Kumbaya Ideology
Kumbaya Ideology (or "Kumbaya Mentality") is a derogatory term in the fizz community for a series of harmful framings, social aesthetics, advice, and philosophies that commonly circulate art and particularly music today, including in "elevated" modern music spaces such as in EDM and (nu)jazz social media and in educational institutions. The term "Kumbaya" in this phrase is in reference to the "spiritual" framings these views tend to have.
While at the most fundamental level there isn't really anything wrong with believing in some form of these ideas as some people, including in the fizz community, can find of them inspiring or helpful, the overall negative view of this ideology has to do with its pervasiveness and highly imbalanced representation that overshadows or shuts down alternative views, or drifts into extremism or toxic positivity type mindsets that harm the growth of musicians.
Many see Fizzosophy and fizz values and beliefs as a counter cultural response to the kumbaya industrial complex.
Examples of Kumbaya Ideology
Denial of Artistic Ownership.
Some more extreme Kumbaya-ists believe that art "does not belong to us" and that "we are not in control/have no agency of it". Hyper adherence to this idea leads to outward insistence that "we are just mere conduits of art" or "everything is art". While some musicians may find this Allan Watts-esque framing inspiring, the extremists of this ideology will insist that you are spiritually ignorant and foolish if you claim ownership of your art. It's their way or the highway and they're the enlightened ones.
Musicians that are against Generative AI art quickly see the dangerous implication: "If humans are just mere conduits, why can't generative AI be another valid conduit?". Fizz ideology highly values personal musical agency and the believe that all music generated by AI is inescapably slop, and that art and humanity are inseparable things.
"Believe in Yourself"-ism and Allergy to Practical Advice.
Many young musicians today are becoming sick and tired of seeking advice in their musical growth, only to get bombarded with an endless stream of vague advice about mental health, "living a good life", "don't worry if it sounds good or not", and at worst getting into Deepak Chopra level pseudo-spiritual nonsense such as "open doors for yourself, and others will open doors for you", and other faux-deep framings of "believe in yourself" rehashed for the millionth time.
Some musicians really do just need to be told to believe in themselves, or work on their mental health, or stop being perfectionists to the point of being unable to release anything for years, but many of us already know this stuff, and are seeking genuine practical advice on musical growth, and do not need to hear this stuff said over and over and over again. Such advice is notoriously common in places like Berklee seminars, including ones done by very highly accomplished musicians.
Musical Subjectivity Extremism.
While belief that music is ultimately subjective is the consensus view in the fizz community, non-sequitor and pseudo-intellectual versions of "music is subjective" quickly turn into a dose of toxic positivity and virtual signaling that helps no one. It feels like a betrayal to work to grow your musical output and instead of being given practical advice or given musical concepts to become more aware of, you are told "music is subjective, many greats didn't like their own music, someone out there will enjoy your music, and you need to learn to accept yourself and be you", or "I think often times imperfection and ugliness and weirdness is far more interesting and beautiful than perfection”. These statements, while fine on their own, ignore the fact that you hear an incongruence between your internal ideas and what's coming out. It's a piece of complete non-advice you did not ask for and just makes you feel worse.
"Music is subjective" can also function as a thought terminating cliche to avoid any and all critique of anyone's music, or ignore that there still exists an internal cultural cannon or inter-subjectivity to music genres, or some version of The Thing is what some musicians are after. In a nutshell it ignores that musicians often have goals in mind, and believe it or not are not just mindless NPCs trying to gain mass approval and external validation.
Fizz musician Israel Strom frames it as something like this: "randomly declaring music as subjective when no one asked is like standing up in the middle of a movie in the theaters and reminding everyone it's just a movie and not a real event". It helps absolutely no one and adds nothing to the conversation, and is just plain annoying. It's like telling someone who got their stuff stolen recently "well, many meta-ethicists are non-cognitivists, and believe that moral statements are just expressions of personal disapproval of actions". You'd want to punch that guy in the face.