[lbo-talk] Don't sweat the Evangelicals

[Carl Remick]

>From: "Marvin Gandall" <marvgandall at rogers.com>
>
>Carl Remick, commenting on the Frank Rich NYT piece:
>
> > What wonderful news!  Our ability to wallow in "excess and vulgarity"
> > remains untrammeled despite the left's catastrophic failure to inhibit
> > America's global war making or the ever more inequitable distribution of
> > wealth.  I myself find US mass culture disgusting for the most part -- 
>an
> > unrelenting assault on human dignity and an appeal to what is most base 
>in
> > people.  MTV in particular is a prime example of what Thomas Frank has
> > called the "commodification of dissent" -- for all its Woodstockian
> > stylistic flourishes, MTV is a mere money machine that is about as 
>dionysian
> > as the Financial Accounting Standards Board.  I see nothing to celebrate
> > here at all.
> >
> > Carl
>--------------------------------
>Rich isn't "celebrating" bourgeois decadence; as you note, he thinks, with
>you, that much of the popular culture is "excessive and vulgar". But that's
>not what the article is about. Rich is trying to allay a building liberal
>panic about a pending assault on political and cultural expression by a
>triumphant religious right.

Sorry, am a little irascible on this subject.  "Wenn ich Kultur höre ... 
entsichere ich meinen Browning!" -- so to speak.  There has to be some way 
of promoting a less stupefying mass culture without becoming a common scold 
or world-class buffoon like Bill Bennett.

Instead of joining the hallelujah chorus and spraying religion all over 
itself, the left could conceivably find common ground with Red Staters by 
taking a strong stance against sheer tackiness.  Maybe if Red Staters and 
leftists stormed the citadels of the entertainment industry shouting Tacky! 
Tacky! Tacky! -- a lot of the mindless mayhem, fart jokes and 
kicks-in-the-crotch gags would vanish from the screen.

Carl