I very much agree with your take. I wish mature-thinkers had more influence on contemporary politics, instead of the populism and black-and-white moralising that seems to be dominating our world.
Also, the quality of discussion on lemmy is surprisingly good!
Yeah, the point that the musicians seem to be making, from the very brief quotes he shares (I haven’t been following this independently), is about the efficacy of music boycotts as a tool for political change. You can object to a nation’s political actions and still think that performing music for your fans in that country will make things better.
The author just insists that Israeli government genocide is bad and that the ordinary citizens are complicit. I think the implicit logic must be: bad people should be punished, depriving them of music punishes them. While it might satisfy a craving to hurt the bad guys, I think it’s much harder to claim that this would help stop the genocide.
I think the musicians have a stronger case that actually performing would be more likely to change people’s minds and improve the situation. Plus the broader benefits of keeping music and art apolitical, rather than trying to make everything in life a tool for political manipulation. I’d have actually been really interested to hear some substantive arguments about those points, but was disappointed to discover that, as you say, it was just a hit piece.
Wow, what a terrible article. The author doesn’t engage with any of the substantive points Radiohead and Nick Cave are making, he just disparages them and insists on his obvious moral superiority. It’s dressed up in some, admittedly, very nice writing, but this is just childish name calling.
Still, interesting read. Thanks for sharing.
Knowing the distribution of what entire households watch is very useful. It’s not about spying on you personally.