Cowboy Nostalgia Won’t Fix Hillbilly Pain

September 9, 2023

HERE'S MY TAKE

Neither hillbilly nor cowboy nor Richmond rich man nor political elite are terms that I identify with. I’m a Dutch immigrant kid and feel like I don’t belong in any of those camps. Even when I’m invited, I spend most of my time trying to figure out the proper way to behave in different settings. Still, it’s worth paying attention to what’s going on around you if you want to make sense of the world.

The last edition of Insights provided an end-of-summer assessment of opinion polls as it relates to the Canadian federal political scene. I cautioned about the limits of prognosticating based on present numbers. Today, I need to provide a similar caution given that my take-off point is a current musical rage: Oliver Anthony. Music clicks aren’t the same as polling numbers but they are data worth parsing nonetheless. What, if anything, might this sensation tell us about our emerging politics?

If you haven’t heard of Anthony, no worries. No one had prior to August 8^th. That was the day Anthony (his real name is Christopher Lunsford) released Rich Men North of Richmond, a three-minute YouTube song in a country-folk style. It immediately became a viral sensation: five million views within a few days; 56 million in a month; from nowhere to the top of the Billboard charts. It was enough of a phenomenon that an excerpt was played at the Republican primary presidential debate, with the candidates asked why this song had become such a sensation.

The song’s message is one of alienation. Some have interpreted it as an anthem to conservative populism, although Anthony insists it is not a political song. When Republican candidates provided partisan spin, Anthony responded that it was “about the people on the stage,” not about Democrats or Republicans. “I do hate to see that song being weaponized, like I see. I see the right trying to characterise me as one of their own. And I see the left trying to discredit me, I guess in retaliation. That’s got to stop.”

The lyrics speak of economic alienation, of the politicians not getting it, only taking care of themselves, in an era in which it’s impossible for the ordinary guy to get ahead.

Lord, it’s a damn shame what the world’s gotten to
For people like me and people like you
Wish I could just wake up and it not be true
But it is, oh, it is

Livin’ in the new world
With an old soul
These rich men north of Richmond
Lord knows they all just wanna have total control
Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do
And they don’t think you know, but I know that you do
‘Cause your dollar ain’t sh– and it’s taxed to no end
‘Cause of rich men north of Richmond

I’ve been sellin’ my soul, workin’ all day
Overtime hours for bullsh– pay

Economist Tyler Cowan suggests that the song might provide insight into the zeitgeist of our times, but he argues it isn’t reliable as a cultural or political predictor. “Automation…will throw some people out of work, but economics teaches us that in the longer run it usually benefits society, through both lower consumer prices and the creation of jobs in other, less visible sectors of the economy. You don’t hear many songs about that.” Cowan’s punchline is that Anthony will likely end up accepting the $8 million recording contract he has been offered but to date not accepted. He implies, of course, that while art can play on the emotions of those who get hurt, real life eventually takes over. Rational behaviour and self-interest offer the best data. Because that is just the way the world works.

I don’t know Anthony. And Cowan might well be right in expecting that at some point, Anthony will join the rich men in accepting the contract. I’m not so sure–and I’m also not convinced it matters. The challenge of art is that once it is released, its message can evolve from the one the artist originally intended. It might not matter whether Anthony intends his song to be a “pox on all your houses” rant against the entire political class. His line “I wish politicians would look out for miners, And not just minors on an island somewhere” seems a clear reference to Jeffrey Epstein’s private island on which sex-trafficking victims were provided for the rich and famous.

In my August 19th column I tried to dissect features of the excluded middle class that seems to be part of our present cultural malaise. A reader asked if I had Anthony in mind as I was writing that piece; I had to confess that I hadn’t yet heard of Anthony. What all of this points to is a deeper sense that our system isn’t capable of fixing things and that while certain politicos may win some points for identifying the problem in a way that resonates more broadly, deep down, many including Anthony it would seem don’t believe a solution is on the horizon.

Cowan is right about the limits of art. He points out that numerous widely-acclaimed hits captured the angst of the “little guy” without translating into political movements. But while music and art don’t directly translate into implementable agendas, they provide an insight as least as reliable as current polling to help us interpret our cultural moment. It’s a delicate balance. Naming the problem is part of the solution but burning the political house down in the process makes life much more difficult when it’s time for you to move in.

This newsletter isn’t the place to provide a primer on the various theories of culture change. And, with enough time and space, I would lay out a more nuanced view, which would qualify what I’m about to write. That all said, the point is important enough to make anyway. In To Change the World, American sociologist James Davison Hunter talks about the interdisciplinary nature of social change. He explains that lasting change happens when there are elites in institutions representing the good, the true, and the beautiful and they work towards that. It isn’t so much a strategy–the minute it turns into a strategy it won’t work, Hunter claims–as it is a “faithful presence” in various spheres that combine to make an impact. It’s not any one action but the interaction of effects in different spheres that make change.

There is room to quibble and argue with Hunter, but I think history sustains the core of his argument. In the immediate context, it’s interesting how “elites” and “institutions” are defined. The ordinary reading of social change theories and institutions takes for granted the existing institutions and the status quo. Anthony has reportedly made $350,000 in the first few weeks, a far cry from the $8 million the existing industry structures offered him, but not chump change either. Given that his message seems to be anti-institutional in some form, what if he holds out and–along with several other independents who are similarly doing well with the new technologies for distributing music–effectively changes the structure of the industry?

A billboard in Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame highlights how the country music movement has swung between “cowboy” music which “implied romance, bravery, and the self-sufficiency of life on the open range” and “hillbilly” music, “loaded with negative cultural stereotypes.” I suppose you don’t get more establishment than the building that houses the Country Music Hall of Fame. So, it’s no surprise to see a celebration of the public contribution of the “singing cowboys,” with Gene Autry quoted as saying, “While my solutions were a little less complex than those offered by FDR…I played a kind of New Deal cowboy who never hesitated to tackle many of the same problems.” Canadian columnist Tony Keller notes an overlap between Anthony and the birth of Canadian medicare the better part of a century ago, another confirmation that once the momentum for structural change takes root, it sometimes leads to places many don’t expect.

Anthony is building on his new-found success. This week, he released a video that showcased a handgun, a symbol with powerful political implications in the present context, not only of how to deal with violence, but also of gun rights and the limits of state coercion. Former Alabama governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee faced criticism from across the political spectrum for saying that the 2024 presidential contest might be the last American election “to be decided by ballots not bullets.” But Huckabee isn’t a totally fringe political force. And many of the clicks making Anthony an internet sensation come from people who might not be ready to buy any of the solutions proposed by any of the “rich men north of Richmond.”

I included an important caveat in my poll punditry in the last Insights: even if polling numbers accurately reflect the present, they don’t define the future. The future is always a response (or reaction) to the present. Cowboy nostalgia won’t solve the hillbilly’s pain. I’m not as sanguine as Tyler Cowan that the existing institutions in their present form necessarily are resilient enough to restore an equilibrium similar to what was “normal” a decade ago. But I’m no prophet either. I have no idea how our institutions will need to morph in order to answer the pain and alienation that Anthony’s music reflects. What I do know is that part of the task of leadership–especially for those of us who call ourselves Christians–is to listen. It’s a form of cultural deafness not to hear the lament within the music of our times.

WHAT I’M READING

What’s a Million?

The Globe and Mail reported that Benjamin Tal, CIBC deputy chief economist, used his recent presentation to the federal cabinet retreat to warn ministers that government population estimates were underestimating the number of non-permanent residents by almost a million people. He blamed the underestimation on the assumption that all non-permanent residents were leaving Canada when their visas expired. An extra million residents affects immigration policy, of course, as much as it complicates Canada’s housing shortage. This week, the government announced it would change its population estimate methodology to address this concern. In the meantime, remember that June announcement that Canada’s population had crossed the 40 million mark? Expect the September 27^th update to make that more like 41 million.

Not to Their Credit

Payday lending is part of the way many working poor, unable to qualify for regular bank loans or credit cards, make their way through a short-term crisis. My colleagues Brian Dijkema and Johanna Lewis, writing in the Globe and Mail, point out how well-intentioned steps to regulate this industry might actually be creating barriers that are driving a growing segment of this industry underground.

Unrealised Potential  

The Financial Times ran a piece reviewing Canada’s various economic advantages which suggest it should be an economic powerhouse. The article also outlines how productivity challenges, internal trade barriers, and demographic factors have conspired to make this not the case. Not much here that isn’t familiar, but it’s a helpful summary written for a foreign audience that brings many themes together into a coherent argument.

Jordan Peterson’s Right(s)

The phenomenon of Jordan Peterson is a complicated topic. While I appreciate much of what he says and represents, I also have serious concerns with much of it and even more so with Christians who uncritically present Peterson’s message as a redux of the gospel. But that’s for another day. His op-ed in the National Post entitled “Canada is trampling on my God-given right to free speech” provides an insightful overview of recent cultural developments and his vow to lead the charge in fighting them. Whether you like Peterson a lot, a little, or not at all, this piece outlines a history and strategy observers of current events would do well to note.

MEANINGFUL METRICS

Keeping up With AI  

I use this space to include a graph I’ve come across in which I learned basic facts about the world that I did not know before I saw it. This Visual Capitalist portrayal of AI’s capacities parses the various functions that Artificial Intelligence is increasingly proficient at, using human performance in those capacities as a benchmark. The pace of AI growth is unsurprising (basically a straight vertical line in several cases) and gives proper cause for concern in our ability to adjust to these capacities. This has given rise to many thinkers warning about the perils of runaway AI and urging a moratorium on its development. Even so, it is useful to remind ourselves that AI is not a single undifferentiated thing but rather a series of capacities that are used quite differently from each other.

TAKE IT TO-GO

An Elegant Buzz Off

It was much ado about something. Five million somethings in fact. The story of a truckload of beehives spilling onto a Burlington, Ontario road last week even created a buzz on the BBC. The five million bees in this “hive move” were travelling to a more suitable winter location when the accident happened.

Burlington is a hamlet with which I am quite familiar. So, when I heard of the story, it was natural to do a soliloquy as to whether this was “to bee or not to bee” as an Insights Take It To-Go item. Of course, Shakespeare’s Hamlet was up to his nectar with much deeper issues than a few bee stings as he wandered the stage alone. It is in the Taming of the Shrew that the bard puns about wasps, bees, and buzzards, and where the remedy to a sting is to pluck it out. In Burlington, the objective was to bring the bees back in. Well, the story has a happy ending as a dozen experienced beekeepers came to the stage, played their roles, and delivered a star performance. All but a few hundred of the five million bees were saved.

I’ll keep this short as the only thing left on this sylla-buzz is to dig into deep philosophical questions about when comedy and tragedy mix, and that’s a direction I don’t want to pollen. This wordplay ends with the bees back home, me bee-ing myself at this end-of-newsletter sting, and Insights readers receiving wishes for a sweet-as-honey week and invitations to check for another Insights edition in their inbox next Saturday morning.