U2 is the perfect band for a moment when people want the good news first and the bad news never. The only serious act in music today is the guy who’s never serious, the only socially interesting rapper is the one who denies all social value for his music: Eminem. If you actually listen to his lyrics, you find he has much higher moral standards than the average hack who dutifully files a Sunday column to denounce him. Every question raised by his music-–the industry’s manipulation of kids, the effects of violent fantasy, the pills, the fans–-he deals with in a more sophisticated manner than the press does, most importantly the question of freedom of expression.
Most people don’t understand that freedom of expression only begins when you disagree. We need not invoke it to protect things like Britney Spears cooing and wagging her ass in a schoolgirl skirt and asking to be hit, then telling all the magazines she’s a virgin and sharing her make-up secrets. We don’t need to call out the National Guard to defend the secret labs and operating rooms where Frankensluts like Christina Aguilera are pieced together and set loose on the world. Promiscuous teens and strippers are the mainstay of daytime television, where they brawl with their moms and are sent to Montel’s boot camp to be verbally abused by a sergeant until they break down in tears. Teen starlets play wholesome roles in prime-time and do acne commercials in a towel until the day finally comes when they can take off their shirts at the cineplex for one last big paycheck before oblivion.
To me, Eminem is as American as Bugs Bunny and Friday the 13th. Seen in the context of our hypersexualized culture, the problem is clearly not that he’s obscene but that he speaks the truth. The censors who object to words like "bitch" and "faggot" are really objecting to the idea that a poor kid from Detroit should be given a public voice. They are objecting to freedom of expression for people who actually talk like that. It’s like when a ruling power tries to extinguish the language and culture of a colonized people, replacing Gaelic, Hindi or Swahili with English, only in this case it’s one English for another, the English of hard and ugly truths being replaced with that of politeness, hypocrisy and lies.
To the educated classes, words are everything. A few harsh words or images can shatter their delicate nerves. Eminem, in contrast, does not believe that words cause violence; he believes in individual responsibility. Parents jump when he just says boo, giving themselves away as humorless cowards. They don’t give kids enough credit to think they can tell the difference between a put-on and the real thing. I’m not sure they know the difference themselves.
In 1999’s “Guilty Conscience,” Eminem and Dr. Dre play the devil and angel on the shoulder of three men, one about to rob a convenience store, another planning to drug a young girl for sex, and a third who has just caught his wife in bed with another man and wants to kill her. It’s one of the many songs in which Eminem puts Dre down right to his face. Dre is the voice of reason, while Eminem argues that it’s okay to kill the cashier because she herself couldn’t care less if you live or die, to screw the girl because fifteen is past puberty, and to cut off your wife’s head if she decides to cheat on you. Sure, it’s scary, but it’s important to remember Eminem is the guy who wrote the song, both parts, not just the one he plays. Attacking him for it would be like trying to burn Arthur Miller at the stake for writing a play about witches. Because of his honesty and intensity, Eminem paints the devil as a self-portrait; because of society’s hypocrisy, they blame him for what he sees when he looks at the world. Regardless of the bad or good advice it contains, the real message of the song is to think before you act.
“Drug Ballad” presents both sides of the drug question so fully it’s practically an anti-drug song, warning of spinal damage from ecstasy and alcohol poisoning. The famous song in which he brutally kills his wife, “Kim,” is such a terrifying representation of madness, emotional confusion and the obsessiveness of love that the actual physical violence in it is relatively inconsequential. Drugs and murder are anything but cool here. Instead of preaching at us to try to love everyone, Eminem reminds us that loving anyone too much can drive you insane and destroy you.
The liberals who blame porno and rap for the social ills they portray simply don’t want to look at the problem. Their solution to poverty is to not see, hear or speak of it, and to ban the words required to do so. Don’t ask, don’t tell could replace E Pluribus Unum as our national motto, and our flag would show a broom sweeping unpleasant thoughts under the edge of a lifted rug.
Politicians betray their lack of faith in democracy when they try to shut a viewpoint down instead of engaging with it. In France Chirac is afraid to debate Le Pen. Why not meet him face-to-face and say race is a myth, immigrants make valuable contributions and the solution to unemployment is to create new jobs rather than expelling foreigners?
Racism is a serious problem, but it is nothing compared to the genuine threat of a legislated state morality eliminating all personal freedoms. The American mind is in periodic danger of being shut down in the name of child safety by a hysterically overconcerned group of parents, teachers and Washington wives. Prejudice should be fought with education, not used as a pretext for censorship.
We can’t outlaw hatred with the stroke of a pen, and perhaps we shouldn’t even try. In the end it might even turn out we need it for something. As Emerson said, “The doctrine of hatred must be preached as the counteraction of the doctrine of love when that pules and whines.” What fakers like the Beatles and U2 give us is an unearned idea of love, a cynical lie peddled by born sell-outs. Their religion of instant love is a fraud, as is the image of a world of love without hatred.
Next page: A New Kind of National Anthem
