> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Sam Pawlett
> > Bloomed, positively bloomed! I'm getting misty-eyed with nostalgia
> > for the Brezhnev years in fact. How can you be so hard-hearted, Ted?
> >
>
> What did the land of freedom the USA produce in cultural 'capital'
> during the same period?
Let's see Toni Morrison, a shit-load of good rock-and-roll, hip-hop's beginnings, some really creative film-making, and a range of literature worth reading. The best stuff may not have got the highest play in Billboard or the New York Times Bestseller list, but at least it didn't have to be typed up secretly on typewriters licensed by the state.
There is an truth that if you turn the public cultural space into insanely bad state propaganda, people will seize on great art for leisure as the only game in town. But that is about as wonderful a recipe for force-feeding high culture as your average death-by-boredom school class in literature.
-- Nathan Newman