Getting Political, Getting Feedback

For new listeners who haven’t heard the program or read the fine print on the program website, the GS routinely recognizes and commemorates holidays, national and otherwise. Since the Tower of Song is, as the “Re-visionRadio Manifesto” says, a musical and philosophical-literary program, the topics of the various musical essays (the Essay-with-Soundtrack) are such that they don’t directly express, strictly speaking, “political” opinions; i.e., the politics of the day. In other words, the Gypsy Scholar doesn’t “get political.” (He should explain that he once had a political program, Rave On Through the Night, which presented information on current events in a direct, plain-speaking way, but it’s late-night time slot was replaced with other programming in the KUSP program restructuring of 2008.) Now, the only exception to this non-political programming would be national or federal holidays, like the one just passed—the Fourth of July. Yet, “getting political” at such times is done in an indirect way through discursive essays of a scholarly nature, where the GS can speak through the political theories and opinions of others.

Of course, these “political” ideas can be controversial if they are unpopular. Indeed, one can’t help being controversial, if one finds oneself at odds with the majority of their fellow Americans on very basic principles and ideas. These political views may be deemed so radical that they are outside the parameters of official political discourse, so they don’t even get a hearing.

Of course, too, listeners are free to take exception to these out-of-the-mainstream political views and challenge them. Thus, in the interest of dialogue, the GS has provided his listeners with a way to do this if they so desire. However, when a radio host doesn’t get feedback, it’s impossible to interpret whether the silence is due to the fact that you’re striking a resonate chord with listeners and thus they have no argument with you, or whether the political views presented are turning people off and thus they turn your program off. (Polls generally show that if an audience disagrees with you they are more likely to respond than if they agree with you.) Then again, there’s always the radio host’s dreaded possibility that he or she doesn’t get any feedback because no one is listening because no one cares. The GS fervently hopes that this is not the case.

So, if listeners have anything to convey the GS about the political views they hear expressed, please feel free to contact him, whether you agree or disagree with what you hear. The GS has provided three ways, which are all via the Contact Host page: website email, the website blog, and Facebook.

Look forward to hearing from you!