The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 62 - There Is Nothing Uplifting Or Empowering About Stupid, Trashy Pop Music

00:00:00.000 So Ariana Grande, Grandy, Grandy, Grandy, anyway, the one who licked the donut, you know, the donut licking one.

00:00:10.300 She's out with a new video and song called God is a Woman, and it has caused waves in the culture.

00:00:18.060 Pop culture is a frenzy right now because of God is a Woman. 1.00

00:00:23.060 And it has the media, like the LA Times proclaimed that Grande has officially smashed the patriarchy with her music video for God is a Woman, which, just a quick side note there, we are continuously told that this and that thing or person has smashed the patriarchy.

00:00:43.020 But then feminists continue to complain about the patriarchy, so I thought it had been smashed. 1.00

00:00:47.680 I mean, once you smash something, it's gone, right?

00:00:49.880 So, like, I guess that means you haven't really been smashing it.

00:00:53.340 I mean, if you actually smashed it, then you have to stop complaining about it.

00:00:56.740 But if you're still complaining about it, then you can't claim that you're smashing it because clearly it's, if the patriarchy is still intact and can be smashed, it means that it was not smashed in the past.

00:01:06.500 That's just a quick, just a quick note there, technicality, all right?

00:01:09.880 Just a logistical point.

00:01:12.080 But, and there were other, Mashable says that it's the empowering female anthem the world needs.

00:01:19.880 The Guardian wrote a lengthy article dissecting the theological aspects of Grande's song, and there's been a lot of coverage like that.

00:01:30.360 Of course, the only problem with dissecting the theological aspects of the song is that there aren't any theological aspects of the song.

00:01:37.360 The video consists of the singer writhing about in various states of undress, which is, you know, what most pop, female pop videos consist of these days. 0.82

00:01:47.620 And, you know, she's gyrating on various different objects, including on the globe itself at one point.

00:01:53.060 And the video is peppered with a random hodgepodge of blasphemous imageries and things like that.

00:02:00.900 At one point, Madonna comes on and quotes scripture.

00:02:06.160 Okay, so it's just, there's just random blasphemy going on along with Ariana Grande naked prancing about. 1.00

00:02:15.480 So, the song itself, like 98.7% of all pop music, is just nonsensical garbage, and it makes you manifestly stupider just by encountering it. 0.93

00:02:29.240 Like, I will, just so we're on the same page, okay, and kind of as a science experiment, I will read some of the lyrics to you. 0.96

00:02:38.040 And I want you to be, now pay attention as I read this, because you're going to feel your own IQ plummeting to the earth.

00:02:46.660 Your IQ will lower by 13 to 15 points just when I read a couple of lyrics from this song.

00:02:53.260 You're going to feel it.

00:02:54.340 You're going to feel yourself. 0.99

00:02:55.740 You're going to say to yourself, wow, I'm getting dumber right now. 0.99

00:02:58.040 I am more, and by the end of it, you will be dumber than you were heading into it. 0.98

00:03:02.220 So, and this is just, as I said, just a science experiment.

00:03:04.280 So, the lyrics of the song, and maybe you can, maybe I'm wrong.

00:03:08.460 Maybe there is some deep theological significance here. 0.98

00:03:11.440 Maybe she's making some argument for the womanhood of God that I just am too stupid myself to pick up on. 0.99

00:03:20.800 But here's what the lyrics say. 0.99

00:03:23.640 You love it how I move you.

00:03:25.400 You love it how I touch you.

00:03:26.880 My one, when all is said and done, you'll believe God is a woman. 0.99

00:03:30.660 And I feel it after midnight, a feeling that you can't fight.

00:03:34.160 My one, it lingers when we're done.

00:03:36.260 You'll believe God is a woman. 0.99

00:03:38.500 I don't want to waste no time, yeah.

00:03:40.640 You ain't got a one-track mind, yeah.

00:03:43.380 Have it any way you like, yeah.

00:03:45.580 And I can tell that you know, I know how I want it.

00:03:50.420 Ain't nobody else can relate.

00:03:52.600 Boy, I like that you ain't afraid.

00:03:55.000 Baby, lay me down and let's pray.

00:03:57.700 I'm telling you the way I like it, how I want it.

00:04:00.660 But why does she, I thought he, earlier she said that he knows how she wants it.

00:04:07.240 And then now she's saying that she's going to tell him how she wants it.

00:04:11.400 So I don't, I'm trying to understand that.

00:04:13.260 So it seems a little bit redundant. 0.91

00:04:14.080 But anyway, I could continue, but your brain would actually liquefy and leak out of your 0.97

00:04:18.880 nose if I did. 0.90

00:04:20.200 So I won't do that.

00:04:21.960 And this is why, there are several people emailed me and they said, they asked me, he's like,

00:04:26.520 Matt, can you, can you do a podcast talking about why God isn't a woman?

00:04:32.120 You know, can you, can we, can we talk, can you engage with the point that Ariana Grande is

00:04:37.920 making and get into a theological debate with her pop song?

00:04:44.260 And I'm not going to do that because as you could tell from the, she's not, this is, it's

00:04:49.960 just, it's again, it's just nonsensical.

00:04:52.600 And she's not even really saying that God is a woman.

00:04:55.300 She's saying that God is a woman because she is God. 1.00

00:04:59.140 And the reason why she is God is that she can sexually satisfy her partner. 1.00

00:05:04.040 She can sexually satisfy a man in bed. 1.00

00:05:06.700 So that means that she is God. 0.98

00:05:08.160 That's what she's saying.

00:05:09.280 That's the theological argument that she's making. 0.94

00:05:12.560 And I, I mean, I do disagree with it.

00:05:14.420 I don't think the ability to sexually satisfy someone makes you a God personally.

00:05:19.120 That's just my, my own reading of scripture is that that's not accurate.

00:05:23.180 As far, now, if I were to actually engage this idea of, you know, is God a woman?

00:05:26.880 And it's, God is not a woman. 0.77

00:05:30.220 Neither is God a man.

00:05:32.320 God is not a male or female. 0.88

00:05:34.660 God is not a created being.

00:05:37.180 Okay.

00:05:38.740 God is, it is a being that transcends all of that.

00:05:46.040 Okay.

00:05:46.480 So we can't put them into the labels and the box, boxes that we belong to.

00:05:52.440 However, so it's not, so God, from the way that we think of it,

00:05:56.580 like our understanding of man and woman, God is neither.

00:06:01.640 He's above, beyond, transcending.

00:06:04.540 However, it is important that we refer to God as he for two reasons.

00:06:09.840 The first reason is that if we're not going to refer to God as he,

00:06:13.780 and we're not going to refer to God as she, because that would certainly be inaccurate,

00:06:18.060 then we're left with something kind of impersonal.

00:06:21.200 We'd have to refer to God as it, or they, or something like that.

00:06:25.720 But there's a reason why scripture uses a personal pronoun, because he is a personal God.

00:06:33.780 And that's a point that has to be driven home.

00:06:35.960 When you start, when you start using these kinds of vague, when you start, when you start using

00:06:40.420 vague language to refer to God, then you begin to think of God as this kind of impersonal,

00:06:48.840 almost this pantheistic kind of cosmic force that's just sort of floating out there,

00:06:56.080 detached from reality.

00:06:57.300 And that is the kind of God that some religions believe in.

00:07:00.840 That is not the Judeo-Christian God, and it's not the true God. 0.99

00:07:04.620 The true God is a personal God.

00:07:06.120 So we have to use personal language when referring to God.

00:07:09.380 Why do we call him he?

00:07:11.180 Well, I think it's very simple, because that's, I mean, that Jesus tells us to call God father.

00:07:18.520 So you can argue with that if you want.

00:07:22.660 You can tell Jesus he's wrong about the nature of God.

00:07:25.700 If that's an argument you want to get into with Jesus, be my guest.

00:07:29.820 I wouldn't recommend it, but I'm not going to get into that argument.

00:07:32.520 For me, it's as simple as Jesus told us, God is father, call him father.

00:07:37.460 In what sense is he father?

00:07:39.460 In what sense can you use this, obviously, masculine label and attach it to God?

00:07:46.760 I don't know.

00:07:47.740 I mean, I don't know exactly.

00:07:49.620 As far as the exact nature of God, I understand very little.

00:07:53.180 I have just like this little tiny thimble of understanding in my head.

00:07:57.620 And all I could ever hope to do is just fill that thimble.

00:08:00.820 So even if I reach my max capacity for understanding God, I will still have just a little thimble.

00:08:06.640 And as it happens right now, I have only a little bit of that thimble filled.

00:08:09.680 So my point is, I don't know exactly.

00:08:12.860 But this is what Jesus Christ, God incarnate, this is what he told us.

00:08:17.780 So we know that God is personal, and we are to refer to him and see him as father.

00:08:25.440 But let's put all that to the side, because really, I don't want to talk about that.

00:08:28.360 I wanted to talk about just kind of pop music in general, and especially this idea that stuff

00:08:35.700 like this can somehow empower us and especially empower women. 1.00

00:08:41.100 So a few points.

00:08:42.620 First of all, the problem with this kind of stuff, I mean, this kind of pop music, is that

00:08:50.720 it harms you both mentally and spiritually.

00:08:53.140 It harms your mind and your soul.

00:08:55.160 It's not a neutral.

00:08:57.400 I know I was kind of kidding around about how your IQ drops listening to it, but I was only

00:09:02.680 half kidding.

00:09:03.740 I think it really does harm us.

00:09:05.320 It's not a neutral experience. 1.00

00:09:08.000 Your mind is harmed because this is nonsensical, obnoxious, utterly stupid. 1.00

00:09:15.680 And so in order to enjoy it, and when I say stupid, I don't mean it as, it's not a playground 1.00

00:09:20.760 insult where I'm just, oh, that's stupid. 1.00

00:09:22.740 I mean, it's really stupid. 1.00

00:09:24.920 It is just stupid. 1.00

00:09:27.600 I mean, I read it to you. 1.00

00:09:28.880 That is stupid. 1.00

00:09:30.180 There's really no other word that would better capture. 1.00

00:09:33.480 There's no adjective that would better capture it than stupid. 1.00

00:09:37.220 And I would use the term stupid before I would use a term like offensive. 1.00

00:09:41.780 Now, when you've got these pop stars and they start getting into the blasphemy and everything, 0.99

00:09:46.260 they want you to be offended.

00:09:48.020 What they're going for is offensive.

00:09:50.860 But it's not nearly smart enough to be offensive.

00:09:53.580 Ariana Grande just doesn't have the intellectual wit to be offensive. 1.00

00:09:58.900 She can't offend me. 1.00

00:10:00.020 It's just really, really stupid. 1.00

00:10:02.180 So in order to enjoy it, you have to kind of willfully kill off the parts of your brain 1.00

00:10:09.960 that demand actual substance and actual coherence.

00:10:14.180 Now, I would say that smart people don't listen to this stuff, but that's not quite right.

00:10:19.460 Because there is something in it.

00:10:21.840 And I don't mean just this song in particular.

00:10:24.480 I mean, there's something in pop music in general.

00:10:30.260 There's something in it that plays to the lowest common denominator in all of us.

00:10:35.580 Something that everybody finds weirdly, almost incomprehensibly appealing to some extent.

00:10:43.440 I don't find this song appealing at all. 0.99

00:10:46.180 But everybody has, even when it comes to stupid pop songs, everyone has certain stupid pop songs that you hear that and you're like, 1.00

00:10:55.420 this is stupid. 1.00

00:10:56.320 I don't like it. 1.00

00:10:56.920 But I also, there's something about it that I do like.

00:10:59.500 I can't quite understand it.

00:11:00.820 And it has to do with the repetition and the melody, the beat, the way, I think also the way the lyrics of these songs almost always feed into the ego of the listener.

00:11:11.800 And I think all of this could entice even potentially smart people to listen to it.

00:11:17.000 But if smart people do listen, and they keep listening, and they get enmeshed in this pop culture world,

00:11:24.780 then they will become less smart in the process.

00:11:27.960 They may remain smart, but not as smart. 0.97

00:11:31.120 And they will be smart in spite of all this crap they're listening to, not because of it. 0.60

00:11:36.540 Because your mind atrophies after a while. 0.95

00:11:39.840 And I know people like to say, well, sometimes you've got to turn your brain off and just enjoy.

00:11:45.620 And what they mean is that they're talking about something.

00:11:49.780 The song, the show, the movie, whatever they're talking about.

00:11:54.460 When they say, well, you've just got to turn your brain off.

00:11:57.160 What they're saying is that this thing is so completely devoid of intellectual substance that you would be bored by it unless you made the effort to put your brain into kind of hibernation mode.

00:12:12.660 Again, it's not this. 1.00

00:12:15.820 So much in pop culture, the shows, the songs, so much of it is just incredibly stupid. 0.99

00:12:21.380 And it's not that if you encounter it, you'll be offended. 1.00

00:12:25.120 It's more like if you keep your brain on, you'll be bored by it.

00:12:29.420 You just, it's boring.

00:12:30.460 Because with your brain still on, yeah, you might, it is possible to be entertained with your brain on so that your mind is also being engaged in some way.

00:12:41.640 And that's a much deeper, more fulfilling, more enjoyable, more entertaining form of entertainment.

00:12:48.280 But if you keep your brain on and you try to engage with Ariana Grande or Beyonce or whoever, you're just going to be bored to death.

00:12:55.980 So you've got to make this effort to turn it off.

00:12:58.780 And yeah, maybe every once in a while it doesn't hurt to do that. 1.00

00:13:02.200 Maybe every once in a while it doesn't hurt to turn your brain off and really enjoy something completely stupid. 0.98

00:13:08.600 Okay, maybe that doesn't, although it never really helps, but maybe it doesn't hurt. 0.98

00:13:11.860 But the problem is that most people are indulging in this turn off your brain entertainment every day for hours at a time.

00:13:21.700 They turn their brain off and they never turn it back on.

00:13:24.880 They say, oh, sometimes you've got to turn your brain off.

00:13:27.660 And the only response to that is sometimes?

00:13:30.500 What do you mean sometimes?

00:13:31.780 This is what you're always doing.

00:13:33.140 You never have your brain on.

00:13:34.980 Everything you, every form of entertainment that you enjoy requires you to turn your brain off.

00:13:41.040 So, and you're always being entertained by something.

00:13:44.080 So when exactly are you turning it back on?

00:13:47.160 And it's not like the person who's always turning their brain off for Ariana Grande and company and for whatever reality shows and The Bachelor or whatever else.

00:13:59.220 It's not like they're balancing that with Shakespeare and documentaries about military history.

00:14:08.260 You know, it's intellectually substantive.

00:14:09.800 No, that's not what's happening.

00:14:11.900 They're just, their whole life revolves around the turn your brain off stuff.

00:14:16.520 And I think after a while you get to the point where you don't know how to turn it back on and you don't really want to.

00:14:23.380 So your mind just kind of withers after a while in the same way that your legs will wither if you just lay around on the couch all the time.

00:14:30.780 So the mind is hurting and then the soul is also hurt, I think, because art can be a very, very uplifting experience and it can be edifying and it can be enlightening.

00:14:42.520 And I'm not just talking about religious art.

00:14:46.080 I mean, any art, any art that is rooted in something true and that brings you closer to truth.

00:14:52.900 Any art that illuminates in some way.

00:14:55.320 And I think all art should do that, even non-religious. 0.68

00:14:59.840 I mean, all art should have that effect.

00:15:01.580 I've said in the past that all art should bring us closer to God.

00:15:06.340 And people always object to that because they think that I'm saying that all art should be religious.

00:15:11.720 But that's not what I'm saying at all.

00:15:13.400 In fact, I would actually quite prefer it if Christian artists, like Christian musicians, Christian actors, and so on, would make less Christian entertainment, quote, Christian entertainment, and make more entertainment that is consistent with their faith but is not explicitly evangelical.

00:15:32.440 So I'm actually not a fan of this thing we do now where you've got art, you know, you've got like regular secular art, which is rooted in nihilism and just stupidity and materialism, and then you've got Christian art, Christian movies, Christian music, Christian TM, trademark, you know.

00:15:53.420 Now, what I would like to see, I think what would be great, is that you take some of those Christians from over here, from this category, and you bring them over into secular entertainment, and you have them make secular entertainment that is still consistent with and rooted in their Christian worldview.

00:16:12.420 That's the way pretty much all art used to be in the West up until like the mid-20th century.

00:16:18.100 It's not that all art was religious, it was that all art told stories of love and redemption and suffering and forgiveness and justice and virtue and sin.

00:16:29.340 So even if it wasn't preaching, it was still rooted in a philosophical understanding of these things, and it would increase your own understanding to listen to or watch or read whatever art form.

00:16:42.120 But most art today has no connection to anything real, and instead it exists for its own sake.

00:16:47.880 It exists only to distract, it exists to appeal to the basest parts of us, and I think that that certainly does hurt our souls, as well as our brains.

00:16:57.300 Second point, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, I just, and I admit I'm not a woman myself, so maybe I'm going to engage in a little bit of mansplaining here. 0.87

00:17:07.760 But when I hear people say that stupid pop music is empowering to women, or when someone says that the song, the lyrics to which I just read to you,

00:17:21.260 when someone says that those lyrics and a video of a woman naked prancing around empowers women, 1.00

00:17:30.320 I can only think that that is incredible, not only is it false, but it's incredibly demeaning and insulting to women. 0.99

00:17:39.100 Because the women that I know, the women in my life, okay, the women in my family, my own wife, so there's women that I know personally, 0.56

00:17:49.460 that if you told them that, you know, if you said to them, hey, I found this really empowering thing for women, why don't you come watch it?

00:17:58.300 And then you put on the Ariana Grande video for them, the first thing they would probably do is laugh at you, because they would think you were joking.

00:18:08.220 And then when they realized that you weren't joking, they would be, I would think, probably insulted.

00:18:13.560 It's like, what do you think of me? Do you think I'm empowered by this idiocy? Are you kidding me? 1.00

00:18:18.860 Turn this garbage off. 1.00

00:18:20.720 So the women that I know, that's how they would react to that claim. 1.00

00:18:24.660 And I think that's probably the case for most women, you know, so this, um, this is always the case with modern feminism, 1.00

00:18:32.500 that while it claims to be defending women and representing women, all it does is demean them and bring them down to this level where most women have no interest in being.

00:18:45.920 So I think there are a lot of, I think, I think substantive, intelligent women, um, like the women in my life, like hopefully any of the women watching this, um, like most of the women in the country, 0.92

00:18:59.760 there's a lot of places they can look just like men. There are a lot of places we can look for empowerment,

00:19:04.920 but they're not going to look to pop music any more than I think an intelligent and substantive man will look to pop music or to rap or something for empowerment.

00:19:14.380 Um, and the third point I want to make, this is the last point. There's this really dumb thing that people do where they dismiss concerns about modern pop music on the basis that people had similar concerns 50 years ago.

00:19:29.300 And I'm, I'm sure there are people saying this even now, right now, as I, the people, even as I'm, as I'm discussing this, there are people thinking this in their head, I'm sure. 0.72

00:19:38.260 Or people will say, Oh, please, you know, adults in the fifties were complaining about Elvis and those concerns were obviously unwarranted.

00:19:46.560 So what's the big deal? It's just pop music. Every time I hear that, I think, well, yeah, you're right.

00:19:52.560 I mean, adults were complaining about Elvis in the fifties. You're saying that their concerns were unwarranted, but were they, it seems to me now, most people in the fifties or in the sixties or whatever,

00:20:06.520 when, if they were complaining about Elvis or the Beatles, they weren't literally claiming that the world was actually going to end because Elvis was shaking his hips around.

00:20:17.620 I don't think anyone was saying that. I don't think anyone was saying that the world, that, that all human, that all life on earth will be annihilated because of the shape, the, the, the hip shaking of, uh, the, the, the pelvic thrusting of, of, uh, of Elvis or whatever.

00:20:31.040 Nobody was saying that. I think instead what, what, what perceptive people were saying in the fifties and sixties, as pop music was coming into its own,

00:20:39.720 they were noticing that this stuff is having a course and coarsening and stupefying effect on our culture.

00:20:48.840 And so what they were worried is that art would increasingly be debased and would be increasingly disconnected from beauty and truth and God and virtue.

00:21:00.660 And, you know, and, you know, and, and, and all of that. And instead it would become this coarse, vulgar, ridiculous, stupid thing that exists only to distract. 0.99

00:21:10.480 And for no other reason, I think that's what people were worried about in the fifties when they were looking at Elvis and you're saying they were wrong about that. 0.99

00:21:19.880 No, no, I, I think clearly they were right. I think it's quite obvious that their concerns were 100% warranted and what they warned would happen actually did happen and is happening now.

00:21:35.260 So yes, complaints about pop music have been around since pop music has been around.

00:21:41.020 But my point is those complaints have all been justified. They've all been proven true. 0.75

00:21:46.760 I mean, what are you talking about? Have you noticed what's happening in the culture?

00:21:51.040 Now I'm not saying, when you look at our cultural state now, I'm not saying that it's the fault of pop music, but pop music has not helped.

00:22:00.420 Pop music has contributed to it. Pop music has been both a symptom of our cultural decline and a vehicle for it.

00:22:08.620 And I think that is very clear when you just look around you, just open your eyes. 0.98

00:22:13.320 We live in a culture today that is, that is just dumb, in need of constant stimulation. 0.95

00:22:24.480 There are a great many people in this country who have no desire for any kind of intellectual engagement. 0.99

00:22:32.100 So they have this constant need to be entertained, and the kind of entertainment they look to just gets dumber and dumber by the day. 0.96

00:22:42.860 And I would submit that that's a process that really began in earnest in the mid-20th century. 0.97

00:22:50.120 And so all the people who were pointing that out and kind of wringing their hands about it in the mid-20th, they were right. 1.00

00:22:58.280 We probably should have listened to them.

00:23:00.940 All this so-called classic pop music of the Beatles and Elvis. 0.99

00:23:06.280 I mean, all that stuff is just garbage. 0.96

00:23:07.820 I mean, it's done nothing good for society whatsoever. 0.98

00:23:11.220 Society would have been better off if none of that ever existed.

00:23:14.180 And I know that's supposed to be some kind of, like, heresy now.

00:23:17.660 They say, oh, what do you mean, Elvis?

00:23:19.040 Well, Elvis is a classic because he was, I mean, how could you say? 0.99

00:23:22.940 No, I mean, the music is just kind of garbage. 0.85

00:23:25.440 It's like, what is, what's it trying to say? 0.99

00:23:28.140 What's it doing?

00:23:29.120 What's the point of it?

00:23:30.520 What was the point of most of what the Beatles were churning out?

00:23:33.320 I mean, it's just, I submit that if we could turn back the clock to the 40s and 50s and just go off on a completely different path and all the pop music, it just, it never came about, I think we'd be in a better spot today.

00:23:49.660 I'm not saying that we'd be in a utopian spot.

00:23:52.360 I don't even know how, I don't know how, I don't know to what degree we'd be in a better spot because there are so many other problems as well.

00:23:58.480 But I think we'd be in a better spot.

00:24:00.360 I don't think the world was made better by any of this stuff, personally.

00:24:06.460 So once again, it would seem to be the case that the prophetic voices in the early and mid 20th century who were warning about this and that, we probably should have listened to them.

00:24:17.180 But the world didn't listen to them, just like they're not listening to those voices today.

00:24:21.240 That's just the story as it goes.

00:24:23.720 Anyway, thanks for watching, everybody.

00:24:25.240 Thanks for listening.

00:24:26.660 Godspeed.

The Matt Walsh Show - July 16, 2018

Ep. 62 - There Is Nothing Uplifting Or Empowering About Stupid, Trashy Pop Music

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