DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21216#0106
Fm softer now than in the sixties. I didn't feel compelled to be strident in
Latin America.
But this process of softening is also a "leitmotif" which runs through articles
about Baez. Over the years journalists have seen her as loosening up, being less
abrasive or seif righteous, or have been happily surprised by her warmth, humour
and charm, praising her engaging ability to make fun of herseif.
One can, I think, distinguish between the rebel and the protestor. For me the
former refers to a refusal to do that which one doesn't feel inclined to do, the
latter to a refusal on ethical grounds coupled with a demand for the righting of
a wrong Situation. Baez was a "style rebel" (to use Klapp's term) only in part,
and only for the first few years of her career. Klapp, writing in the late sixties,
seems to lump the two together refering to "Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and other
folk singers of protest and style rebellion", who are "feeding the drop-out
trend". (Klapp, 1969 p. 254). He is too quick to catagorize without backing up
his judgements. His few references to Baez either contrast her to Joan of Are as
part of a list of divergent heroes; label her as a style rebell and protester; or con-
trast her spirit (which he sees as essentially nonpolitical) to that of a labour
leader, Debs. He says:
An important aspect of style rebellion is that it symbolizes a mystique of
private experience which Squares do not understand. So style rebellion has
not the political significanCe of a gesture like Thoreau's tax refusal or the
Boston Tea Party. It is not an abstract claim of a political right or a program
for action. The spirit of Joan Baez is not the spirit of Eugene Debs. Style
rebels are not so much seeking to overthrow the Organization as to find their
own meaning and assert their own integrity by expressing scorn for the non
emotional way of life. (Klapp, 1969 p. 53)
The above is an example of the dangers inherent in catagorization where it flies
in the face of fact. Klapp seems to have an image of Baez as the rebel rebeling
for rebellion's sake. Her comments about the negative aspects of hippiedom, as
a form of retreatism, her call to others to refuse war taxes as she and others had
done, disprove Klapp's analysis of Baez' spirit. There is some of Debs in Baez
(she quotes favorably his remarks about if a leader can bring you out of the
desert, another being able to lead you'back in). Klapp's argumentation, aside
from his seeming lack of knowledge about Baez' actions and views, is flagrently
guilty of the genetic fallacy: the reason such rebellion is less effective or signif-
icant pohtically is because it stems from a different motivation (namely an effort
to asert one's own identity). Taking Klapp's own catagories, Baez fits much
101
Latin America.
But this process of softening is also a "leitmotif" which runs through articles
about Baez. Over the years journalists have seen her as loosening up, being less
abrasive or seif righteous, or have been happily surprised by her warmth, humour
and charm, praising her engaging ability to make fun of herseif.
One can, I think, distinguish between the rebel and the protestor. For me the
former refers to a refusal to do that which one doesn't feel inclined to do, the
latter to a refusal on ethical grounds coupled with a demand for the righting of
a wrong Situation. Baez was a "style rebel" (to use Klapp's term) only in part,
and only for the first few years of her career. Klapp, writing in the late sixties,
seems to lump the two together refering to "Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and other
folk singers of protest and style rebellion", who are "feeding the drop-out
trend". (Klapp, 1969 p. 254). He is too quick to catagorize without backing up
his judgements. His few references to Baez either contrast her to Joan of Are as
part of a list of divergent heroes; label her as a style rebell and protester; or con-
trast her spirit (which he sees as essentially nonpolitical) to that of a labour
leader, Debs. He says:
An important aspect of style rebellion is that it symbolizes a mystique of
private experience which Squares do not understand. So style rebellion has
not the political significanCe of a gesture like Thoreau's tax refusal or the
Boston Tea Party. It is not an abstract claim of a political right or a program
for action. The spirit of Joan Baez is not the spirit of Eugene Debs. Style
rebels are not so much seeking to overthrow the Organization as to find their
own meaning and assert their own integrity by expressing scorn for the non
emotional way of life. (Klapp, 1969 p. 53)
The above is an example of the dangers inherent in catagorization where it flies
in the face of fact. Klapp seems to have an image of Baez as the rebel rebeling
for rebellion's sake. Her comments about the negative aspects of hippiedom, as
a form of retreatism, her call to others to refuse war taxes as she and others had
done, disprove Klapp's analysis of Baez' spirit. There is some of Debs in Baez
(she quotes favorably his remarks about if a leader can bring you out of the
desert, another being able to lead you'back in). Klapp's argumentation, aside
from his seeming lack of knowledge about Baez' actions and views, is flagrently
guilty of the genetic fallacy: the reason such rebellion is less effective or signif-
icant pohtically is because it stems from a different motivation (namely an effort
to asert one's own identity). Taking Klapp's own catagories, Baez fits much
101