Music is weird, and writing about it is always troublesome. That's because musical taste varies, as do the personalities of musicians. With classical music, we don't think too much about the personalities of particular musicians, because most of the composers are long dead, and (assuming a competent orchestra) what they wrote is pretty much designed to sound the same way whenever it is performed. There are some exceptions to this, of course. Composers inevitably left their own personal stamp on their music, so there's no getting away from the emotionally stormy personality of Beethoven, the surreal intensity of Bela Bartok, etc. In the case of what we call "virtuoso" performers, even individual musicians matter. (I saw Itzhak Perlman not long ago, and trust me, no one else can do what he does.)

But even with a virtuoso performer, how many people really care about his politics?

In the case of popular music, it's vastly different. Fans tend to identify with the performers, and the performers (along with profit-driven music industry) tend to encourage this phenomenon. High school arguments over which musicians "rule" and which "suck" have been going on since I was in school, but I very much doubt the kids who study classical music do the same thing. ("Beethoven rules?" "Schubert sucks?" I don't think so.)

So closely are popular music personalities tied to their music that even the identity of fans is a subject of discussion. (Thus, the Grateful Dead have been criticized for having Ann Coulter as a fan.)

The Berkeley-based Green Day are about as anti-Bush as it's possible to be, and last month (prompted by Eugene Volokh's and Glenn Reynolds's posts), I suggested facetiously that their proper punishment would be for Ann Coulter to out herself as a fan of the band.

But the questions persist, and because this sort of thing goes to the heart of what we call the Culture War, I don't want to leave any stone unturned. (Not even the Rolling Stones, who almost exactly one year ago were aswirl in controversy -- profitable controversy, of course -- over the "My Sweet NeoCon" song.)

Why is it that so so many rock stars seem driven by Bush Derangement Syndrome?

Dustbury's inimitable Charles Hill takes a hard look at this vexing question, and ventures that rock is rooted in rebellion, and creativity is rooted in anger:

I'm inclined to give the premise as a whole a qualified thumbs up, at least in the rock realm, for the simple reason that rather a lot of rock is predicated on the notion of rebellion — against authority, against conformity, against [fill in name of unbearable cultural imperative] — and GWB seems to arouse levels of outrage more than sufficient to support this sort of thing. And some of us, I think, simply produce more interesting work when we're pissed off. (Note that this specification says nothing about whether we're justified in being pissed off; ultimately, this requires a longer historical perspective than the immediacy of popular music can reasonably allow.)

Additionally, I think there's something else going on, and it is the very important dynamic of wealth. Successful rock musicians have wealth, whether they like it or not. In the rock business, success means megabucks. It means that regardless of the outrageous posture or attire, regardless of how close you might think you are to "your roots," once you're a rock star, you'll be in the world of limos, high-power managers, bodyguards, exclusive places to live with every luxury you might want, and everyone from recording industry officials to politicians, movie stars, media figures and fans, throwing themselves at your feet.

Under these circumstances, for a rebellious rock star, anything other than hating Bush and the Republicans would be considered (dare I say it?) selling out! (It might be seen as emasculating, and rock stars are supposed to be big studs and all that... But for now I'm trying to avoid being a shrink.)

Add to this the way people view wealth in this country. It is almost schizophrenic, and I've commented on it more times than I can remember. You'd think that in a free country with a "free market system" wealth would be a good thing. Certainly it is good in the sense that nearly everyone wants to have it.

But the downside of wealth is its close association with shame.

Wealth is bad. On that there is near-universal agreement. The rich are a favorite punching bag, and the wealthier a person is, the more he is assumed to be a member of a class which has some sort of a "duty" (noblesse oblige, if you will), to those said to be less fortunate than himself.

What does "less fortunate" mean? Depending on the wealth of the person, it can mean nearly every citizen of the United States. We are all "less fortunate" than Bill Gates. But what is fortune?

The word itself is of classical origin, and derives from Fortuna -- the Roman goddess of luck. The Roman diety morphed into various Christian concepts often known as "God's plan" and the Calvinist view (while rejecting the word "fortune" as based on chance) is to declare that wealth is bestowed by God on the deserving, and in return the wealthy have a duty to do good works.

Now, it isn't the purpose of this essay to solve a complex definitional problem which has been aggravated by religious differences over the centuries, but I think it's fair to say the mere use of the word "fortune" in the context of wealth indicates that the moral status of wealth is far from settled. Jesus is often thought to have frowned on wealth, and this was something with which the Calivinists (and virtually all Christians) have had to grapple. Like it or not, Christianity has a long history of frowning on wealth, and it doesn't help much to consider that many people have always seen it as akin to winning the lottery. That's the essence of the word fortune.

But let's stick with the lottery for a moment, because that's something all of us rock fans can understand.

Is a lottery winner considered to be more morally "pure" than a man who started a business with nothing but the sweat of his brow, and spent years tirelessly building it up? In many cases, yes. A lot of people would see a "little guy" who won $20 million playing the lottery as more "deserving" than Bill Gates, and they would think so even if the former was a good-for-nothing alcoholic gambler who had spent his family's milk money on his umpteenth lottery ticket which just happened to pay off.

Who gets to decide the morality of these things?

Is sudden, unearned wealth "better" than the hard-earned variety? If so, then why would inherited wealth be considered "worse"? Or is it worse?

What makes the inherited wealth of Ted Kennedy, John Kerry and Ned Lamont acceptable? Is it because they claim their goal is to help the "less fortunate"? Is fortune what it's all about? The luck of the draw?

Last year Michael Barone wrote a brilliant piece about the trustfunder left (which Glenn linked and which I discussed infra), and Ned Lamont certainly falls into that category. (See Clayton Cramer's recent post.) I'd read about Lamont's status as a fourth generation trustfunder, and thus I was a bit taken aback when I read this remark:

"A year ago I was at college campuses, but I was pulling fiber-optic cable through underground conduits," Lamont said during a recent college appearance. "I felt very strongly on some issues, and I was thinking about the fact that somebody should challenge Joe Lieberman. As you know, I wasn't necessarily thinking that it was going to be Ned Lamont.

Dare I call it shame?

Is there some kind of unwritten rule that being on the left is a way of erasing the shame of wealth? Is that based on the ideas of Jesus Christ, Karl Marx, or both? I'm not sure it matters where it comes from, but eliminating shame does nothing to destroy the internal guilt, and the guilt seems to derive from the mere possession of wealth.

Far be it from me to diagnose politicians. I was only trying to write about rock stars.

And as we all know, politicians are not rock stars.

(At least, they're not supposed to be...)

Wealth is shameful, but there are ways of erasing the shame.

Just follow the rules. If you're a rock star, it's OK to flaunt it and be a wildly dysfunctional brat, as long as you hate Bush. If you like the Republicans, better keep it in the closet, as such an admission would be a very bad career move.

(The same principle probably holds true for Hollywood actors, many of whom feel additional guilt because of the certain knowledge that equally talented colleagues are still forced to work day jobs as waiters.)

Beyond rock, I think the reason so much wealth is available as fuel for leftist politics lies in the gigantic chorus of well-orchestrated shame. It's near universal, it spans the centuries of much Western philosophical and theological thought, and it spans the American political spectrum. (Never mind that this shaming of wealth is totally illogical in a country said to be devoted to the principles of private property and economic freedom.)

If only I were more into being a self-appointed, full-bore scold on behalf of Classical morality! Why, I might even express outrage that Fortuna was hijacked over the centuries by Jesus and Marx! That these modern posturers should simply throw some incense onto Fortuna's fire, and pray for more wealth!

But I won't go there.

It's easier to be a libertarian. And it's easier to oppose the shame-the-wealth chorus for logical reasons.

(Of course, now I'm wondering whether wealth is more shameful than sex, but that's another topic.)