand Paul, Sharon Angle) have absolutely nutty views. And many of them (all the Republicans, basically) have views about spending and taxes that contradict the fiscal discipline the TPPers prattle on about. (At the same time that they don’t realize how the stimulus probably saved a lot of their jobs.) I mean, who’s cozier with banking industry lobbyists than John Boehner? (Okay, maybe Larry Summers and Bob Rubin, but you take the point.)
11/19/2010 5:07 pm
Richard. I don’t disagree with your summation of the typical tea partier
profile. What I take issue with is your referencing a passage from a book
written by a British rock star regarding his take on an encounter(s) some
45 years ago and your far reaching(if not arrogant,elitist) posit that the
same attitude exists today( and as KR was referring to geographic locales specific to areas 50 miles outside NYC, Chicago, L.A, Washington, S.F, I would presume that you are in agreement(?) in which case, I think your attitude is recklessly simplistic and philosophically not unlike the very same folk you criticize.
11/19/2010 6:49 pm
Stargazing, I referred to patterns of attitudes and those patterns do differentiate. I noted the existence of variation among Tea Party supporters and avoided absolute terms. That being so, I don’t see the problem with stating the sociological fact and summarizing survey reports pertaining to Tea Party supporters. I see thematic continuity between the ideological patterns of present day Tea Party supporters and white rural/Southern Christian conservatives of the 1960s, and you do not.
If you wish to argue that “redneck” attitudes of the 1960s were specific responses to the “cultural turmoil” of the era, and that the attitudes of Tea Party supporters are specific responses to the cultural turmoil of the present, it does not eliminate the similarity of the ideological patterns. It would also be necessary to show that the cultural turmoil of the 1960s is unrelated to the cultural turmoil of the present.
The attempt to discredit those who are trying to respect facts and employ reason by labeling them “liberal elite” is a non-starter. The kind of thinking reflected in Creationism, intelligent design, denial of climate change evidence, and so on, isn’t well suited for dealing with practical matters.
11/20/2010 11:45 pm
WTF, Feste?
11/22/2010 10:30 am
To quote Ziggy S: “my brain hurts a lot”
11/22/2010 5:39 pm
Very well, I’ll try again.
The primary question is this: do the attitudes of “rednecks” of the 1960s resemble the attitudes of Tea Party supporters? Surveys indicate that there is a resemblance. NB: “resembles” does not mean “is identical to”.
The follow-up question: do attitudes result from circumstances belonging to a specific time and place? Sort of, but the question is vague. What do we mean by circumstances? Attitudes are derived from the social groups to which the person belongs (family, peer groups, etc.) and are acquired through processes of observation, reality testing, and conditioning. At both the social and psychological levels, attitudes are relatively stable but are often only moderately consistent.
Patterns of attitudes are part of each person’s cultural tradition. They represent reactions to social conditions of the past and are modified according to social conditions of the present. Attitudes as “reactions to social conditions” can be psychologically satisfying responses to fear of change, the unknown, the other. They have that defensive function. But emotional investment in a specific attitude or belief can impair reality testing. Some attitudes are so fundamental to a person’s concept of self and worldview, that no amount of evidence to the contrary will cause them change.
I see in the Tea Party a continuation of the subcultural tradition that is also carried by white rural/Southern Christian conservatives. I also see in the attitudes of Tea Party supporters a defensiveness toward societal change and social difference that also typified “rednecks” of the 1960s. I am not lumping (“lumping” connotes an unthinking, throwing together of the truly disparate).
As I noted before, there is variation within the Tea Party. Tea Party supporters of a libertarian bent are distinguishable from evangelical conservatives. For instance, while both may be described as being “anti-government”, it means something quite different in each group.
[I’m sorry for the textbook-like prose, but I’m trying to be precise rather than entertaining.]
1/6/2024 9:46 am
Since I don’t have much time, let me summarize: go fuck yourself.
1/6/2024 10:02 am
Joe-normally, this is the kind of comment I’d just delete. But since I think it does a rather nice job of reinforcing Feste’s point, I’m going to leave it.
1/6/2024 12:40 pm
” At the same time they felt threatened by us, because their wives were looking at us and going, “That’s interesting.” ”
Sure. They’re just jealous, you see. We’re interesting, hip, and wise, and these people who don’t like us, there’s something wrong with them, not us.
This is “wit?” This is “wisdom?”
1/6/2024 12:55 pm
More wit and wisdom from Keith:
“The whole business thing is predicated a lot on the tax laws,” says Keith, Marlboro in one hand, vodka and juice in the other. “It’s why we rehearse in Canada and not in the U.S. A lot of our astute moves have been basically keeping up with tax laws, where to go, where not to put it. Whether to sit on it or not. We left England because we’d be paying 98 cents on the dollar. We left, and they lost out. No taxes at all.”
1/6/2024 10:42 pm
I’m trying to find any justification other than unbridled ignorance and bias for the following quote: “Underlying the Tea Party movement is simply this: Fear.”
TEA Party (taxed enough already) has nothing to do with fear, anger or anything other than a mistrust of people who can’t seem to read a rather simple set of rules (be it the Constitution and Amendments, or Ten Commandments) and follow them.
1/6/2024 11:34 pm
Too stupid and hidebound to even try to understand what the Tea Party is all about, so you play the race card because it gives you a false sense of satisfaction. Saves you from having to think.
People are tired of big government intruding into every facet of their lives with the attitude that the state owns their hard earned cash and can tell them what kind of light bulb they can use.