viz.

The person who directed the Will.I.Am "Yes We Can" video was none other than the oldest son of Bob Dylan, Jesse Dylan. The younger Dylan got his start directing music videos and eventually moved on to directing feature films. (Films of his you may recognize include American Wedding, the third installment of the American Pie trilogy, and the Will Ferrell comedy, Kicking and Screaming.) As the son of the man who wrote "Blowing in the Wind," it is not surprising that Jesse Dylan has a bit of an idealistic streak in him. In fact, he has taken the essence of what he captured with the "Yes We Can" video and incorporated it into a website he launched with his business partner, Rob Holzer. The name of the site is hopeactchange.com. Check this for a further description:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/node/4020

What you will find on this site is a collection of celebrity endorsements of Obama but also testimony from lesser known people (I don't know--are some of these people B-list celebrities I don't know about) who speak of the need for change. To be honest, not everything that is said is very profound. Nor is much of the manner in which it is conveyed very original. Barack Obama's youtube page trades in the same kinds of endorsements and testimonials and includes appearances from figures like Alice Walker who are much more enlightening than your run-of-the-mill liberal celebrities. People on
Dylan's site tend to speak in cliches. There are also youtube clips, some of which you may have already seen, which lampoon McCain and build up Obama. One can register, post material, and interact with other users. There doesn't, however, seem to be a lot of discourse going on at this stage. But as the site states, it "is a work-in-progress." In essence, I don't believe it has reached the state of maturity that other representations of the "new idea" culture have reached (or can reach).

As an architect and proponent of this "new idea" culture, the younger Dylan is following in the footsteps of his famous father; but only to a degree. As the older Dylan became the personification of the hopes and dreams of his generation, he grew cynical about movements for change and only sporadically wrote and performed songs of social protest. I can imagine him being inspired to write "My Back Pages" in response to the kind of naive and simplistic rhetoric emanating from the people featured on his son's website or sneering at them for not being able to totally comprehend what is happening as he did to the fabled Mr. Jones in "Ballad of a Thin Man. But if Bob Dylan grew disillusioned with the social movements which he unwittingly became the spokesman for, it most likely was due in part to his loss of anonymity. I suspect that one of the values that he past down to his offspring was to cherish their anonymity. The only offspring of the famous bard who has come close to his notoriety is Jakob Dylan; and even Jakob Dylan has been reluctant to trade on his family name to further his career. By lending his talents to a movement for social change, Jesse Dylan does not pose to suffer from the loss of self that his father suffered. The younger Dylan's mode of expression is not contingent upon severing ties with his past and replacing it with an imaginary past in order to usher in an age of cultural and social revolution. The older Dylan's form of cultural engagement left him rudderless and "without a home." This probably constitutes the main difference between the ways in which father and son approach social change. Where one sought to personify, the other only seeks to participate.

Although influenced by visual culture to a much greater extent than previous generations, Bob Dylan's exposure to visual culture did not come any where close to the kind of visual saturation that defines the MTV and youtube eras. The images which influenced Dylan the most were the ones implanted by the songs he listened to on the radio and the books he read. Although aware of the power of visual appearance, Dylan's muse benefited from the freedom to wander where ever it pleased without being distracted by the pressure to conform to pre-existing images. His son, on the other hand, came of age in a much more visual culture and sought professional fulfillment by directing music videos. Although Dylan Sr. had a hand in promoting the concept of music videos, most notably with the Subterranean Homesick Blues sequence which appears at the beginning of his film Don't Look Back, he has taken a dim view of the art form throughout his career. He once claimed that by appearing in a music video, "there is always the chance that you might fry somebody's brain." This point speaks to another difference in the way in which the two Dylans tap into the "new idea" culture. One employs images that can be seen--the other employs images that have to be imagined. I think this second method is much more powerful.

Another deficiency manifested in the use of visual images involves the use of celebrities in endorsing the need for change. This brings about conformity, but it does not bring about unity. In the final words of his first presidential inaugural in 1861, Abraham Lincoln touched upon the relationship between historical memory, national unity, and moral empowerment:

"The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

Although the allure of celebrity is seductive, it does not resonate with who Americans have historically been as a people. Bob Dylan, on the other hand, incorporated the voices of America's unrecognized in a way that lent authenticity to our national sense of mission. "As he sang and wrote," writes Greil Marcus, "he was the slave on the auction block, the whore chained to her bed, a questioning youth, an old man looking back in sorrow and regret." As it has been pointed out on previous threads, there is something inauthentic and frivolous about taking your political cues from patrician celebrities. Following the lead of people with visual recognition does not necessarily stoke "the mystic chords of memory." Nor does it challenge us to act upon "the better angles of our nature." Connecting with complete strangers whose experiences link and define us as a people does stir the kinds of juices that Lincoln tried to stir in his inauguration speech. Where Jesse Dylan's approach to social change winds up being synthetic, his father's succeeded in being organic.

In the final analysis, both father and son's engagement with "new idea" culture embody strengths and weakness. Jesse Dylan chose to participate rather than personify. In the process he did not sacrifice his sense of self by conjuring up an imaginary past. His father, however, let new ideas flow from the human imagination, not from a distorted sense of reality corrupted by the over-stimulation of the visual senses. And rather than showcasing the familiar, the elder Dylan showcased the folk. Such strengths and weaknesses can be found in other examples of "new idea" culture.

I would be curious to hear what the resident Dylan expert, Mr. Tremel, has to say on what I have written.