Someone forgot to tell Albert Murray that progress has disenchanted our world. Or rather Murray—writer, thinker, and philosopher of the blues—never believed in progress, in the strong sense, in the first place. How could he? “Even in the best of times,” Murray wrote, “the blues are only at bay.”
To be clear, “The blues as such are synonymous with low spirits. Blues music is not.” Blues music stomps the “blue devils” that go around inflicting misery on our lives. Thus the title of Murray’s classic study, Stomping the Blues. But thanks to the “blue devils” being, at best, only at bay, the stage is always set for heroic action. Hence Murray’s enchanted world. No amount of progress, technological or economic, will ever change the fact that “life is at bottom . . . a never-ending struggle,” which was fine for Murray:
