The Astroworld Festival Disaster and the Normalization of Death - World Socialist Web Site

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The Astroworld festival disaster and the normalization of death - World Socialist Web Site: 

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More is involved, however, than just the financial considerations. There is a broader brutalization of American society, promoted in the media and the entire political establishment, within which the Houston concert took place. It is worth noting that Texas leads the United States in executions, with more than 830 people killed since 1930, nearly twice as many as the next state.

This finds its reflection in what passes for the “cultural life” of the country. For decades, the ruling class has promoted a toxic combination of individualism and selfishness, the cultural corollary to its own massive enrichment at the expense of society as a whole, and the working class in particular.

The content of the concert reflects a general backwardness that is systematically promoted. Margaret Thatcher’s declaration that “there is no society” could describe much of contemporary rap music, with this single-minded focus on personal advancement, greed, hedonism and the glorification of violence.

Scott’s music is themed around making as much money as possible while “living in the moment,” topics that pervade much of commercial hip-hop music. Days before the deadly concert, Scott released a song titled, ironically, “Escape Plan,” in which he raps about one day having a fortune of “12 figures.” That would put him on par with Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, who each control over $100 billion. The music video features Scott posing in front of a succession of hypercars, yachts and luxury mansions.

High culture, meanwhile, is starving. Classical musicians have had their pay slashed year after year, and budgets for cultural education in schools are withering. There is a systematic and ongoing attack, orchestrated by the media and political establishment, on the legacy of the American Revolution and Civil War. The level of cultural degradation has reached a point where a professor, Bright Sheng at the University of Michigan, can be targeted and ostracized for showing a film version of one of Shakespeare’s great plays, Othello.

It is this toxic mix of social inequality, greed, political reaction and backwardness that created the shocking indifference to human life on display in Houston.

Although rarely engaging in the fetishization of homicide and brutality that pervades much of hip-hop, Scott’s lyrics are drenched with the worship of hedonism, risk-taking, and living for the moment. The concert’s iconography borrows heavily from horror movies, including a giant, skull-like sculpture of the artist’s head.

One attendee posted on Redditt: “Everything seemed normal for a Travis Scott show. I’ve seen countless people pass out at almost every GA standing room only concert. I didn’t know the people I saw being carried away were lifeless corpses, I thought people were just passing out. Was it overcrowded? Yes but that’s normal. Was it understaffed? Yes but that’s normal. Was it chaotic? Yes but that’s normal. I feel like the crowd became so desensitized and normalized to nothing but rage that it finally caught up to him and everyone involved.”