Eh, I don't know unless you are referring to some event I am not familiar with.
Yeah he's not writing protest songs anymore (unless you ask him [1]), but since he went electric, he's been doing what he wants, not what's expected of him. I saw him on tour this year, and it was a strange experience. The performance, song choice, and delivery felt more like he was just doing his music thing and I was paying to watch -- he wasn't trying to entertain me.
Reminds me of Jean-Paul Sartre's letter in which he rejected the Nobel Prize:
> The writer who accepts an honour of this kind involves as well as himself the association or institution which has honoured him,” he said at the time. “The writer must therefore refuse to let himself be transformed into an institution, even if this occurs under the most honourable circumstances, as in the present case. (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/05/sartre-nobel-p...)
In the time since Dylan started signing black people went from having very limited rights to winning a presidential elections. Obviously, there are many more factors than Dylan at play, and establishing causality, or the lack of thereof, is impossible. But, in my opinion, saying that society has not changed would be a big mistake.
Attributing any of that "progress" to Bob Dylan is a huge reach. He has a lot of fans and reached some segment of the population with his act, but he's basically just another guy peddling records and tap dancing for nickels.
This is an unfortunate outlook in my opinion. Art and literature are definitely more important than mere entertainment. The greatness of an artist is determined by how much impact they had on a society.
You don't need to attribute the change to him for it to not be sad if he joins the mainstream. If mainstream values converge with Dylan's, why shouldn't he?
Found this 1968 song from an Israeli singer a couple of weeks ago, whose title says it all: "The Hippies Of Today Are The Assholes of Tomorrow" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joZU1fMFCAo).
Yeah he's not writing protest songs anymore (unless you ask him [1]), but since he went electric, he's been doing what he wants, not what's expected of him. I saw him on tour this year, and it was a strange experience. The performance, song choice, and delivery felt more like he was just doing his music thing and I was paying to watch -- he wasn't trying to entertain me.
[1] I saw a video of this interview, but I can't seem to find it now, so https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protest_songs_in_the_United_St... will have to do. Search for "all my songs"