cultural imperialism

[Brad DeLong]

>Carl Remick wrote:
>
>>Can't say I didn't ask for this.  There is no way to cock your 
>>snoot at contemporary US popular culture without coming across like 
>>William Bennett, Hilton Kramer or just some tiresome boomer old 
>>fart.  But again, I think schlock has gotten much schlockier in the 
>>last few decades, and I think US-led turbocharged global capitalism 
>>is the reason for this degeneration.  Particularly irritating are 
>>recent apologias -- with at least pretensions to high-dome status 
>>-- that rationalize and even celebrate this market-driven 
>>debasement of taste, e.g., John Seabrook's _Nobrow: The Culture of 
>>Marketing, the Marketing of Culture_.
>
>
>And there's always Tom Lehrer's quip that the reason folk music 
>sucks is that it's produced by the people.
>
>One of the things that bothers me about this sort of critique of pop 
>culture is that it accepts the industry's notion of what popular 
>culture is - the stuff produced and marketed by the culture 
>industry. Some of that stuff is good, don't get me wrong - I like 
>Madonna, as list veterans know...

Caught some of _Desperately Seeking Susan_ on the TV a couple of 
nights ago, and I'm almost ready to buy "Immaculate Collection": 
there's a surprising amount of really good stuff on that album...

Brad DeLong