Taylor's Eros across the Eras. Credit: John Shearer/Getty
The scene at the ship’s bow in Titanic is so iconic it has spawned innumerable homages and pastiches. But would the fictionalised love story between Jack and Rose carry the same iconic power, had their relationship not been doomed? Would Romeo and Juliet be bywords for romantic intensity, had they not tragically ended their lives in the flush of youthful passion?
It’s common knowledge that women like love stories. And those which gain iconic status tend toward tragedy. Why? Is it just that tragedy speaks to the emotional intensity of being young? I’m staid and middle-aged now, but I remember the exquisite agony of teenage unrequited love, not to mention the perverse draw of sexual liaisons too edgy, kinky, or otherwise intense to last.
What’s less well-recognised is that this kind of emotional intensity, and the motif of doomed passion that serves as its carrier, has roots in a thousand-year-old religious schism. And while its origin story has been largely forgotten, the spiritual hunger it encodes lives on in a perplexing trait often seen in the young, and perhaps especially young women: a craving for romantic transcendence that’s difficult to distinguish from self-destruction.
Nowhere does this kamikaze mysticism hide more flagrantly and influentially in plain sight than in the wildly popular music of Taylor Swift, and the worldwide cult of “Swifties” she has inspired. The only artist in pop history to occupy all of the Top Ten single slots at the same time, Swift more recently racked up four simultaneous Top Ten albums. She has spawned “Swiftogeddon” all-Taylor club nights; the internet swirls with footage of “Swifties” singing in unison; there is even a Taylor Swift-themed university course. Even someone as square as I am can quote lyrics from more than one of her songs. Taylor Swift is a phenomenon.
So what is it about her work that so captivates the young women who form the backbone of her fanbase? Crucially, I think, her love songs don’t tend to be about relationships that end well. A few — “Mine” and “Love Story” for instance — describe happy endings. But by and large even her requited ones are upbeat only when describing the first flush of infatuation, as in “Enchanted“, “Fearless“, and “Ready For It?“.
Instead of inclining towards the happy ever after, Swiftian passion comes with its own doom baked in: an assumption that, for any number of reasons, the high won’t last. “Delicate” is a stuttering, anxious hymn to the fear that declaring your feelings will destroy a budding romance. “Endgame” captures both the longing to be someone’s “happy ever after” and, implicitly, the expectation that this the dream will turn sour.
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SubscribeMs. Harrington is one of our very best writers and thinkers (anywhere in our present time) but this submission is a bridge to far. To much naval gazing… Swift is a marketing genius and a good writer for her audience as far as it goes. That’s it. Thant’s all…
Another MH fan here, but I agree with your comment. The analysis felt a bit forced to me. The thematic thread trying to link the Albigensian Heresy, Taylor Swift and choking sex was stretched to breaking point.
I think the analysis is still in transition. Its hard to shirk your youthful exuberance fully in one go.
I also agree, but I don’t think it’s navel gazing as much as misdirected intellectualisation.
I would argue that, i. cult happenings such as the Albegensians & Cathars take off at a certain time and place because primitive men-tal and emotional tendencies have been activated by circumstances; and ii. the tendency amonst young women in this instance is self abnegation for love.
For survival of the species purposes females are generally, naturally inclined to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their offspring, ie, love. Right now in the 21st century the trend, if not the convention, is the opposite of this natural inclination. Be selfish, put yourself first, you deserve it, prioritise your career, women’s rights etc. But the underlying natural tendency for self sacrifice needs an outlet, and it’s likely going to be dramatic and highly emotional in expression, hence the popularity of Swift’s songs.
It may be atavistic in another way as well. For thousands of years men were much more likely to die a violent death than today and perhaps sorrowful songs were a cultural, psychological preparation and/or expression of such a loss. Thay are laments.
That’s my view on this anyway.
*It’s interesting that the very few Anglo-Saxon poems from a woman’s point of view (we do not know if any of them were in fact written by women) are similarly romantic and tragic.
Or, whatchacall a “reach.” Nevertheless, gotta hand it to Taylor. She is what the Beatles were when I was in my late teens.
I think the analysis is still in transition. Its hard to shirk your youthful exuberance fully in one go.
I also agree, but I don’t think it’s navel gazing as much as misdirected intellectualisation.
I would argue that, i. cult happenings such as the Albegensians & Cathars take off at a certain time and place because primitive men-tal and emotional tendencies have been activated by circumstances; and ii. the tendency amonst young women in this instance is self abnegation for love.
For survival of the species purposes females are generally, naturally inclined to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their offspring, ie, love. Right now in the 21st century the trend, if not the convention, is the opposite of this natural inclination. Be selfish, put yourself first, you deserve it, prioritise your career, women’s rights etc. But the underlying natural tendency for self sacrifice needs an outlet, and it’s likely going to be dramatic and highly emotional in expression, hence the popularity of Swift’s songs.
It may be atavistic in another way as well. For thousands of years men were much more likely to die a violent death than today and perhaps sorrowful songs were a cultural, psychological preparation and/or expression of such a loss. Thay are laments.
That’s my view on this anyway.
*It’s interesting that the very few Anglo-Saxon poems from a woman’s point of view (we do not know if any of them were in fact written by women) are similarly romantic and tragic.
Or, whatchacall a “reach.” Nevertheless, gotta hand it to Taylor. She is what the Beatles were when I was in my late teens.
I disagree. It’s too easy to dismiss the article as “navel-gazing”. What MH is seeking to put her finger on is something deeper than what Swift does, and there’s no doubt that young women are having problems accommodating themselves to the demands of their bodies, ever more commodified by social media. In doing so, it’s only natural for the author to look to the historical origins of what popular culture calls “love” (or lurve, as some would have it). It’s the same youthful lifeforce that the Beatles tapped into with their early hits, sending masses of teenage girls into hysterics. This should be examined to be better understood; or we can just carry on hand-wringing about the problems young women are now presenting with in ever greater numbers.
Along with the realisation that their physical form can give birth to new life, the opposing potentiality may arise, i.e. to choose not to do so, or fail to do so should they die; hence the heightened stakes brought about by being choked. The reference to the Cathars becomes relevant due to their separating the physical body from its spirit; the echoes with gender identities in today’s culture is intentional, as something perhaps intrinsic to humans which the internet has now further unleashed, perhaps as a direct result of the heightened consciousness it brings.
We’d dismiss this analysis at our peril.
Excellent perspective!
I agree Steve
Very good, we need the interpreter of MH on board!
Excellent perspective!
I agree Steve
Very good, we need the interpreter of MH on board!
Agreed, this isn’t her best work. Doomed love allows people to keep the fantasy alive of “what if?” rather than accepting things were never going to work out. I remember Zizek’s take on the ending of Titanic, suggesting that rather than letting Jack go, Rose pushes him away. He was from an lower social class, a completely unacceptable match, and now she was free to go marry her fiancé and sort out her family financial problems as planned. The death of Jack allows her to keep the fantasy alive while carrying on with life as normal.
As an aside Mary should read R.I. Moore’s The War on Heresy as her knowledge on the Cathars and their persecution is rather out of date. Modern scholarship suggests that the image of them being a sect of gnostic quasi-Manichees was concocted by the Parisian scholastics and inquisition as support for intervention by the French monarch, with approval from the Papacy, into the lands of the languedoc. What resulted was what Raphael Lemkin called Europe’s first genocide.
‘Agreed, this isn’t her best work. Doomed love allows people to keep the fantasy alive of “what if?” rather than accepting things were never going to work out.’
It also avoids that fact that when a relationship does “work out,” it lasts for undramatic decades.
Is it modern scholarship that can’t decide who’s a woman – or is it more substantial than that?
‘Agreed, this isn’t her best work. Doomed love allows people to keep the fantasy alive of “what if?” rather than accepting things were never going to work out.’
It also avoids that fact that when a relationship does “work out,” it lasts for undramatic decades.
Is it modern scholarship that can’t decide who’s a woman – or is it more substantial than that?
I disagree, but then perhaps I am more interested in the esoteric than most posters here.
I’m pretty much with Matt, this is pretentious guff not befitting one of UnHerd’s best writers.
Then you’re missing the point spectacularly. This isn’t just about Taylor Swift or “love”, but something much deeper in the human psyche, and if that isn’t befitting Unherd i don’t know what is.
My gripe with MH is that she puts it on the Albigensian heresy, as if young women of the prior 100,000 years had different biologies and would not have experienced teenage angst as intensely.
Who knew that young women are highly emotional, subject to ups and downs, and some can’t get over it, and may be driven to suicide?
No news.
Playing ‘three degrees of Kevin Bacon’ with pop culture and obscure historical events is a pseud’s parlour-game. I didn’t ‘spectacularly miss’ anything, thanks.
My gripe with MH is that she puts it on the Albigensian heresy, as if young women of the prior 100,000 years had different biologies and would not have experienced teenage angst as intensely.
Who knew that young women are highly emotional, subject to ups and downs, and some can’t get over it, and may be driven to suicide?
No news.
Playing ‘three degrees of Kevin Bacon’ with pop culture and obscure historical events is a pseud’s parlour-game. I didn’t ‘spectacularly miss’ anything, thanks.
Then you’re missing the point spectacularly. This isn’t just about Taylor Swift or “love”, but something much deeper in the human psyche, and if that isn’t befitting Unherd i don’t know what is.
It does seem something of a stretch, but the Swift phenomenon is real and ought to be taken seriously. And this is taking it seriously. What’s more, it is quite interesting.
I think it’s nothing more than the physical/mental addiction to the euphoric feeling that new love brings. Sort of narcissistic, actually.
And there was before Taylor Swift, Allanis Morrisette, Janis Joplin, Patty Smith to some extent, and Françoise Hardy. All wrote similar songs to Swift at some point and young lasses in their generations were drawn to their angst. It is nothing new. Think original fairy tales before there were recordings. It has all been done before and has little to do with the Cathars or any other specific group, I suspect. It has more to do with female puberty and how young girls/women deal with it.
And don’t forget Elvis Presley who still draws the crowds. What’s that all about?
Elvis’ singing is one long mating call.
Yes please.
Yes please.
Elvis’ singing is one long mating call.
I can go back a couple more millennia with that list but I’m glad you mentioned Françoise Hardy because she is underrated, almost unknown to Americans, and very much on point in this discussion.
I think young women being emotional, craving love, making mistakes in the pursuit of it, and writing sad songs about losing it is a universal in human life.
I agree with you. I spent a considerable amount of my youth (long time ago) mourning a lost love, a young man, who I had dumped not the other way round. It was as if I preferred to create a situation of unattainable love for myself, rather than experience the reality of a relationship I was not ready for.
I agree with you. I spent a considerable amount of my youth (long time ago) mourning a lost love, a young man, who I had dumped not the other way round. It was as if I preferred to create a situation of unattainable love for myself, rather than experience the reality of a relationship I was not ready for.
And don’t forget Elvis Presley who still draws the crowds. What’s that all about?
I can go back a couple more millennia with that list but I’m glad you mentioned Françoise Hardy because she is underrated, almost unknown to Americans, and very much on point in this discussion.
I think young women being emotional, craving love, making mistakes in the pursuit of it, and writing sad songs about losing it is a universal in human life.
Exactly. Wot’s it all about, Alfie?
I think it’s nothing more than the physical/mental addiction to the euphoric feeling that new love brings. Sort of narcissistic, actually.
And there was before Taylor Swift, Allanis Morrisette, Janis Joplin, Patty Smith to some extent, and Françoise Hardy. All wrote similar songs to Swift at some point and young lasses in their generations were drawn to their angst. It is nothing new. Think original fairy tales before there were recordings. It has all been done before and has little to do with the Cathars or any other specific group, I suspect. It has more to do with female puberty and how young girls/women deal with it.
Exactly. Wot’s it all about, Alfie?
Harrington isn’t “navel gazing” here. She’s on the mark. First, she’s not writing about one pop singer so much as about eros in the West. Second, all of us are too likely to universalize our culture’s understanding of “romantic love” because we are inside it—and all the more so because the West has now spread it globally. But our understanding of love and passion, from the Middle Ages to Shakespeare all the way to Hollywood and pop, is particular.
In fact “romantic love” is called such precisely because of *romance*, a literary genre of the Middle Ages. And that genre has just the roots Harrington indicates, and it grounds a framing of love and sex that we’re still, surprisingly, living out. That it’s shaped western culture through and through is what makes it very possible for someone like Taylor Swift to both live through it and write popular lyrics reflecting it without ever having studied Catharism or the Troubadors. Because it’s the air we breathe. More or less, in terms of love, it’s our very idea of “lyrics”.
I’ve now spent half my adult life living in a non-western culture. From this distance, the particularity of the West is more tangible, visible. Our eros is arranged differently than, say, Chinese eros or even ancient Greece’s eros. They too would have found our “romantic” foreign. We maybe would do well to start finding it foreign ourselves—or at least recognizing it as just one possible framing.
BTW, Denis de Rougemont’s book, *Love in the Western World*, is well worth the trouble.
But not all young girls buy into this romance. It solely depends on ones upbringing and experience. I remember being completely turned off by romance, romantic novels and music and girls’ magazines when I was a teenager and still feel the same today. Personally, I put this and religion in the same bucket, fantasy to keep the populace in its place and easier to manage!!
There wouldn’t be the longing and intensity of romantic love without hormones.
But not all young girls buy into this romance. It solely depends on ones upbringing and experience. I remember being completely turned off by romance, romantic novels and music and girls’ magazines when I was a teenager and still feel the same today. Personally, I put this and religion in the same bucket, fantasy to keep the populace in its place and easier to manage!!
There wouldn’t be the longing and intensity of romantic love without hormones.
I hear a lot about her but have never heard any of her songs.
It’s worth checking her out on youtube just to get a feel for what it’s all about.
It’s worth checking her out on youtube just to get a feel for what it’s all about.
Perhaps it’s like being a good comedian? Sometimes you overstep the line.
I’m quite sure my parents’ divorce (and Taylor Swift’s commercial success) had sweet FA to do with the Cathars. But I’ll run the theory past them.
Far too dismissive. The obvious question is why does she focus so strongly focus on the theme of doomed destructive passionate love? To say it is down to marketing simply begs the further question as to why the market, mainly of girls and young women, is so enamoured by thes subject?
Yes Mary seems a bit jealous .
Comparing the Massacre at Montsegur to
problems with modern women !!
Maybe pick on that pop star
who sang in a catholic cathedral about killing boys .
Another MH fan here, but I agree with your comment. The analysis felt a bit forced to me. The thematic thread trying to link the Albigensian Heresy, Taylor Swift and choking sex was stretched to breaking point.
I disagree. It’s too easy to dismiss the article as “navel-gazing”. What MH is seeking to put her finger on is something deeper than what Swift does, and there’s no doubt that young women are having problems accommodating themselves to the demands of their bodies, ever more commodified by social media. In doing so, it’s only natural for the author to look to the historical origins of what popular culture calls “love” (or lurve, as some would have it). It’s the same youthful lifeforce that the Beatles tapped into with their early hits, sending masses of teenage girls into hysterics. This should be examined to be better understood; or we can just carry on hand-wringing about the problems young women are now presenting with in ever greater numbers.
Along with the realisation that their physical form can give birth to new life, the opposing potentiality may arise, i.e. to choose not to do so, or fail to do so should they die; hence the heightened stakes brought about by being choked. The reference to the Cathars becomes relevant due to their separating the physical body from its spirit; the echoes with gender identities in today’s culture is intentional, as something perhaps intrinsic to humans which the internet has now further unleashed, perhaps as a direct result of the heightened consciousness it brings.
We’d dismiss this analysis at our peril.
Agreed, this isn’t her best work. Doomed love allows people to keep the fantasy alive of “what if?” rather than accepting things were never going to work out. I remember Zizek’s take on the ending of Titanic, suggesting that rather than letting Jack go, Rose pushes him away. He was from an lower social class, a completely unacceptable match, and now she was free to go marry her fiancé and sort out her family financial problems as planned. The death of Jack allows her to keep the fantasy alive while carrying on with life as normal.
As an aside Mary should read R.I. Moore’s The War on Heresy as her knowledge on the Cathars and their persecution is rather out of date. Modern scholarship suggests that the image of them being a sect of gnostic quasi-Manichees was concocted by the Parisian scholastics and inquisition as support for intervention by the French monarch, with approval from the Papacy, into the lands of the languedoc. What resulted was what Raphael Lemkin called Europe’s first genocide.
I disagree, but then perhaps I am more interested in the esoteric than most posters here.
I’m pretty much with Matt, this is pretentious guff not befitting one of UnHerd’s best writers.
It does seem something of a stretch, but the Swift phenomenon is real and ought to be taken seriously. And this is taking it seriously. What’s more, it is quite interesting.
Harrington isn’t “navel gazing” here. She’s on the mark. First, she’s not writing about one pop singer so much as about eros in the West. Second, all of us are too likely to universalize our culture’s understanding of “romantic love” because we are inside it—and all the more so because the West has now spread it globally. But our understanding of love and passion, from the Middle Ages to Shakespeare all the way to Hollywood and pop, is particular.
In fact “romantic love” is called such precisely because of *romance*, a literary genre of the Middle Ages. And that genre has just the roots Harrington indicates, and it grounds a framing of love and sex that we’re still, surprisingly, living out. That it’s shaped western culture through and through is what makes it very possible for someone like Taylor Swift to both live through it and write popular lyrics reflecting it without ever having studied Catharism or the Troubadors. Because it’s the air we breathe. More or less, in terms of love, it’s our very idea of “lyrics”.
I’ve now spent half my adult life living in a non-western culture. From this distance, the particularity of the West is more tangible, visible. Our eros is arranged differently than, say, Chinese eros or even ancient Greece’s eros. They too would have found our “romantic” foreign. We maybe would do well to start finding it foreign ourselves—or at least recognizing it as just one possible framing.
BTW, Denis de Rougemont’s book, *Love in the Western World*, is well worth the trouble.
I hear a lot about her but have never heard any of her songs.
Perhaps it’s like being a good comedian? Sometimes you overstep the line.
I’m quite sure my parents’ divorce (and Taylor Swift’s commercial success) had sweet FA to do with the Cathars. But I’ll run the theory past them.
Far too dismissive. The obvious question is why does she focus so strongly focus on the theme of doomed destructive passionate love? To say it is down to marketing simply begs the further question as to why the market, mainly of girls and young women, is so enamoured by thes subject?
Yes Mary seems a bit jealous .
Comparing the Massacre at Montsegur to
problems with modern women !!
Maybe pick on that pop star
who sang in a catholic cathedral about killing boys .
Ms. Harrington is one of our very best writers and thinkers (anywhere in our present time) but this submission is a bridge to far. To much naval gazing… Swift is a marketing genius and a good writer for her audience as far as it goes. That’s it. Thant’s all…
While I applaud managing to get the Albigensian Crusade and Taylor Swift into the same article, I am not sure I am buying this one. Classical literature had plenty of doomed romances, e.g. Aeneas and Dido, Jason and Medea, Helen and Paris (as well as stories of deeply committed marriages surviving against the odds, e.g. Odysseus and Penelope). So the evidence is really that the pagan ladies liked a good doomed romance as much as the modern ones.
Exactly what I was going to say.
If only she could have found a way to include unrequited love some have for their lousy football teams.
Well said.
Yes, I think that Harrington was over her skis on this one even though it’s fun to link the Albigensian Crusade and the Taylor Swift Crusade across eight centuries of romantic literature and song. Romance has its roots in biology and we find it in every ancient culture – although, admittedly, the 13th century French made a fine art of it.
Exactly what I was going to say.
If only she could have found a way to include unrequited love some have for their lousy football teams.
Well said.
Yes, I think that Harrington was over her skis on this one even though it’s fun to link the Albigensian Crusade and the Taylor Swift Crusade across eight centuries of romantic literature and song. Romance has its roots in biology and we find it in every ancient culture – although, admittedly, the 13th century French made a fine art of it.
While I applaud managing to get the Albigensian Crusade and Taylor Swift into the same article, I am not sure I am buying this one. Classical literature had plenty of doomed romances, e.g. Aeneas and Dido, Jason and Medea, Helen and Paris (as well as stories of deeply committed marriages surviving against the odds, e.g. Odysseus and Penelope). So the evidence is really that the pagan ladies liked a good doomed romance as much as the modern ones.
I’m more pursuaded by an alternative hypothesis (Simon May’s Love: A History) that c18th century, as atheism started to become a real possibility, people began seeking in other humans what they formerly had known could only be found in God, namely unconditional love.
That impossibility from mere humans, now a standard request, leads to a disenchantment with love, and then, in turn, a perverse love of the void itself. Which in an inverse way is unconditional, disinterestedly negating all without regard.
I appreciate this hypothesis myself and I am glad you mentioned it, because there’s a word for placing faith in the human rather than the divine. I speak, of course, of humanism, which fails to persuade me on any level, requiring as it does a leap of faith far greater than the hokiest religion, the notion that humans collectively or individually stand at the pinnacle of understanding, presumably by virtue of their being the only things we know of capable of said understanding. That we are the makers of our own destiny, gods of the universe by default due to the fact that we can’t objectively define or directly and reliably perceive any other with our meager faculties at this moment. A sort of let’s have faith in ourselves because that’s the only thing we have right now, a metaphysical cop out. As a highly logical person, I will never understand how any serious thinker ever conceived of this idea or what its appeal is. It’s the highest form of hubris, objectively disprovable by any serious person looking at the evidence of history and present human behavior. Humans are obviously imperfect, flawed. Our perception is clearly quite limited and there is demonstrably much more in the universe than we presently understand or will at any foreseeable point in the future. Humanism is a philosophy for infantile minds who cannot or will not look or accept anything beyond the small corner of reality that is human understanding. The only philosophies I consider logically valid, i.e. they don’t require accepting things that can be objectively disproved, are the religions, whose tenets of faith are clearly stated and must be accepted on faith as beyond human reasoning and understanding, and true nihilism, love of the void in its purest form, a belief in nothing, that everything returns to nothing, the meaning of life is nothing, the universe itself in total means nothing, our experiences count for nothing, there is no good, no evil, no rules, and no reason at all for me to listen or pay any heed to anything but my own desires. If you want an example of the practical implications of this philosophy, watch some Rick and Morty, which explores the implications of nihilism in an infinite universe pretty well. I don’t personally ascribe to nihilism myself, but I concede that it is at the very least logically consistent, which is more than I can say for humanism in any form.
Do you feel a bit better now having got that off your chest!
I feel quite the same actually. That was an exercise in evidence based reasoning and simple logic. You clearly believe religion is irrational. That viewpoint is justifiable. Humanism, however, is just as irrational with the disadvantage of not conforming to the available evidence. My complaints are towards humanism as a philosophy, and those who advertise it as ‘scientific’, ‘evidence based’, etc., and superior to religion, a claim which does not stand up to logic. If people would call it the religion that it in fact is, I would have no issue with it, as we’re all entitled to our own faith, however ridiculous, in this thing we call life. Further, as I said, nihilism is a perfectly consistent and valid viewpoint that does not require a belief in the divine, or anything else really. I can respect those who adhere to it. Humanists strike me as the type who want the morality, rules, charity, values, etc. that accompany religion without the need to believe in things they can’t see, touch, measure, or personally understand, a view that makes no sense because we can see the universe is huge and what we know and understand is some infinitesimal fraction of the whole. There is quite a bit that we know that we do not know, and who knows how many things we haven’t even conceived of yet, plus those things that might be forever beyond human perception or measure with any gadget, device, or method. If you are a humanist, you’ll just have to accept that I find your religion as ridiculous and irrational as you find mine, and agree to disagree, and there’s nothing particularly wrong with that. Further, if you have some serious intellectual argument to make, let’s hear it, because snarky comments only make you look like a troll and rather prove my point about infantile minds.
That’s a rather snarky comment at the end there Steve (misnamed Jolly). Actually, I don’t aspire to any of the “isms” or any kind of religion, and I’m not a follower, so I suppose I’m a bit hard to pin down.
Granted, but mine is at the end of a fairly lengthy paragraph of explanation, not tacked on to someone else’s argument like a schoolyard taunt. Also, good for you not subscribing to any ‘isms’. Most of them are just religions masquerading as something else to appeal to those who are hostile to religion in general, of whom there are understandably a great many.
Granted, but mine is at the end of a fairly lengthy paragraph of explanation, not tacked on to someone else’s argument like a schoolyard taunt. Also, good for you not subscribing to any ‘isms’. Most of them are just religions masquerading as something else to appeal to those who are hostile to religion in general, of whom there are understandably a great many.
That’s a rather snarky comment at the end there Steve (misnamed Jolly). Actually, I don’t aspire to any of the “isms” or any kind of religion, and I’m not a follower, so I suppose I’m a bit hard to pin down.
I feel quite the same actually. That was an exercise in evidence based reasoning and simple logic. You clearly believe religion is irrational. That viewpoint is justifiable. Humanism, however, is just as irrational with the disadvantage of not conforming to the available evidence. My complaints are towards humanism as a philosophy, and those who advertise it as ‘scientific’, ‘evidence based’, etc., and superior to religion, a claim which does not stand up to logic. If people would call it the religion that it in fact is, I would have no issue with it, as we’re all entitled to our own faith, however ridiculous, in this thing we call life. Further, as I said, nihilism is a perfectly consistent and valid viewpoint that does not require a belief in the divine, or anything else really. I can respect those who adhere to it. Humanists strike me as the type who want the morality, rules, charity, values, etc. that accompany religion without the need to believe in things they can’t see, touch, measure, or personally understand, a view that makes no sense because we can see the universe is huge and what we know and understand is some infinitesimal fraction of the whole. There is quite a bit that we know that we do not know, and who knows how many things we haven’t even conceived of yet, plus those things that might be forever beyond human perception or measure with any gadget, device, or method. If you are a humanist, you’ll just have to accept that I find your religion as ridiculous and irrational as you find mine, and agree to disagree, and there’s nothing particularly wrong with that. Further, if you have some serious intellectual argument to make, let’s hear it, because snarky comments only make you look like a troll and rather prove my point about infantile minds.
Do you feel a bit better now having got that off your chest!
But thinking you’re getting unconditional love from a god is a fantasy. It never gets tested. Same with Jesus because he’s dead. The dead can’t disappoint.
Jesus isn’t dead. That’s the whole point of the Christian faith – He has conquered death.
Jesus isn’t dead. That’s the whole point of the Christian faith – He has conquered death.
I appreciate this hypothesis myself and I am glad you mentioned it, because there’s a word for placing faith in the human rather than the divine. I speak, of course, of humanism, which fails to persuade me on any level, requiring as it does a leap of faith far greater than the hokiest religion, the notion that humans collectively or individually stand at the pinnacle of understanding, presumably by virtue of their being the only things we know of capable of said understanding. That we are the makers of our own destiny, gods of the universe by default due to the fact that we can’t objectively define or directly and reliably perceive any other with our meager faculties at this moment. A sort of let’s have faith in ourselves because that’s the only thing we have right now, a metaphysical cop out. As a highly logical person, I will never understand how any serious thinker ever conceived of this idea or what its appeal is. It’s the highest form of hubris, objectively disprovable by any serious person looking at the evidence of history and present human behavior. Humans are obviously imperfect, flawed. Our perception is clearly quite limited and there is demonstrably much more in the universe than we presently understand or will at any foreseeable point in the future. Humanism is a philosophy for infantile minds who cannot or will not look or accept anything beyond the small corner of reality that is human understanding. The only philosophies I consider logically valid, i.e. they don’t require accepting things that can be objectively disproved, are the religions, whose tenets of faith are clearly stated and must be accepted on faith as beyond human reasoning and understanding, and true nihilism, love of the void in its purest form, a belief in nothing, that everything returns to nothing, the meaning of life is nothing, the universe itself in total means nothing, our experiences count for nothing, there is no good, no evil, no rules, and no reason at all for me to listen or pay any heed to anything but my own desires. If you want an example of the practical implications of this philosophy, watch some Rick and Morty, which explores the implications of nihilism in an infinite universe pretty well. I don’t personally ascribe to nihilism myself, but I concede that it is at the very least logically consistent, which is more than I can say for humanism in any form.
But thinking you’re getting unconditional love from a god is a fantasy. It never gets tested. Same with Jesus because he’s dead. The dead can’t disappoint.
I’m more pursuaded by an alternative hypothesis (Simon May’s Love: A History) that c18th century, as atheism started to become a real possibility, people began seeking in other humans what they formerly had known could only be found in God, namely unconditional love.
That impossibility from mere humans, now a standard request, leads to a disenchantment with love, and then, in turn, a perverse love of the void itself. Which in an inverse way is unconditional, disinterestedly negating all without regard.
Note to self… be open-minded and listen to another Taylor Swift song. I listened to one once and never felt the urge again.
I clicked on a couple of links in the article.
Nah, just sounds like bubblegum pop.
Won’t bother again.
It is hard for rock gals!
It’s also hard for rock guys. If I’m going to pay attention to a current pop star, it will be Lana Del Rey – at least she’s weird like the rockers of old, and says things that make you feel uncomfortable.
It’s also hard for rock guys. If I’m going to pay attention to a current pop star, it will be Lana Del Rey – at least she’s weird like the rockers of old, and says things that make you feel uncomfortable.
It is hard for rock gals!
I’d stick with your first urge Lesley.
You’ve taken the road less traveled, it seems.
I clicked on a couple of links in the article.
Nah, just sounds like bubblegum pop.
Won’t bother again.
I’d stick with your first urge Lesley.
You’ve taken the road less traveled, it seems.
Note to self… be open-minded and listen to another Taylor Swift song. I listened to one once and never felt the urge again.
Did the a Knights Templar really participate in the Albigensian Crusade?
Pope Innocent III seems not to have invoked either the aid of the Templars nor the Hospitallers during the Albigensian crusade, and their involvement in the fighting in southern France appears to have been minimal.
They are mentioned only three times in the ‘Chanson de la croisade albigeoise,’ and of these references only one occurs in a completely military context.
The Cathars just weren’t the right type of enemy, particularly when there were still plenty of Muslims left in the so called Holy Land.
Indeed, the main fighting force was led by Anglo-French nobility like Simon de Montfort, who were very eager for the opportunity to acquire lands in that region with both Papal and Royal approval.
In short, a massive land grab by the ‘north’ on the ‘south’ might be a better way of describing it, rather than sanctifying it with the word Crusade!
In short, a massive land grab by the ‘north’ on the ‘south’ might be a better way of describing it, rather than sanctifying it with the word Crusade!
Indeed, the main fighting force was led by Anglo-French nobility like Simon de Montfort, who were very eager for the opportunity to acquire lands in that region with both Papal and Royal approval.
Did the a Knights Templar really participate in the Albigensian Crusade?
Pope Innocent III seems not to have invoked either the aid of the Templars nor the Hospitallers during the Albigensian crusade, and their involvement in the fighting in southern France appears to have been minimal.
They are mentioned only three times in the ‘Chanson de la croisade albigeoise,’ and of these references only one occurs in a completely military context.
The Cathars just weren’t the right type of enemy, particularly when there were still plenty of Muslims left in the so called Holy Land.
I know exactly what you mean here. I am religious though, and I could funnel my desire for communion, union, self-destruction, abnegation into…religion, where it can be channeled.
St. Therese of Lisieux explains it better than I do…check her out. She had suitably dramatic life. Her mother died when she was three, she was raised by her extremely religious sisters in 1890s France, and then followed them into the convent where she died of tuberculosis at 24. She finds ways to channel these feelings into prayer and devotion…but also into doing chores without complaining and being nice to annoying people. These are good goals for the religious and non-religious alike.
She was bonkers. Running round the convent yelling for joy when she realised she was about to die? Potty as a fruit cake.
She was bonkers. Running round the convent yelling for joy when she realised she was about to die? Potty as a fruit cake.
I know exactly what you mean here. I am religious though, and I could funnel my desire for communion, union, self-destruction, abnegation into…religion, where it can be channeled.
St. Therese of Lisieux explains it better than I do…check her out. She had suitably dramatic life. Her mother died when she was three, she was raised by her extremely religious sisters in 1890s France, and then followed them into the convent where she died of tuberculosis at 24. She finds ways to channel these feelings into prayer and devotion…but also into doing chores without complaining and being nice to annoying people. These are good goals for the religious and non-religious alike.
This article uses a protracted and doubtful historical reach to comment upon a present day pop star, making her into an emblematic figure that “illuminates our darkness”.
I thought that from a routine conservative perspective the world began unraveling at a breakneck speed in about 1963, or for one prominent commenter here, 1914. But now that’s been rolled back to 1014?
Before that, I guess that several centuries of retreat to monasteries and convents, with many extreme ascetics seeking sainthood by perching on pillars for years or self-flagellating all the livelong day, was a life-affirming time of great bodily acceptance. Let’s also look past the doom cult that surrounded the approach of the year 1000 AD.
Must everything be used as a symbol of inexorable, unidirectional decay from some Golden or at least Bronze age, and into a tinfoil and plastic wrap present that will itself be recalled fondly by some in 20 years?
From what I’ve seen of their poems, some troubadours also had strong physical appetites, with an appreciation of womanly charms and other real-world beauties, not just some idealized courtly death wish. Many were not devoid of (often-vulgar) humor. I think this also-ran effort by Ms. Harrington shows that she could take a page or two from the more humane, hopeful, and humorous lyrics of the troubadours. Hyper-romantic pop songs don’t “deny” relief to their listeners, they provide escape, perhaps of a trivial or unhelpful kind, and often at a particular time in the (often) youthful listener’s life.
Let’s not pack ourselves into rotten boxes of “lost virtue!” and “dreadful decay!”, by imagining that people were happier and more sensible in some general way in the year 1962, 1913, or 999.
“I thought that from a routine conservative perspective the world began unraveling at a breakneck speed in about 1963, or for one prominent commenter here, 1914. But now that’s been rolled back to 1014?”
Things went to pot circa 800 BC. The moment the Iliad was written down it was all over bar the shouting.
Ah, the Plato and Socrates era argument: “We’re losing our oral tradition! Now let me write down an enduring dialogue that banishes poets from The Republic”.
I thought that sexual intercourse began in nineteen hundred and sixty-three, which was rather late for me, between the end of the Chatterley ban and the Beatles’ first LP.
Ah, the Plato and Socrates era argument: “We’re losing our oral tradition! Now let me write down an enduring dialogue that banishes poets from The Republic”.
I thought that sexual intercourse began in nineteen hundred and sixty-three, which was rather late for me, between the end of the Chatterley ban and the Beatles’ first LP.
1962 was a very good year for many of us.
Taylor Swift is a modern phenomenon. Her mastery of marketing is astonishing, her music is not especially special, and yet millions of people desperately await her next rendition. She says woke things, and yet lives a lifestyle that seems to contradict them. And her personal morality doesn’t line up one bit with the emotions and expression of the tragedy of relationship loss which she peddles in her songs. And yet still they fork out ridiculous sums of money to get her records and go to her concerts.
“I thought that from a routine conservative perspective the world began unraveling at a breakneck speed in about 1963, or for one prominent commenter here, 1914. But now that’s been rolled back to 1014?”
Things went to pot circa 800 BC. The moment the Iliad was written down it was all over bar the shouting.
1962 was a very good year for many of us.
Taylor Swift is a modern phenomenon. Her mastery of marketing is astonishing, her music is not especially special, and yet millions of people desperately await her next rendition. She says woke things, and yet lives a lifestyle that seems to contradict them. And her personal morality doesn’t line up one bit with the emotions and expression of the tragedy of relationship loss which she peddles in her songs. And yet still they fork out ridiculous sums of money to get her records and go to her concerts.
This article uses a protracted and doubtful historical reach to comment upon a present day pop star, making her into an emblematic figure that “illuminates our darkness”.
I thought that from a routine conservative perspective the world began unraveling at a breakneck speed in about 1963, or for one prominent commenter here, 1914. But now that’s been rolled back to 1014?
Before that, I guess that several centuries of retreat to monasteries and convents, with many extreme ascetics seeking sainthood by perching on pillars for years or self-flagellating all the livelong day, was a life-affirming time of great bodily acceptance. Let’s also look past the doom cult that surrounded the approach of the year 1000 AD.
Must everything be used as a symbol of inexorable, unidirectional decay from some Golden or at least Bronze age, and into a tinfoil and plastic wrap present that will itself be recalled fondly by some in 20 years?
From what I’ve seen of their poems, some troubadours also had strong physical appetites, with an appreciation of womanly charms and other real-world beauties, not just some idealized courtly death wish. Many were not devoid of (often-vulgar) humor. I think this also-ran effort by Ms. Harrington shows that she could take a page or two from the more humane, hopeful, and humorous lyrics of the troubadours. Hyper-romantic pop songs don’t “deny” relief to their listeners, they provide escape, perhaps of a trivial or unhelpful kind, and often at a particular time in the (often) youthful listener’s life.
Let’s not pack ourselves into rotten boxes of “lost virtue!” and “dreadful decay!”, by imagining that people were happier and more sensible in some general way in the year 1962, 1913, or 999.
This is plain old Gnosticism.
I had the thought that maybe Harrington should just surrender to old-fashioned, institutional faith–if not outright mysticism–since she seems so fascinated by it from a distance, and disaffected with most present-day secular realities.
Nah.
Nah.
I had the thought that maybe Harrington should just surrender to old-fashioned, institutional faith–if not outright mysticism–since she seems so fascinated by it from a distance, and disaffected with most present-day secular realities.
This is plain old Gnosticism.
Taylor Swift provides (for profit, of course) the soundtrack to contemporary psychopathy. What else can it be? Her music is all skin, no meat—all dolled-up to the nines, wearing its best evening gown, with nothing on underneath. An archetype of “high culture” in which all obsessed therewith can find some chameleonic shard of their idealized “truth.” It is a never-ending, putrid panoply of shallow impressions, of sideways glances at the urinal, of sparkling green astroturf. It’s a nexus—a utopia—where all strands of all things composing falsity eventually meet, and from there resume their normal weave, underpinning the rotting corpse of the American Dream. Her music is perfect. It’s contemporary. It expresses, never treading a step past the purely-oblique, the entirety of the 21st century experience, where the most powerful force is the economic transaction…
… or something.
Either way, I think Taylor Swift is gross, and I think this article is great.
Just looking at Taylor Swift it’s hard to imagine she experiences any deep feelings. She’s always so fresh and perky and virginal looking, except for the ever present blood red lipstick that looks like she’s playing dress up.
I thought that about Debbie Reynolds a half century earlier, but I was wrong. People have inner lives that we don’t get to see (and usually shouldn’t try to).
I thought that about Debbie Reynolds a half century earlier, but I was wrong. People have inner lives that we don’t get to see (and usually shouldn’t try to).
Excellent description. You just forgot to point out her moral turpitude.
Just looking at Taylor Swift it’s hard to imagine she experiences any deep feelings. She’s always so fresh and perky and virginal looking, except for the ever present blood red lipstick that looks like she’s playing dress up.
Excellent description. You just forgot to point out her moral turpitude.
Taylor Swift provides (for profit, of course) the soundtrack to contemporary psychopathy. What else can it be? Her music is all skin, no meat—all dolled-up to the nines, wearing its best evening gown, with nothing on underneath. An archetype of “high culture” in which all obsessed therewith can find some chameleonic shard of their idealized “truth.” It is a never-ending, putrid panoply of shallow impressions, of sideways glances at the urinal, of sparkling green astroturf. It’s a nexus—a utopia—where all strands of all things composing falsity eventually meet, and from there resume their normal weave, underpinning the rotting corpse of the American Dream. Her music is perfect. It’s contemporary. It expresses, never treading a step past the purely-oblique, the entirety of the 21st century experience, where the most powerful force is the economic transaction…
… or something.
Either way, I think Taylor Swift is gross, and I think this article is great.
Is it not in part just that good sad songs are easier to write, and possess depth, while most happy songs sound trite and shallow. Witness Paul McCartneys ability to write sad and moving songs, but his failure to write happy ones that aren’t a bit ridiculous. And it’s clearly not for lack of trying or wanting to.
Sadness tends to be private and personal and it’s emotions are complex, happiness is just party time.
Something similar can be said about minor and major keys.
Is it not in part just that good sad songs are easier to write, and possess depth, while most happy songs sound trite and shallow. Witness Paul McCartneys ability to write sad and moving songs, but his failure to write happy ones that aren’t a bit ridiculous. And it’s clearly not for lack of trying or wanting to.
Sadness tends to be private and personal and it’s emotions are complex, happiness is just party time.
Something similar can be said about minor and major keys.
Indeed, the “little death”.
I never could stand or understand defeatist, self-pitying or drippy love songs.
As a kid, I used to wonder why all the love songs were so slow, so whiney, so drippy, so boring.
Frank Zappa noted that “broken hearts are for assholes”, and he is of course correct.
And this article goes some way towards explaining the popularity of all that navel-gazing / Swifty / broken-hearted stuff.
But, from what this article says, maybe that’s as good as it gets for some?
How awful!
By contrast, my favourite love song as a young person was “New Rose”, by The Damned – arguably, the first proper punk track, swirling with energy, and with the critical line:
“It’s kind of strange, like a stormy sea”
The exhilaration, the sense of potential – this song encapsulates what it’s like to be young and just realising someone you fancy like mad (unbelievably!) fancies you back.
Other faves include “I wanna be your dog”, by Iggy & The Stooges; and “Wild Thing”, by The Troggs.
Of course, many will claim that such exuberant ditties are not love songs at all, but whatever – they worked for me.
So many conventional love songs are relentlessly negative. So few of them reflect the mad excitement, the churning in your heart, the utter exhilaration of falling headlong for the first time.
“New Rose” did, and, for that, it’s never been bettered.
PS: My short blog on Taylor Swift: https://ayenaw.com/2023/01/08/is-taylor-swift-our-greatest-living-poet/
Welcome to Pseuds Corner!
Stopped clocks tell the right time once every twelve hours.
Well done!
Stopped clocks tell the right time once every twelve hours.
Well done!
Enjoyed your blog, Frank
Well, the ecstasy is when the object of infatuation “fancies” you in return—an experience I’ve never had. Just a lot of pain and frustration.
I don’t think the ecstasy is when the object of infatuation fancies you in return. The ecstasy is the longing, the unrequited love. Infatuation is all about projection and doesn’t have much to do with reciprocation. That can be terrifying.
I don’t think the ecstasy is when the object of infatuation fancies you in return. The ecstasy is the longing, the unrequited love. Infatuation is all about projection and doesn’t have much to do with reciprocation. That can be terrifying.
How about Nina Simone singing ‘Black is the color of my true love’s hair’ to make you weak at the knees.
Welcome to Pseuds Corner!
Enjoyed your blog, Frank
Well, the ecstasy is when the object of infatuation “fancies” you in return—an experience I’ve never had. Just a lot of pain and frustration.
How about Nina Simone singing ‘Black is the color of my true love’s hair’ to make you weak at the knees.
Indeed, the “little death”.
I never could stand or understand defeatist, self-pitying or drippy love songs.
As a kid, I used to wonder why all the love songs were so slow, so whiney, so drippy, so boring.
Frank Zappa noted that “broken hearts are for assholes”, and he is of course correct.
And this article goes some way towards explaining the popularity of all that navel-gazing / Swifty / broken-hearted stuff.
But, from what this article says, maybe that’s as good as it gets for some?
How awful!
By contrast, my favourite love song as a young person was “New Rose”, by The Damned – arguably, the first proper punk track, swirling with energy, and with the critical line:
“It’s kind of strange, like a stormy sea”
The exhilaration, the sense of potential – this song encapsulates what it’s like to be young and just realising someone you fancy like mad (unbelievably!) fancies you back.
Other faves include “I wanna be your dog”, by Iggy & The Stooges; and “Wild Thing”, by The Troggs.
Of course, many will claim that such exuberant ditties are not love songs at all, but whatever – they worked for me.
So many conventional love songs are relentlessly negative. So few of them reflect the mad excitement, the churning in your heart, the utter exhilaration of falling headlong for the first time.
“New Rose” did, and, for that, it’s never been bettered.
PS: My short blog on Taylor Swift: https://ayenaw.com/2023/01/08/is-taylor-swift-our-greatest-living-poet/
There’s nothing wrong with anyone who tries to explain contemporary phenomena, including popular songs, by pointing to medieval or ancient prototypes. I did so myself, after all, in a book on The Wizard of Oz. Whether Harrington succeeds or not, in this suggestive but brief essay, is another matter.
One problem is that her explanation for the morbidity in many popular songs of our time is so specific (troubadours channeling Cathar spirituality in Provencal courts of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries), that it would require a mountain of evidence to satisfy any historian.
For one thing, the Cathar worldview was by no means unusual (either within the Christian world, let alone the larger Western world, or the larger world beyond even that) in identifying the material realm as a prison to be escaped through either gnosis or death (or both). As for Christianity, Jesus himself saw a profound distinction between the current realm of time, or history, and eternity. St. Paul elaborated on that by distinguishing, often, between the material body (sarx referring to the transience of “flesh”) and the immaterial body (soma referring to the immortality of “spirit”), a distinction that had been a common feature of pre-Christian gnostic “mystery religions” and was probably much older than those. Although both marriage and monastic life enabled Christians to live in anticipation of a new cosmic order, no spouse or institution within the realm of time and space could inaugurate it. Since the very early Church, Christians have sought ultimate salvation in some sort of relationship with the risen Christ. Where Catharism went wrong, according to the Church, was not in dualism per se (flesh vs. spirit) but in following dualism to its logical conclusion of di-theism (one good god and one evil god) and therefore denying the value of God’s incarnation.
The notion of “courtly love” glorified not only unrequited love (in a purely carnal sense) but also marital infidelity (in a spiritual sense). This was probably new in medieval Christendom and confined exclusively to aristocratic circles. But I see no obvious connection between any of that and either Christianity or what it considered the Cathar heresy. Maybe the source was external. During the crusades, after all, Christians came into close contact with Muslims for the first time. The latter allowed polygamy and therefore had a distinctive notion of marriage and relations between men and women. But I can’t do more than speculate about that.
I suggest a much more obvious matrix for the unhappiness and even morbidity of some popular songs of our time. That would be romanticism, a movement that originated in the late eighteenth century as a reaction against rationalism and has continued to do battle with it ever since. At the heart of romanticism is its insistence on the primacy of “feeling,” “passion,” or emotion over thinking, thus giving rise not only to the “blood and soil” of nationalism or racism but also to the “sublime” (a secular version of the sacred, or the ecstatic, that prevailed in painting), the courageous but lonely “bohemian” who starves to death in a garret (a stereotype that prevailed among avant-garde painters), the brilliant revolutionary or seeker who dies young (notably among poets), the beautiful courtesan, or anyone, who dies young of consumption (a literary trope) and so on. From this point of view, death—early death—takes on a kind of irrational glamour.
But Harrington’s main point is neither historical nor theological. It is the current link, which she spells out more than once in a brief essay, between fantasies of unhappiness or death and girls. She offers no evidence for this connection, but she probably could do so. I’ll take her at her word, because intuition points me in the same direction. There is statistical evidence of more girls than boys who attempt suicide, often as a way of calling for help (although far more boys than girls actually want to die and therefore succeed in committing suicide). Similarly, there is evidence that more girls than boys have eating disorders (although boys turn to dangerous body-building drugs). Moreover, the vocabulary and linguistic cues of depression itself have been feminized (which is why psychologists often fail to recognize how relatively inarticulate boys express or allude to depression). And, as Harrington points out, the fragility of contemporary families, partly because of ideologies that have tried to destroy it, means that no one is assured that marriage, the primordial hope of girls who hope to have children, will lead to “happily ever after.” Finally, feminists have spent well over half a century (joined recently by wokers) telling women and girls that they belong to a class of victims (and, for wokers, always will due to the innate characteristics of both them and their oppressors).
Certainly nothing wrong with such parallels in and of themselves, I agree. But the connection is thin here or at least, as you note, unsupported within this piece, which after all is categorized as “Opinion”.
I think there are quite a few studies helping to establish what is plain to common-sense observation: Girls and women are more likely to turn their despair and anger inward, boys and men outward. This is shown, in one glaring way, by the number of despondent (mostly) adolescent and young-adult male mass shooters, who take other peoples’ lives with them on their way to hell, so to speak.
A longing to be absorbed into, or “annihilated by” a romantic partner certainly seems more typically female, and not necessarily to any pathological degree.
Certainly a culture of victimhood and grievance–even among many conservatives–has reached a grotesque height, one that I hope represents a pre-correction peak.
Yet I think many Taylor Swift fans come from intact families in the Bible Belt, go to church, support Trump–or whoever the Republicans roll out–according to their parents’ preferences, and live in different informational bubbles than the Awokened youth do. In other words, I think there is something rather more elemental and inborn at work than just a 50-year campaign of ideological indoctrination and cherished victimhood.
I referred last to victimology, AJ, because it could be the least important factor. Maybe I should have reversed the order with that in mind. At any rate, I agree that the pervasive despair or anger of both girls and boys, no matter how they express it, is “not just” due to fifty years of victimology. Swift sings to or for fans who live, as we all now do, in a world of pervasive emptiness (a.k.a. hedonism and cynicism). This is true, to some extent, even of those who happen to grow up with intact families, live in wholesome (or at least safe) neighborhoods and even attend churches. That’s the larger and deeper context of Swift’s fans. I’ve tried to argue elsewhere, many times, that some phenomena, no matter what their particular origin, either suddenly or gradually take on lives of their own. The unusual becomes the norm.
At one time, for example, divorce (along with the psychological disruption that accompanied even the “good” divorce) was rare. Even in my childhood, it was confined to the experience of relatively few children–many of whom showed up eventually in almost every study as being at far greater risk than other children of every psychological and sociological pathology (although most social scientists chose to ignore the risks to children out of “compassion” for their unhappy parents). In other words, the threat of divorce was safely contained, not a likely possibility. That’s no longer the case. As Barbara Dafoe Whitehead argued convincingly in The Divorce Culture (1997), it was already firmly embedded in the culture of every Western society and therefore a fact of life, at some level of consciousness, for almost everyone (except in religious communities, such as those of the Hasidim or the Amish, who isolate themselves from the larger society).
I referred last to victimology, AJ, because it could be the least important factor. Maybe I should have reversed the order with that in mind. At any rate, I agree that the pervasive despair or anger of both girls and boys, no matter how they express it, is “not just” due to fifty years of victimology. Swift sings to or for fans who live, as we all now do, in a world of pervasive emptiness (a.k.a. hedonism and cynicism). This is true, to some extent, even of those who happen to grow up with intact families, live in wholesome (or at least safe) neighborhoods and even attend churches. That’s the larger and deeper context of Swift’s fans. I’ve tried to argue elsewhere, many times, that some phenomena, no matter what their particular origin, either suddenly or gradually take on lives of their own. The unusual becomes the norm.
At one time, for example, divorce (along with the psychological disruption that accompanied even the “good” divorce) was rare. Even in my childhood, it was confined to the experience of relatively few children–many of whom showed up eventually in almost every study as being at far greater risk than other children of every psychological and sociological pathology (although most social scientists chose to ignore the risks to children out of “compassion” for their unhappy parents). In other words, the threat of divorce was safely contained, not a likely possibility. That’s no longer the case. As Barbara Dafoe Whitehead argued convincingly in The Divorce Culture (1997), it was already firmly embedded in the culture of every Western society and therefore a fact of life, at some level of consciousness, for almost everyone (except in religious communities, such as those of the Hasidim or the Amish, who isolate themselves from the larger society).
I hope you acknowledged that Wizard was a political satire with one meaning for kids and another for adults, like any good children’s literature.
Actually, Laurence, I acknowledged that this movie (my analysis was not primarily about the book) has many meanings. In fact, three of the most interesting ones got chapters of their own.
Actually, Laurence, I acknowledged that this movie (my analysis was not primarily about the book) has many meanings. In fact, three of the most interesting ones got chapters of their own.
Certainly nothing wrong with such parallels in and of themselves, I agree. But the connection is thin here or at least, as you note, unsupported within this piece, which after all is categorized as “Opinion”.
I think there are quite a few studies helping to establish what is plain to common-sense observation: Girls and women are more likely to turn their despair and anger inward, boys and men outward. This is shown, in one glaring way, by the number of despondent (mostly) adolescent and young-adult male mass shooters, who take other peoples’ lives with them on their way to hell, so to speak.
A longing to be absorbed into, or “annihilated by” a romantic partner certainly seems more typically female, and not necessarily to any pathological degree.
Certainly a culture of victimhood and grievance–even among many conservatives–has reached a grotesque height, one that I hope represents a pre-correction peak.
Yet I think many Taylor Swift fans come from intact families in the Bible Belt, go to church, support Trump–or whoever the Republicans roll out–according to their parents’ preferences, and live in different informational bubbles than the Awokened youth do. In other words, I think there is something rather more elemental and inborn at work than just a 50-year campaign of ideological indoctrination and cherished victimhood.
I hope you acknowledged that Wizard was a political satire with one meaning for kids and another for adults, like any good children’s literature.
There’s nothing wrong with anyone who tries to explain contemporary phenomena, including popular songs, by pointing to medieval or ancient prototypes. I did so myself, after all, in a book on The Wizard of Oz. Whether Harrington succeeds or not, in this suggestive but brief essay, is another matter.
One problem is that her explanation for the morbidity in many popular songs of our time is so specific (troubadours channeling Cathar spirituality in Provencal courts of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries), that it would require a mountain of evidence to satisfy any historian.
For one thing, the Cathar worldview was by no means unusual (either within the Christian world, let alone the larger Western world, or the larger world beyond even that) in identifying the material realm as a prison to be escaped through either gnosis or death (or both). As for Christianity, Jesus himself saw a profound distinction between the current realm of time, or history, and eternity. St. Paul elaborated on that by distinguishing, often, between the material body (sarx referring to the transience of “flesh”) and the immaterial body (soma referring to the immortality of “spirit”), a distinction that had been a common feature of pre-Christian gnostic “mystery religions” and was probably much older than those. Although both marriage and monastic life enabled Christians to live in anticipation of a new cosmic order, no spouse or institution within the realm of time and space could inaugurate it. Since the very early Church, Christians have sought ultimate salvation in some sort of relationship with the risen Christ. Where Catharism went wrong, according to the Church, was not in dualism per se (flesh vs. spirit) but in following dualism to its logical conclusion of di-theism (one good god and one evil god) and therefore denying the value of God’s incarnation.
The notion of “courtly love” glorified not only unrequited love (in a purely carnal sense) but also marital infidelity (in a spiritual sense). This was probably new in medieval Christendom and confined exclusively to aristocratic circles. But I see no obvious connection between any of that and either Christianity or what it considered the Cathar heresy. Maybe the source was external. During the crusades, after all, Christians came into close contact with Muslims for the first time. The latter allowed polygamy and therefore had a distinctive notion of marriage and relations between men and women. But I can’t do more than speculate about that.
I suggest a much more obvious matrix for the unhappiness and even morbidity of some popular songs of our time. That would be romanticism, a movement that originated in the late eighteenth century as a reaction against rationalism and has continued to do battle with it ever since. At the heart of romanticism is its insistence on the primacy of “feeling,” “passion,” or emotion over thinking, thus giving rise not only to the “blood and soil” of nationalism or racism but also to the “sublime” (a secular version of the sacred, or the ecstatic, that prevailed in painting), the courageous but lonely “bohemian” who starves to death in a garret (a stereotype that prevailed among avant-garde painters), the brilliant revolutionary or seeker who dies young (notably among poets), the beautiful courtesan, or anyone, who dies young of consumption (a literary trope) and so on. From this point of view, death—early death—takes on a kind of irrational glamour.
But Harrington’s main point is neither historical nor theological. It is the current link, which she spells out more than once in a brief essay, between fantasies of unhappiness or death and girls. She offers no evidence for this connection, but she probably could do so. I’ll take her at her word, because intuition points me in the same direction. There is statistical evidence of more girls than boys who attempt suicide, often as a way of calling for help (although far more boys than girls actually want to die and therefore succeed in committing suicide). Similarly, there is evidence that more girls than boys have eating disorders (although boys turn to dangerous body-building drugs). Moreover, the vocabulary and linguistic cues of depression itself have been feminized (which is why psychologists often fail to recognize how relatively inarticulate boys express or allude to depression). And, as Harrington points out, the fragility of contemporary families, partly because of ideologies that have tried to destroy it, means that no one is assured that marriage, the primordial hope of girls who hope to have children, will lead to “happily ever after.” Finally, feminists have spent well over half a century (joined recently by wokers) telling women and girls that they belong to a class of victims (and, for wokers, always will due to the innate characteristics of both them and their oppressors).
Any article that artfully contrives a way to link the Albigensian Crusade with Taylor Swift is utterly glorious 😀
Have you read any of Ezra Pound’s later Cantos? This is child’s play in comparison.
Indeed quite delicious!
Have you read any of Ezra Pound’s later Cantos? This is child’s play in comparison.
Indeed quite delicious!
Any article that artfully contrives a way to link the Albigensian Crusade with Taylor Swift is utterly glorious 😀
My diagnosis for Swift’s endless parade of songs about dysfunctional relationships is much simpler. She never got over John Mayer. They had a brief relationship and collaborated on an album. Before him, her music was mostly standard teenage girl pop comparable to young Britney Spears, or young Madonna, or Katy Perry, or any number of other generic cute girl singers over the decades. Since then, pretty much everything has been about tragic, brief, usually dysfunctional romances that fall short of expectations. I have no more idea what their actual relationship was like or who ended it than anyone else, but just listening to her music, much of which I concede I enjoy, I see a picture of a woman desperate to recapture something she lost, failing to do so, and becoming increasingly jaded with each failed relationship. I suspect she only decided in hindsight that he was the one that got away, and that she’s projecting her expectations backwards, comparing every relationship to her vision of what ‘could have been’ and every partner to the one she sees in hindsight as her ideal mate. “Blank Space”, for example, one of my favorites, is a perfect description of how many people self-sabotage relationships, starting enthusiastically on their grand adventure to happily-ever-after and then destroying the budding relationship with unrealistic expectations and neurotic narcissism. It’s not particularly surprising this resonates with a lot of women, and some men too, because most of us bring unreasonable expectations into a relationship. Thanks to a steady diet of Disney happily-ever-afters, perfect photoshopped bodies on TV and magazines (including Swift herself), widespread availability and consumption of pornography, and an education system of safe spaces and self-esteem building, most of us expect a partner to be attractive, good in bed, intelligent, fit, sensitive, kind, and I could go on. Moreover, we expect a partner to provide the happily-ever-after we were promised. The phenomenon is worse in women because of a combination of present culture and biological directives. The women’s rights movement, an ongoing effort I have always supported, has afforded women more opportunities for advancement and career success to the point women college graduates now outnumber men. The gap is growing, and as older folks born in a different era leave the workforce, the pay gap will flip to reflect this. Even so, most women can’t easily turn off biological drives and instincts built through millions of years of evolution. So, despite many young women earning more and having more success than most of their male counterparts, it’s still rare for women to ‘date down’ with men who are lower earning and/or less successful. The opposite, successful men dating women of lower earning and lower social status, is as prevalent as ever, and successful men can take their pick from top to bottom, which has exactly the result one would expect, they have little incentive to ever commit to one woman. These trends are actually considered serious business in Japan, where they are seen as contributing to population decline. This is not something that can be easily blamed on anybody in particular. Nobody really set out to make it harder for men and women to establish lasting relationships, marriages, and family dynamics. Nobody ordered people to raise their romantic standards to ridiculous levels either. I like to blame Rousseau because it’s easy to dump all romantic nonsense on his silly philosophies and their disproportionate influence on our modern world, but it’s really nobody’s fault. Basically, Taylor Swift is representative of the successful, modern woman who can never find a mate that meets their expectations and instead grows skeptical of the entire idea of romance and monogamous relationships. I suspect that’s the real reason why she’s so popular.
Don’t know about all that, but I do wonder how she manages to navigate a romantic relationship being so ridiculously wealthy.
Based on her music and what we see on the news, I would say using the word ‘navigate’ is rather generous of you. Fumble through relationships like a drunken walrus trying to climb a mountain would probably be nearer the mark.
You must have missed the part where she just recently ended a six year committed relationship. Hardly a drunken walrus, etc…
You must have missed the part where she just recently ended a six year committed relationship. Hardly a drunken walrus, etc…
Based on her music and what we see on the news, I would say using the word ‘navigate’ is rather generous of you. Fumble through relationships like a drunken walrus trying to climb a mountain would probably be nearer the mark.
Great analysis
Don’t know about all that, but I do wonder how she manages to navigate a romantic relationship being so ridiculously wealthy.
Great analysis
My diagnosis for Swift’s endless parade of songs about dysfunctional relationships is much simpler. She never got over John Mayer. They had a brief relationship and collaborated on an album. Before him, her music was mostly standard teenage girl pop comparable to young Britney Spears, or young Madonna, or Katy Perry, or any number of other generic cute girl singers over the decades. Since then, pretty much everything has been about tragic, brief, usually dysfunctional romances that fall short of expectations. I have no more idea what their actual relationship was like or who ended it than anyone else, but just listening to her music, much of which I concede I enjoy, I see a picture of a woman desperate to recapture something she lost, failing to do so, and becoming increasingly jaded with each failed relationship. I suspect she only decided in hindsight that he was the one that got away, and that she’s projecting her expectations backwards, comparing every relationship to her vision of what ‘could have been’ and every partner to the one she sees in hindsight as her ideal mate. “Blank Space”, for example, one of my favorites, is a perfect description of how many people self-sabotage relationships, starting enthusiastically on their grand adventure to happily-ever-after and then destroying the budding relationship with unrealistic expectations and neurotic narcissism. It’s not particularly surprising this resonates with a lot of women, and some men too, because most of us bring unreasonable expectations into a relationship. Thanks to a steady diet of Disney happily-ever-afters, perfect photoshopped bodies on TV and magazines (including Swift herself), widespread availability and consumption of pornography, and an education system of safe spaces and self-esteem building, most of us expect a partner to be attractive, good in bed, intelligent, fit, sensitive, kind, and I could go on. Moreover, we expect a partner to provide the happily-ever-after we were promised. The phenomenon is worse in women because of a combination of present culture and biological directives. The women’s rights movement, an ongoing effort I have always supported, has afforded women more opportunities for advancement and career success to the point women college graduates now outnumber men. The gap is growing, and as older folks born in a different era leave the workforce, the pay gap will flip to reflect this. Even so, most women can’t easily turn off biological drives and instincts built through millions of years of evolution. So, despite many young women earning more and having more success than most of their male counterparts, it’s still rare for women to ‘date down’ with men who are lower earning and/or less successful. The opposite, successful men dating women of lower earning and lower social status, is as prevalent as ever, and successful men can take their pick from top to bottom, which has exactly the result one would expect, they have little incentive to ever commit to one woman. These trends are actually considered serious business in Japan, where they are seen as contributing to population decline. This is not something that can be easily blamed on anybody in particular. Nobody really set out to make it harder for men and women to establish lasting relationships, marriages, and family dynamics. Nobody ordered people to raise their romantic standards to ridiculous levels either. I like to blame Rousseau because it’s easy to dump all romantic nonsense on his silly philosophies and their disproportionate influence on our modern world, but it’s really nobody’s fault. Basically, Taylor Swift is representative of the successful, modern woman who can never find a mate that meets their expectations and instead grows skeptical of the entire idea of romance and monogamous relationships. I suspect that’s the real reason why she’s so popular.
Brilliant article. Thank you, Mary. I don’t know Taylor Swift but I do know my grandchildren and I know my history and spiritual philosophy and i know what requited and unrequited love is. This piece could be the start of a very rich discussion on today’s zeitgeist and the eternal search by the soul for love and reunion with something… a death and a new becoming. A most rewarding read.
Brilliant article. Thank you, Mary. I don’t know Taylor Swift but I do know my grandchildren and I know my history and spiritual philosophy and i know what requited and unrequited love is. This piece could be the start of a very rich discussion on today’s zeitgeist and the eternal search by the soul for love and reunion with something… a death and a new becoming. A most rewarding read.
“…incarnation imprisoned souls who longed to be freed to return to the divine. And, also heretically, in their view this return would be to unity with God…”
I had never heard of the Cathar, but that’s outright, trad, Hinduism, that is. Did this stuff really have any kind of purchase in the heart of European Christendom a thousand years ago?
This piece, and this line in particular “…romantic version of self dissolved in the lover…” somehow made me think of this song: https://youtu.be/EIFJ2hxu-1E
Or Jainism,PK? The spirit held back from sublimation by the accumulation of matter, trapped in the unending cycle of rebirth.
Absolutely, and similarly a raft of offshoots of Hinduism which offered variants of that nexus of ideas about the nature of being, which emerged and in many cases eventually died out over the centuries, but they all borrowed core tenets out of Hinduism.
Absolutely, and similarly a raft of offshoots of Hinduism which offered variants of that nexus of ideas about the nature of being, which emerged and in many cases eventually died out over the centuries, but they all borrowed core tenets out of Hinduism.
You must read the Holy Bible. Try Psalms and Song of Songs.
Or Jainism,PK? The spirit held back from sublimation by the accumulation of matter, trapped in the unending cycle of rebirth.
You must read the Holy Bible. Try Psalms and Song of Songs.
“…incarnation imprisoned souls who longed to be freed to return to the divine. And, also heretically, in their view this return would be to unity with God…”
I had never heard of the Cathar, but that’s outright, trad, Hinduism, that is. Did this stuff really have any kind of purchase in the heart of European Christendom a thousand years ago?
This piece, and this line in particular “…romantic version of self dissolved in the lover…” somehow made me think of this song: https://youtu.be/EIFJ2hxu-1E
Thanks Mary – now this square and staid middle-aged woman has got “I Knew You Were Trouble” jammed in her head..aka the only Taylor Swift song I’m familiar with…and that’s only because another band, Walk Off the Earth did a cover of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcM14Al83Ls
Reading this I’m quite relieved to have grown up listening to Madonna singing about teenage pregnancy, a longing for money and material things and annoying the Pope by dancing around in front of a burning cross in a negligee. Far more thrilling. (Incidentally, M’s best lovesong is undoubtedly this duet with Prince: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ1q1iFy45I)
‘1989’ is a fabulous album from start to finish btw. Madonna’s career seems like a fever dream in 2023 and no doubt she’s ‘apologised’ for any number of things her 21st C. fans now deem ‘problematic’!
Thanks for highlighting Walk Off the Earth–their a capella sound effects are fantastic!
I’ve seen them live 3 times: superb every time. No longer the original lineup unfortunately but still very talented and creative people who are enormous fun to watch.
I’ve seen them live 3 times: superb every time. No longer the original lineup unfortunately but still very talented and creative people who are enormous fun to watch.
‘1989’ is a fabulous album from start to finish btw. Madonna’s career seems like a fever dream in 2023 and no doubt she’s ‘apologised’ for any number of things her 21st C. fans now deem ‘problematic’!
Thanks for highlighting Walk Off the Earth–their a capella sound effects are fantastic!
Thanks Mary – now this square and staid middle-aged woman has got “I Knew You Were Trouble” jammed in her head..aka the only Taylor Swift song I’m familiar with…and that’s only because another band, Walk Off the Earth did a cover of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcM14Al83Ls
Reading this I’m quite relieved to have grown up listening to Madonna singing about teenage pregnancy, a longing for money and material things and annoying the Pope by dancing around in front of a burning cross in a negligee. Far more thrilling. (Incidentally, M’s best lovesong is undoubtedly this duet with Prince: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ1q1iFy45I)
Interesting stuff. I do believe there are archetypes that occur in various forms time and time again, and very similar across most of humanity as mentioned by Prashant Kotak and his link to Hinduism.
Another that would be worthy of exploration would be the Pelargian Heresy (5th century ish I think). All about the inherent goodness of humanity and sort of along the lines of is God within each and ever one of us and exhibited by daily behaviours or (with Orthodox Christianity of the time) something Imposed from above?
Very similar to me in the modern view of big state imposition versus small state “little battalions” and to be seen with the cancel culture idea of our way of speech or no way.
Seems to me to be a link between this Pelargian ideas, the Cathars, Hinduism and others with a powerful elite doing down (killing historically was the method of choice) anyone who thought differently about humanities inherent decisions on personal choice.
Interesting stuff. I do believe there are archetypes that occur in various forms time and time again, and very similar across most of humanity as mentioned by Prashant Kotak and his link to Hinduism.
Another that would be worthy of exploration would be the Pelargian Heresy (5th century ish I think). All about the inherent goodness of humanity and sort of along the lines of is God within each and ever one of us and exhibited by daily behaviours or (with Orthodox Christianity of the time) something Imposed from above?
Very similar to me in the modern view of big state imposition versus small state “little battalions” and to be seen with the cancel culture idea of our way of speech or no way.
Seems to me to be a link between this Pelargian ideas, the Cathars, Hinduism and others with a powerful elite doing down (killing historically was the method of choice) anyone who thought differently about humanities inherent decisions on personal choice.
Aww, come’on. In the end, Rose joined Jack in a “never-ending kiss”—thanks Bruce—in the after-life. What’s more romantic than that?
Aww, come’on. In the end, Rose joined Jack in a “never-ending kiss”—thanks Bruce—in the after-life. What’s more romantic than that?
I’d be sad if Rishi Sunak liked me.
That’s a great title for a Blur/Oasis song, or maybe just a Jarvis Cocker album?
That’s a great title for a Blur/Oasis song, or maybe just a Jarvis Cocker album?
I’d be sad if Rishi Sunak liked me.
You.need to go deeper Mary. The Cathars arose in a decentralised provincial culture free of the direct scrutiny papal concern, which gave rise to alternate spirituality which was found not only in the langue D’oc hutnin many a remote principality of Christendom…Think of the letters of Abelard and Eloisen they embodied the tragedy of courtly love but with the comfines of the cloisters, the eunach and the nun, nowsntheres tragedy. The troubadours in seculat cein gave birth to Opera with fusion of Roman pantomime and greek theatre, thebpopular music of the people would become thenhigh art of the elitels. You’re right we seek transcendental fulfillment, the drama of romance is onen0art of the dance. Just no longer to escape the mundane shackles of marriage, merely as lament to a union marital companionship, true love, a life long bond made before God and community. Do we really see Swift fans celebrating marriage and domestic stability. Who would be thier model, Hillary and Bill? Barbie and Ken? Every where is celebrated the sovereignty of 4he individual, autonomy is isolation and atomistic narcissism..When Christ or nihilism are the only metaphysical choices no wonder the true meaning of romance is lost to lament and fatalistic refrain.
You.need to go deeper Mary. The Cathars arose in a decentralised provincial culture free of the direct scrutiny papal concern, which gave rise to alternate spirituality which was found not only in the langue D’oc hutnin many a remote principality of Christendom…Think of the letters of Abelard and Eloisen they embodied the tragedy of courtly love but with the comfines of the cloisters, the eunach and the nun, nowsntheres tragedy. The troubadours in seculat cein gave birth to Opera with fusion of Roman pantomime and greek theatre, thebpopular music of the people would become thenhigh art of the elitels. You’re right we seek transcendental fulfillment, the drama of romance is onen0art of the dance. Just no longer to escape the mundane shackles of marriage, merely as lament to a union marital companionship, true love, a life long bond made before God and community. Do we really see Swift fans celebrating marriage and domestic stability. Who would be thier model, Hillary and Bill? Barbie and Ken? Every where is celebrated the sovereignty of 4he individual, autonomy is isolation and atomistic narcissism..When Christ or nihilism are the only metaphysical choices no wonder the true meaning of romance is lost to lament and fatalistic refrain.
You lost me at lower case orthodox Christians. The Crusades were part of Western Christendom after the split from the east, capitalized Orthodox Christians. Prior to the Great Schism in 1054, Christians didn’t go slaughtering other Christians and generally didn’t glorify killing in warfare in general. That was a papal thing that was the slippery slope of the Crusades and indulgences.
Swift seems more align w the transcendence seeking Romantics imo.
Slippery slope? They were to prevent annihilation from the Middle Eastern marauders.
It’s long been a vice of unbelieving Northern Europeans to celebrate medieval Islam, and there’s much to admire, but one suspects certain proclivities underlie their admiration. Only in the Middle East has anyone offered me the services of “boys”.
Ah so you do profess to believe in the teachings of Jesus! (I just addressed this at our polite little one-on-one exchange elsewhere). Or is the supernatural title of Christ–or a professed faith that doesn’t reach the hand or heart–more what it is about for you?
Do you respect black American believers or do they still belong to a de facto class of inherently-more-criminal children of God in your sights?
Certainly any admiration that stretches outside your demographic and cultural identity is suspect, if not just plain sinister. Nothing but facts and evidence, you suppose, behind the suspicion with which you view such non-provincial or ecumenical “proclivities”.
Ah so you do profess to believe in the teachings of Jesus! (I just addressed this at our polite little one-on-one exchange elsewhere). Or is the supernatural title of Christ–or a professed faith that doesn’t reach the hand or heart–more what it is about for you?
Do you respect black American believers or do they still belong to a de facto class of inherently-more-criminal children of God in your sights?
Certainly any admiration that stretches outside your demographic and cultural identity is suspect, if not just plain sinister. Nothing but facts and evidence, you suppose, behind the suspicion with which you view such non-provincial or ecumenical “proclivities”.
It’s long been a vice of unbelieving Northern Europeans to celebrate medieval Islam, and there’s much to admire, but one suspects certain proclivities underlie their admiration. Only in the Middle East has anyone offered me the services of “boys”.
The Byzantines requested the Crusades to save them from the Muslims.
I agree, “orthodox Christians” and Orthodox Christians are almost completely unrelated, so it would have been better to choose another word.
Slippery slope? They were to prevent annihilation from the Middle Eastern marauders.
The Byzantines requested the Crusades to save them from the Muslims.
I agree, “orthodox Christians” and Orthodox Christians are almost completely unrelated, so it would have been better to choose another word.
You lost me at lower case orthodox Christians. The Crusades were part of Western Christendom after the split from the east, capitalized Orthodox Christians. Prior to the Great Schism in 1054, Christians didn’t go slaughtering other Christians and generally didn’t glorify killing in warfare in general. That was a papal thing that was the slippery slope of the Crusades and indulgences.
Swift seems more align w the transcendence seeking Romantics imo.
Thanks Mary for an intriguing piece, you had me hooked from ‘Our love-affair with doomed love begins in early 13th-century France with the two-decade Albigensian Crusade …’. The links you make between the Cathari (Albigensians), Courtly Love, Gnosticism and spiritual love songs, reminds me of ‘The Da Vinci Code’ craze, and ‘The Meaning of Mary Magdalene’ by Cynthia Bourgeault (2010). She argues that at the heart of Christian theology is the transformative love story between Jesus and Mary Magdalene; found in the ‘heretical’ Gnostic Gospels and hidden in plain sight in the NT Gospels. Legend has it that Mary Magdalene settled in the Cathari part of France, passed on her wisdom of transformative love, which influenced Christianity in that region; even after the destruction of the Cathari tradition it persisted (although veiled) through the troubadours and more recently the work of French Jesuit Pierre Tilhard de Chardin.
Thanks Mary for an intriguing piece, you had me hooked from ‘Our love-affair with doomed love begins in early 13th-century France with the two-decade Albigensian Crusade …’. The links you make between the Cathari (Albigensians), Courtly Love, Gnosticism and spiritual love songs, reminds me of ‘The Da Vinci Code’ craze, and ‘The Meaning of Mary Magdalene’ by Cynthia Bourgeault (2010). She argues that at the heart of Christian theology is the transformative love story between Jesus and Mary Magdalene; found in the ‘heretical’ Gnostic Gospels and hidden in plain sight in the NT Gospels. Legend has it that Mary Magdalene settled in the Cathari part of France, passed on her wisdom of transformative love, which influenced Christianity in that region; even after the destruction of the Cathari tradition it persisted (although veiled) through the troubadours and more recently the work of French Jesuit Pierre Tilhard de Chardin.
A stretch, for sure, but thought provoking. There’s a lot of evidence for unrequited humanity, including simple connection between uncertain beings; the thing we used to call love preceeded by dating. We seriously do not know the consequences of this loss in our swiftly (pun intended) confounding advance to technological “life”. It is far better to examine all facets and outcomes as closely as we can now, rather than wish we had. You go, Mary!
A stretch, for sure, but thought provoking. There’s a lot of evidence for unrequited humanity, including simple connection between uncertain beings; the thing we used to call love preceeded by dating. We seriously do not know the consequences of this loss in our swiftly (pun intended) confounding advance to technological “life”. It is far better to examine all facets and outcomes as closely as we can now, rather than wish we had. You go, Mary!
To what extent it all goes back to the Albigensians is moot, but the more obvious lineage of ideas of the erotic transcendent ecstasy of doomed love, link between love and death, including orgasm and death, is surely the whole Romantic movement from the late 18th century through the 19th. Think Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther (causing a series of actual suicides of young men, imitating art), think Wuthering Heights, think The Flying Dutchman or Tristan and Isolde, think a whole lot of Puccini, think Gothic and Edgar Allan Poe, think – even in their complicated, critical way – Madame Bovary, or Anna Karenina. Maybe it was all Albigensians but then, on the other hand, non-western cultures do not always lack narratives and poetic themes linking the erotic with the transcendent and telling, excitingly, of doomed love.
To what extent it all goes back to the Albigensians is moot, but the more obvious lineage of ideas of the erotic transcendent ecstasy of doomed love, link between love and death, including orgasm and death, is surely the whole Romantic movement from the late 18th century through the 19th. Think Goethe’s Sorrows of Young Werther (causing a series of actual suicides of young men, imitating art), think Wuthering Heights, think The Flying Dutchman or Tristan and Isolde, think a whole lot of Puccini, think Gothic and Edgar Allan Poe, think – even in their complicated, critical way – Madame Bovary, or Anna Karenina. Maybe it was all Albigensians but then, on the other hand, non-western cultures do not always lack narratives and poetic themes linking the erotic with the transcendent and telling, excitingly, of doomed love.
Maybe she’s got her causality wrong. Maybe Catharism [and Manichaeanism/Gnosticism generally] come from primal urge [or something like that] in human psychology/culture, and Swift’s songs refer to that same place. A common ancestor, not a missing link.
Maybe she’s got her causality wrong. Maybe Catharism [and Manichaeanism/Gnosticism generally] come from primal urge [or something like that] in human psychology/culture, and Swift’s songs refer to that same place. A common ancestor, not a missing link.
You had me at Titanic bad.
You had me at Titanic bad.
Reading the embedded gloom captured in this article, I feel relieved, thank God, to be a person of faith.
If you know something for a fact you don’t need to believe.
If you know something for a fact you don’t need to believe.
Reading the embedded gloom captured in this article, I feel relieved, thank God, to be a person of faith.
The attempt to connect the Cathar heresy with the troubadours and courtly tradition is a joke. That courtly tradition predated the Cathars by centuries (St. Francis of Assisi, hardly a heretic, was famously influenced by the courtly poetry and song of his times).
This is the sort of ‘naughty’ historical ellision that only self-indulgent academics come up with. It follows the usual pattern of:
(1) find something little known about (2) make up some wild conspiracy theory – usually incorporating modern mores (3) defend the theory by pointing to the lack of countervialing evidence
You do anything with this – “Charlemagne was a woman”, “Joan of Arc was transgender”, “Shakespeare’s plays were written by Francis Bacon”, etc…
The attempt to connect the Cathar heresy with the troubadours and courtly tradition is a joke. That courtly tradition predated the Cathars by centuries (St. Francis of Assisi, hardly a heretic, was famously influenced by the courtly poetry and song of his times).
This is the sort of ‘naughty’ historical ellision that only self-indulgent academics come up with. It follows the usual pattern of:
(1) find something little known about (2) make up some wild conspiracy theory – usually incorporating modern mores (3) defend the theory by pointing to the lack of countervialing evidence
You do anything with this – “Charlemagne was a woman”, “Joan of Arc was transgender”, “Shakespeare’s plays were written by Francis Bacon”, etc…
Mary Harrington’s analysis feels strained and contrived. Most great love songs have suggestions of unrequited love, loss of self and even self annihilation – ‘Can’t Live if Living is without You’ is one that springs instantly to mind. Not to mention Adele!
Even the most cherished songs of The Beatles have similar motifs – ‘Yesterday’ , for example. Think of Joni Mitchell’s most famous album, Blue. Also many of Bob Dylan’s love songs – such as ‘If You see her say Hello’, ‘Most of the Time’, ‘Simple Twist of Fate’.
So it’s not just a female thing. It’s at the heart of many great love songs and is probably quite cathartic – not sinister
Mary Harrington’s analysis feels strained and contrived. Most great love songs have suggestions of unrequited love, loss of self and even self annihilation – ‘Can’t Live if Living is without You’ is one that springs instantly to mind. Not to mention Adele!
Even the most cherished songs of The Beatles have similar motifs – ‘Yesterday’ , for example. Think of Joni Mitchell’s most famous album, Blue. Also many of Bob Dylan’s love songs – such as ‘If You see her say Hello’, ‘Most of the Time’, ‘Simple Twist of Fate’.
So it’s not just a female thing. It’s at the heart of many great love songs and is probably quite cathartic – not sinister
‘The human spirit is prey to the most astounding impulses. Man goes constantly in fear of himself, his erotic urges terrify him. The saint turns from the voluptuary in alarm, she does not know his unacknowlegeable passions and her own are really one’.
George Bataille
I think the power and intensity of unrequited love is more passionate than when it’s fulfilled, but It’s not that easy to know the difference between that and obsession. The unobtainable is all the more desirable.Yearning for fullment is bitter sweet, the tragic romantic is a state of being. I haven’t studied “the swifties” but I’ve certainly been intrigued by the phenomina and why these young women keep coming back for more.
Taylor seems an unlikely leader from my perspective, so there’s obviously something pretty addictive going on in the unconscious minds of the Swifties. Perhaps it is the spiritual conection as MH proposes and as George Bataille so eloquently suggests, or perhaps the shared longing creates a feeling of community that’s been sadly missing.
‘The human spirit is prey to the most astounding impulses. Man goes constantly in fear of himself, his erotic urges terrify him. The saint turns from the voluptuary in alarm, she does not know his unacknowlegeable passions and her own are really one’.
George Bataille
I think the power and intensity of unrequited love is more passionate than when it’s fulfilled, but It’s not that easy to know the difference between that and obsession. The unobtainable is all the more desirable.Yearning for fullment is bitter sweet, the tragic romantic is a state of being. I haven’t studied “the swifties” but I’ve certainly been intrigued by the phenomina and why these young women keep coming back for more.
Taylor seems an unlikely leader from my perspective, so there’s obviously something pretty addictive going on in the unconscious minds of the Swifties. Perhaps it is the spiritual conection as MH proposes and as George Bataille so eloquently suggests, or perhaps the shared longing creates a feeling of community that’s been sadly missing.
I always enjoy the thought provoking essays of Mary Harrington. It’s no wonder so many young women long to escape their bodies through romantic love fantasies and eating disorders when they live in a culture that tells them they have to do all and be all at a time in a time of their lives they are plagued with self doubt and often have no religious community to give them guidance, set moral boundaries, and give them a sense of self worth just for being a creation of God. Covid and the isolation it imposed only exacerbated the problem. I grew up in the fifties, hit my teens in the sixties and while women were highly restricted and not exactly welcome in the workforce, the expectations on us were not as severe. However, the later sixties would unleash such societal changes that we are now dealing with the unforseen consequences.
I assumed the title was a joke, but apparently not. Swift as a dark or light cultural phenomenon? If this is the heavyweight end of the discussion, it’s no surprise that so much ink has been spilled over Mattel’s recent 90-minute advertisement. For a self-described middle-aged intellectual, Mary certainly knows her share of Swift titles. How many brain cells did all that memorization devour? Less than ten?
I assumed the title was a joke, but apparently not. Swift as a dark or light cultural phenomenon? If this is the heavyweight end of the discussion, it’s no surprise that so much ink has been spilled over Mattel’s recent 90-minute advertisement. For a self-described middle-aged intellectual, Mary certainly knows her share of Swift titles. How many brain cells did all that memorization devour? Less than ten?
TA is racking them up. She won’t be young forever; at some point the bittersweet thrill of failure is going to become tiresome.
TA is racking them up. She won’t be young forever; at some point the bittersweet thrill of failure is going to become tiresome.
Possibly the greatest story of unrequited love leading to union with the divine is Layla and Majnun, by the Persian poet Nizami in 1188. The focus of the story is a young man whom his society considers mad (majnun) because of his entirely inappropriate love for a young woman. Did the early Christians, including the Cathars, get it from the Muslims, or did the Muslims get it from the Cathars? Islamic mysticism is full of such “erotic” love stories, metaphors for the desire for union with all-that-is. Read a little Rumi, it’s all there. Swift may be a a really debased version of it, but it might be a universal desire to merge into the “all”.
Possibly the greatest story of unrequited love leading to union with the divine is Layla and Majnun, by the Persian poet Nizami in 1188. The focus of the story is a young man whom his society considers mad (majnun) because of his entirely inappropriate love for a young woman. Did the early Christians, including the Cathars, get it from the Muslims, or did the Muslims get it from the Cathars? Islamic mysticism is full of such “erotic” love stories, metaphors for the desire for union with all-that-is. Read a little Rumi, it’s all there. Swift may be a a really debased version of it, but it might be a universal desire to merge into the “all”.
The dark truth about Cathars & the troubadours is that there probably wasn’t a link.
Much interesting talk about the problem, but only a paragraph to say the answer is spiritual, surely something fuller should be said about the actual desire.
Much interesting talk about the problem, but only a paragraph to say the answer is spiritual, surely something fuller should be said about the actual desire.
Hormones have a lot to do with young female behavior and reaction. As they abate, sanity and a sameness calms the soul down.
What a pleasure not to be hormone driven anymore!
What a pleasure not to be hormone driven anymore!
Hormones have a lot to do with young female behavior and reaction. As they abate, sanity and a sameness calms the soul down.
This article is patronising. Why focus on young women, and upon what authority (statistical or moral) is the “too many” judgment based? I know nothing of Taylor Swift’s output. But nihilism and longing – the link between death and sex – are facts of human experience, as old and ubiquitous as the hills. They are not unique to youth, or females or the present day. Art, stories, songs – and sexual practice – are places humans express and, to a more or less successful extent, contain these dark emotions. If Swift fans sub-consciously find all this in her output (about which this article has not convinced me), good for them. They might rationally prefer it to being “staid” [author’s word].
This article is patronising. Why focus on young women, and upon what authority (statistical or moral) is the “too many” judgment based? I know nothing of Taylor Swift’s output. But nihilism and longing – the link between death and sex – are facts of human experience, as old and ubiquitous as the hills. They are not unique to youth, or females or the present day. Art, stories, songs – and sexual practice – are places humans express and, to a more or less successful extent, contain these dark emotions. If Swift fans sub-consciously find all this in her output (about which this article has not convinced me), good for them. They might rationally prefer it to being “staid” [author’s word].
Well now. So much heavy breathing.
I, too, have a certain liking for Mary Harrington, but I always have a cocked eyebrow at the ready. She often attaches such significance to the mundane, it’s enough to make a molehill long for its mountain.
Taylor Swift is mediocre in every respect. The sameness of her music and lyrics establishes it and her mad popularity confirms it.
But for Harrington, the popularity must be explained. Hence such musings as “the only transcendent desire is one that ends in death”, and, “to escape embodiment…..to be dissolved in passionate intensity”.
Fans of such might want to Google “Why I’m not body positive”, for the comic relief, and the musings of serial killer John Wayne Gacy, for a rude awakening on where the wings of desire to be dissolved in passionate intensity took him.
Hmm. She can write a catchy toon, no mistake. Well constructed & easy on the ear. Not sure there’s much spirituality going on, more in the way of self-pity, one of humankind’s less appealing traits. For something with more guts to it I go to this lady https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQpe_OwXsB8
Definitely worth pursuing. Chanelling Eric voegelin and Philip Rieff – definitely an aspect of what Rieff called ‘life among the Deathworks’ . The troubling thing is that although the Templar genocide was wrong, their suspicion of Gnostic heresy was on the mark. Then as now – it has led to catastrophe
Teenage rebelliousness is most parsimoniously explained as an evolved set of behaviours pushing young people out of the comfort of their parents’ home. Any of a number of narratives may then ensue, and evolution predisposes us to enact certain roles in those stories. An interesting question is how these predispositions are experienced by the young person in their grip. Dreams, symbols, reactions to persons manifesting certain patterns of behaviour, all are fair game, and as the environment we find ourselves in is unlike that for which we evolved, a bumpy symbolic ride is to be expected.
Ms. Swift’s imagery likely harmonizes with several of these archetypal narratives. The choking fetishists, on the other hand, are likely playing with some proclivity that couldn’t be taken to its logical conclusion over most of the last few hundreds of thousands of years.
Brilliant piece. Goes far to explain the almost mystical phenomenon of enchantment created by Ms. Swift, who could use a nice, long conversation with Harrington. Entertainment is never just entertainment, let’s face it.
Still struggling to work out what the Albigensians ever did for us. The serious problem is that we don’t really know what love is, as something more powereful and more important than we are. However much we fall short of the goal, do we have a strong enough sense of something worth aiming for, even making sacrifices for? What happens if that is lost?
What a fabulous essay! The challenge of this essay is not the connection between the trouvére tradition and Taylor Swifts vapid pop songs (Harrington’s nailed that one), but the more profound observation of the implications of the “Big Love” narrative: anorexia and body dysmorphia (or worse) … the self-destructive discontinuity with embodiment. The medieval culture of amour courtois could exist independently from the “productive households” of the unenclosed forests in that feudal age. By now, those classes and their cultures are conflated. Parsing them helps to accomplish the fulfilling and successful solidarity with men MH suggests we pursue.
Overblown and out of tune article
Listen. To the songs not the media echo chamber
Taylor Swift to the Cathars is a bit of a leap, but I can go with that. I don’t think the (dead) Cathars would have cared about their books being burned, however. That’s a tertiary worry some distance behind the torture and murder 🙂
First it’s the Prof with Lana del Rey, now it’s MH with Taylor Swift.
Really?
I’m out. Sorry UnHerd. I know it’s August… but I’m out.
Careful. I got into a lot of trouble with talk like that.
Bye, bye.
Careful. I got into a lot of trouble with talk like that.
Bye, bye.
First it’s the Prof with Lana del Rey, now it’s MH with Taylor Swift.
Really?
I’m out. Sorry UnHerd. I know it’s August… but I’m out.
This analysis may well be true but it is not even scratching the surface. The human brain is an evolutionary accident. This accidental cognitive powerhouse uses dopamine etc. to ‘reward’ evolutionaryily preferable thoughts and actions, encouraging their repitition. Human thoughts which are ‘good’ for human survival are experienced as morally authentic because what we see as moral behaviour (roughly speaking The Golden Rule and things like The Ten Commandments) beats ‘bad’ or dangerous behaviour every time. Religious thoughts are pretty much metaphorical versions of ‘the survival of the fittest ideas.’. Says me.
Or evolutionary wonder, miracle one might argue. Some time in the eternal near future, consciousness might be conclusively “explained away” as a mere epiphenomenon of material processes. Or not.
Or evolutionary wonder, miracle one might argue. Some time in the eternal near future, consciousness might be conclusively “explained away” as a mere epiphenomenon of material processes. Or not.
This analysis may well be true but it is not even scratching the surface. The human brain is an evolutionary accident. This accidental cognitive powerhouse uses dopamine etc. to ‘reward’ evolutionaryily preferable thoughts and actions, encouraging their repitition. Human thoughts which are ‘good’ for human survival are experienced as morally authentic because what we see as moral behaviour (roughly speaking The Golden Rule and things like The Ten Commandments) beats ‘bad’ or dangerous behaviour every time. Religious thoughts are pretty much metaphorical versions of ‘the survival of the fittest ideas.’. Says me.
Article too many words. I gave up half way as seemed to me to be nonsense!
Article too many words. I gave up half way as seemed to me to be nonsense!