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this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2024
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Wow, what a terrible article. The author doesn't engage with any of the substantive points Radiohead and Nick Cave are making, he just disparages them and insists on his obvious moral superiority. It's dressed up in some, admittedly, very nice writing, but this is just childish name calling.
Still, interesting read. Thanks for sharing.
It's a hit piece on musicians for playing in a country the writer hates. Also it's not even clear that they've played in Israel in the past two years... quotes from Nick Cave were from 2022 and the quote from Radiohead is from 2017.
It's really ugly when people are researching anyone that has ever been to Israel so they can target them for a hit piece. Like what's going on here?
Thom Yorke's quote seems reasonable:
I mean yeah, was it morally wrong to visit the US when Trump was President? Was it wrong to go to the US while the Iraq war was happening and people were being tortured in GitMo? Is it wrong to go to the US now?
Yeah, the point that the musicians seem to be making, from the very brief quotes he shares (I haven't been following this independently), is about the efficacy of music boycotts as a tool for political change. You can object to a nation's political actions and still think that performing music for your fans in that country will make things better.
The author just insists that Israeli government genocide is bad and that the ordinary citizens are complicit. I think the implicit logic must be: bad people should be punished, depriving them of music punishes them. While it might satisfy a craving to hurt the bad guys, I think it's much harder to claim that this would help stop the genocide.
I think the musicians have a stronger case that actually performing would be more likely to change people's minds and improve the situation. Plus the broader benefits of keeping music and art apolitical, rather than trying to make everything in life a tool for political manipulation. I'd have actually been really interested to hear some substantive arguments about those points, but was disappointed to discover that, as you say, it was just a hit piece.
Yeah I feel like Radiohead cancelling a tour date in Tel Aviv isn't going to result in Netanyahu making compromises at the bargaining table. It's just guys like Roger Waters (a tankie Putin simp) thinking they're more important than they really are. It's sort of like that time Dennis Rodman went to north Korea or Sean Penn went to Iraq to try to negotiate deals with various authoritarians. Just celebrities with big egos thinking they matter in an area where they're way out of their element. Play music for your fans in Israel or don't play music there, either way it doesn't change anything.
Honestly I think the whole "the world needs to turn against all of Israel" idea is doing more harm than good. Expressing hatred towards an entire country doesn't facilitate negotiation.
It's because the mindset of the people who make these types of arguments is rooted in childish ideas about human behaviour. It's why younger people in particular are so big on cancel culture, because they still believe that taking away the toys magically changes the behaviour of adults out in the real world. What actually happens when you cut people off completely is that you lose access to all the outlets through which you can begin or maintain a dialogue. Who do these people turn to when you're no longer talking to them? The culture warriors never get this far because they lack the life experience to understand how to navigate difficult relationships. Social media has unfortunately contributed significantly to the spread of this infantile mindset where "the world is full of good people and bad people, and if we disagree about something then you're clearly one of the bad people and I am no longer talking to you".
I very much agree with your take. I wish mature-thinkers had more influence on contemporary politics, instead of the populism and black-and-white moralising that seems to be dominating our world.
Also, the quality of discussion on lemmy is surprisingly good!