MUSICnCries of CacophonynJohn Cage: For the Birds; MarionnBoyars; Boston.nby Robert R.Reillyn”I have nothing to say,” John Cagencomments in his latest book. He goes onnat great length to convince his interlocutor,nDaniel Charles, that this is so innthe series of 10 interviews that comprisenFor the Birds. Ideas have artistic consequences;nthus, it is most interesting tondiscover what ideas have animated thisnman to inflict upon his fellows such angreat deal of noise. What sort of musicndoes a man who has “nothing to say”ncompose? This is not simply an idle speculation,nfor there is more than sophisticalnfun being had here; Cage is serious in insistingnupon the world as he sees it, andnthe type of “music” which he thinksnshould emanate from it. Why, though,nshould anyone care? Cage is interestingnprincipally because he has been acclaimednas “one of the most influentialncomposers of our time” by ihcNew YorknTimes (March 3,1983). He is worth examining,nthen, for whatever insightsnmight be afforded into the sort of societynthat could accept him as such a culturalnbeacon.nCage acknowledges three principalngurus: Eric Satie, Henry David Thoreau,nand Buckminster Fuller. This eclecticnbrew is heavily flavored by the I-chingnand other oriental spices. When consumed,nit induces a horizontal mysticismnthat removes one from the level of objects,nthe rational, the normative, thenstructured—that is, from meaning. Thisnis why Cage claims to have nothing tonsay. The problem, of course, for someonenwho thinks there is no meaning isnthat the rest of us “impose” meaning onnotherwise innocent processes. This objectifies,nand thus felsifies, them. There isna natural lack of structure in experience,nMr. Reilty is ivith ^ USIA in Washington,nD.C.naccording to Cage, and it should remainnunviolated by organization of any kind.nIt is easy to see Heidegger’s influencenhere. But the major influence on Cagenseems to be from Rousseau, though hengoes unmentioned. With Rousseau, Cagenshares a belief in a nonteleological nature;nindeed, he espouses a teleophobia. Man’snend is his beginning; there is no “ought,”nno moral imperatives. There is no purposenin man or nature; existence is thereforenbereft of any rational principle. Cagensays: “I strive toward the nonmental.”nPredictably, he desires “a society wherenyou can do anything at all,” i.e., anarchy.nHe warns us “to be as carefril as possiblennot to form any ideas about what eachnperson should or should not do.” He isn”committed to letting anything happen,nto making everything that happens acceptable.”nThe similarities with Rousseaunare often uncanny. Rousseau, realizingnthat a return to the ideal isolation of thenstate of nature is impossible, sought tonconstruct a community of atoms in whichnone could be as separate as possible fromnthe community. Cage notes about StonynPoint, the experimental artistic communitynin which he lived, that “all thencouples who come to the communitynand stay there end up separating. In reality,nour community is a community fornseparation.” A community for separationnis an excellent description of the kind ofnsociety Rousseau wished to construct.nUnlike Nietzsche, Cage sees no neednto rescue man from the irrelevance thatnensues in a meaningless world; rather,nhe wishes to rescue the irrelevant, MWchnis part of “opening up to the absence ofnwill.” “When I compose, I don’t try to interruptnthat irrelevance, that freedomnfrom being controlled…. I write by usingnchance operations to liberate my musicnfrom every kind of like and dislike.” Thenprimacy of chance undermines meaningnby emphasizing the random and by obliteratingnstandards. These standards arennot simply those of music; Cage’s disordernis far more comprehensive.nnnThe political consequences of thisnperspective take the shape of an unorthodoxnMarxism in which “any governmentnin whatever form is to be rejected”nso that, through the universalization ofntechnology, “we should reach a stagenwhere machines free us from work.” C^eneven pays naive homage to Mao: “ThenMaoist model managed to free a quarternof humanity: that gives cause for thoughtnToday, without hesitation, I would say,nfor the moment, Maoism is our greatestnreason for optimism.” Cage’s path tonUtopia is paved not by physical violencenbut by aural violence. The problem withnthe world, it would seem, is that music isnorganized but the utilities are not. Thenagenda is clear: extend the grid systemnof ConEdison to cover the world, let thenutilities be universalized, and we willneliminate the want of basic necessities.nThe only thing constraining the utilitiesnfrom doing so now is politics. Therefore,n”the problem is to put an end to politics,”nwhich means, of course, putting an endnto the problem of justice. At least he isnclear about his goals. Cage thinks the answersnlie in technology: “We must letntechnology act, let it be.” Unfettered,nautonomous technology will end thenoppression of work: anarchy throughntechnology.nIn elevating himself above politics,nCage must surely see, even enjoy, thenirony that the “apolitical” is the mostnpolitical of all, that to call for an “end” tonpolitics politicizes everything, includingnmusic. He realizes: “my work has stoppednbeing purely musical. I mix musical needsnwith social needs”; he also understandsnthat noise can be used to destroy power:n”I want to destroy it [ power ]. When Inreally began making music, I mean, composingn’seriously,’ it was to involve myselfnin noise, because noises escapenpower, that is, the laws of counterpointnand harmony.” This significance of noisenas a political dissolvent enhances Cage’snappreciation of rock music: “In rock, thentraditions are drowned in sound. Every-nMMMH43nOctober 1983n