Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>
> >Just think about the fact that peoples and cultures around the world listen
> >to rather narrow selection of music dished out by MTV and American labels
> >(mostly of two varieties - singing bimbos a la Britney Spears and
> >testosterone rage a la c-rap/hip-hop), while their native musical traditions
> >are all but dead. Does not blood boils in your veins?
>
> Not really. There's all kinds of interesting music happening all over
> the world - Norwegian rap, Indian techno - that combines native
> musical traditions with the stuff you loathe. I've only scratched the
> surface, but I love it.
>
In music as in literature as in painting as in every other art, for one or two centuries now there has been a terrible cascade of THE VERY BEST. The flood is so great that (metaphorical not serious statistic), say, 1000 persons working full time and dividing the labor could not in their life times become even distantly familiar with all of the high quality work in each of these arts.
Just as in the economy, the problem in "the arts" under capitalism is not too little but too much.
This makes cultural nostalgia even more idiotic than nostalgia in other realms.
Caesar's invasion of Egypt and the Burning of the Library at Alexandria saved ancient culture by reducing it to reasonable proportions. What will save modern culture? There are too many copies of everything for any significant criticism of the mice to winnow it down. And I am talking only of first-rate art.
To repeat. The problem is not too much bad art. That is easy to take care of by ignoring it. The problem is too much good art. One can't take care of that by selective ignoring (or even unselective ignoring) because it is so interconnected. For one example, think of all the first rate films that one cannot properly 'appreciate' if one is not aware of all the film cliches they deliberately exploit for their own purposes.
There are few intellectual diseases so corrupting as nostalgia for a golden past.
Carrol
> Doug
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