ABSTRACT
The chapter drives the book from a discussion of revolutionary songs as merely affecting objects toward park performances as a casual engagement with a troubled historical past. Central to political mobilizations during the Mao era, musical affect was meant to cement ideological consciousness. Mirroring nonrepresentational theory, some parkgoers “remove the meaning” of the propaganda songs they continue to enjoy. A disruption of how propaganda music was to function during the Mao years, the reclaiming of musical pleasure for itself does not completely evade the lingering presence of meaning, for words can always exceed the speaker’s intentions. The chapter discusses the casualness inherent to this act of disaffiliation with “meaning,” poised between avoidance and a sense of distance that is pregnant with ethical potential.
