Legions of Americans have, rightly, written off the entertainment and academic industries (yes, the latter is <\/i>a colossal industry) as the culture\u2019s two largest bastions of leftist ideology.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, however, and when we least expect it, the prevailing \u201cPolitically Correct\u201d (PC)\u00a0orthodoxy is challenged from within its sacred precincts<\/i>.<\/p>\n
The other night I attended a performance of Songs for a New World, <\/i>an \u201cabstract musical\u201dby Jason Robert Brown that was originally an off-Broadway production back in the 1990\u2019s.\u00a0 While Pat Cohill, a professor of theater and one of my colleagues, is to be commended for her masterful adaption of Songs <\/i>to the stage of Burlington County College, it isn\u2019t only for aesthetic reasons that she deserves a tip of the hat.<\/p>\n
With one stroke, Pat (whether deliberately or not, I don\u2019t know) dropped two birds with one stone in reminding this college community that neither the world of academia nor <\/i>that of entertainment need follow the same PC script, a template according to which human conduct is all too often reduced to being the plaything of \u201csocial structures,\u201d \u201cthe system,\u201d \u201csociety,\u201d etc.<\/p>\n
Songs, <\/i>you see, is a resounding affirmation of what the conservative philosopher Michael Oakeshott called \u201cthe morality ofindividuality,\u201d <\/i>the belief that human beings are first and foremost individuals <\/i>distinguished on account of their capacity to make and to delight in making their own choices.\u00a0 <\/i>From this standpoint, Oakeshott informs us, \u201cmorality consists in the recognition of individual personality whenever it appears.\u201d\u00a0 He adds that \u201cpersonality is so far sacrosanct that no man has either a right or a duty to promote the moral perfection of another,\u201d for in promoting \u201ctheir \u2018good\u2019\u201d we inevitably destroy \u201ctheir \u2018freedom\u2019 which is the condition of moral goodness.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even though Songs <\/i>has no overarching plot, its various scenes and characters are <\/i>united by a common theme\u2014\u201cthe moment of decision, the point at which you transition from the old to the new.\u201d\u00a0 Hence, the play\u2019s title: Songs for a New World.<\/i><\/p>\n
The first scene, \u201cOn the Deck of a Spanish Sailing Ship, 1492,\u201d supplies both a frame of reference and a metaphor for the rest of the production. Though the turning point experienced by the pioneers of 1492 was multifaceted, the matrix of the changes they would inevitably undergo was geographical: <\/i>those on board those Spanish sailing ships left the old world of Europe for the new world of the Americas.\u00a0 However, the old and new worlds of the rest of the play\u2019s characters\u2014not unlike the old and new worlds of most us\u2014are emotional and intellectual in character.<\/p>\n
Still, the significance of the use that Songs <\/i>makes of those old Spanish sailing ships cannot be overstated.<\/p>\n
First, for quite some time, leftist activists of various sorts\u2014particularly those in Hollywood and academia\u2014have been laboring long and hard to reduce Columbus and the explorers of 1492 to a one-dimensional, cartoonish caricature of evil. That Songs <\/i>not only refuses to endorse this nonsense but actually holds up the voyagers as an emblem<\/i> of individuality is remarkably refreshing.<\/p>\n
It is true that some critics have speculated that those on board the Spanish sailing ships were Jewish refugees who had been expelled from Spain.\u00a0 Yet there is no evidence for this. It was the Americas\u2014<\/i>not any of the lands of North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe to which the Jews were forced to flee\u2014that were first regarded by Columbus and the explorers as \u201cthe New World.\u201d\u00a0 That Columbus is mentioned by name in another of the numbers of Songs <\/i>further weakens the Jewish refugee interpretation.<\/p>\n
Second, this opening number also shows the explorers praying to God<\/i>! Though not explicitly invoked throughout all of the play\u2019s numbers, the invocation of God at the outset of Songs <\/i>sets a tone for all that follows.\u00a0 God, even when not acknowledged, is a source of hope and strength in every \u201cmoment of decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Finally, the use of the imagery of the Spanish sailing ships of 1492 underscores the point that every lover of liberty aches to see impressed upon the world: the exercise of individuality, the making of choices, is, or at least should be seen as, an epic moral adventure in character building.\u00a0 Every individual is an explorer on board his or her own sailing ship.\u00a0 <\/i>The seas of life, its infinite possibilities, lay in wait of discovery.<\/p>\n
When the arts\u2014and academia\u2014buck the PC tide and affirm the morality of individuality, as they did recently courtesy of my colleague, it should be recognized and celebrated.<\/p>\n
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Legions of Americans have, rightly, written off the entertainment and academic industries (yes, the latter is a colossal industry) as the culture\u2019s two largest bastions of leftist ideology. Sometimes, however, and when we least expect it, the prevailing \u201cPolitically Correct\u201d (PC)\u00a0orthodoxy is challenged from within its sacred precincts. The other night I attended a performance…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n