Don’t Waste Any Time In Mourning

In the many accolades Pete Seeger received&hellip;after his death, there was often something missing&mdash;as absent in tributes from admirers who share his revolutionary politics as in those aiming to reclaim him for respectability. That absence is Seeger&rsquo;s role as an organizer, and, more broadly, the role of music (and other kinds of cultural work) as organizing, which his life exemplifies.&hellip; Seeger&rsquo;s work as an organizer may have been most obvious, its goals most blatant, in the field&hellip;. But his work, as a singer, as a song-collector, as a song-teacher, was not any less a labor of organizing in the concert hall. And that&rsquo;s not exceptional. That&hellip;is what makes someone a radical cultural worker. What&rsquo;s exemplary about Pete Seeger is how damn good at it he was. What we need to pay attention to and learn from is how he did this important work so well.<p class="mrlink">This article can also be found at the <a href="http://monthlyreview.org/index/volume-66-number-7" title="Vol. 66, No. 7: January 2015" target="_blank"><em>Monthly Review</em> website</a>, where most recent articles are published in full.</p><p class="mrpurchaselink"><a href="http://monthlyreview.org/index/volume-66-number-7" title="Vol. 66, No. 7: January 2015" target="_self">Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the <em>Monthly Review</em> website.</a></p>