MILITANT AMBIVALENCE

'I'm a big hypocrite': He's gone from Militant Moby to laddish rocker. Now he's looking to buy a place in the country, scrubs the cooker like mad and isn't even that fussed about his music being used in car ads (Simon Hattenstone, June 16, 2003, The Guardian)

Not only is there the appearance (small, bald, totally unremarkable except for the crucifix tattooed on his neck) there is the ideology (veganism, Christianity, socialism, pacifism, celibacy and a nice green world free of cars). But it's more confusing than that - there is also the Moby who boasts about screwing around; and the Moby who likes to talk about sensible investment; and the Moby who is happy to use his songs in commercials to sell cars and make the world a dirtier place. [...]

"I think militancy is a desire to impose structure and order into what seems a very confusing and chaotic world. It gives you a really specific prism with which to view the world, and it instantly gives you a sense of community. If you're a Leeds supporter, instantly you're best friends with all the other Leeds supporters."

These days, he says, he distrusts all extremism. Tolerance is his new belief system. Take the war in Iraq. "It's almost too complicated to have a really strong opinion. I didn't trust anybody who was really pro-war or anti-war. Neither perspective made sense to me because there were so many good reasons not to go to war and there were good reasons to go to war." He is quite dogmatic in his insistence that things are never black and white. Tolerance could be his new militancy. [...]

There is something of the chameleon in Moby. When he speaks to an English newspaper he can somehow modify his chat for the market - hence the reference to Leeds. And when interviewed by a gay magazine he announced he was bisexual. He smiles. "Yeah, it's like the movie Zelig. He has this genetic trait where he is so eager to accommodate people he actually physically changes around them."

Is he aware of it when he does it? "Not really. Maybe it's a desire to make people comfortable. But also accommodating people makes them more inclined to like me." So does he prefer men or women? He looks at me, shocked. "I've never had sex with a man. There was one time when I was in a gay bar and I was involved in a very difficult heterosexual relationship and I was looking around and thinking to myself: 'You know what, if I put my mind to it I think I could learn to be gay.'" He calls himself naive.

No pursuit could be more fruitless than to seek wisdom from musicians, but one hardly stops listening to Mozart because he was an immature cretin, does one? At any rate, from this profile it would seem that Moby may be the archetypal modern man. Note that his only consistent values are tolerance and unwillingness to hold even his own beliefs too dear. He could practically be who Yeats had in mind when he wrote: "The best lack all
conviction". The idea that elevating tolerance to the organizing purpose of our society will make the world a better place is indeed naive. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 16, 2003 12:34 PM