Last week an interview with Brian Eno in The Guardian went up & it’s been misconstrued because of the click bait tagline on it that he supports Trump & Brexit. If you bother to read the interview, it’s clear he doesn’t, that he feels Trump/Brexit may be good because they will wake people up. But he does make a few interesting points about the phenomena of nationalism going on worldwide. Basically that those of us in the elite intellectual/artist class think of us as edgy & progressive & revolutionary are so in our own world & oblivious to the rest of society that we didn’t really notice that they were suffering & they are having a revolution without us. Which I think is accurate. I think that revolutions are more likely from the silent majority than the vocal minority in general, when you’re able to get the anger out there’s no real need to revolt as you already are out of energy.
I’m torn about the whole nationalism/globalism thing. I understand the hope of globalism, letting us in the west suffer a little bit to help the rest of the planet & I’m fine with that; I mean, who wouldn’t be? At the same time I’m not particularly interested in it meaning I can stay at The Hilton in Budapest or go to Starbucks in Prague. I’m really not into the way I’ve seen so many cities become homogenized over my 20 years on & off the road working in music. I used to really feel like towns had their own unique vibes & all that character seems to be slipping away. It’s awful. I don’t want every place the same except for the 200 year old landmarks. I want Austin to stay weird, I want there to be decaying buildings in old industrial towns, I want to feel like there is still magic in the world when I travel. I’m not sure if that is nationalistic as much as small town minded, but it’s where I’m at.