"One cannot live outside the machine for more perhaps than half an hour."
Men are reduced to walk--on parts in a monster documentary film which has no spectators, since the least of them has his bit to do on the screen."
The same type of conductor who undertakes the insatiably engrossed celebration of the Adagio of Bruckner's Eighth lives a life closely akin to that of the head of a capitalist combine.."
'Pop culture was acquiring its own cultic aspect, one neatly configured for technological dissemination.'
'Champions of online life promised a utopia of infinite availability.'
An advert directly following this article (by Alex Ross) runs:
What are the most important aspects of your personal economy?
~
If culture had once at least afforded the possibility of some kind of resistance to the onslaught of capitalism and market mentalities it now seems ever-more true to say that it is little but a handmaiden of that expansion.
I think this was realized very early on (the 1960s and possibly even earlier if the swinging twenties are taken into account). That markets and consumerism are a way of breaking the hold of the old, inherited hierarchies of a feudal order is itself a very old theme in the history of modernity (Adam Smith). It has helped to foster the idea that the only freedom of note is a 'freedom from'.
A return to worldly life as a source of meaning in contradistinction to the positing of some form of transcendental aspiration, in radical opposition to the notion that there was something like a human nature and a telos of Man. No, this was it and this was as good as it gets. Deal with it, make your peace with the settled habits of living an earthly and bodily life and string the moments together as best you can.
But there was always the nagging suspicion that there is an accidental life and a true life and nothing that was said nor any human system that was devised could quite quell that unease. So, in addition to the lust for power and status and money indifference and comfort had to be added to the mix for us to think of a self-sustaining reality.
Dispose of any notion of distinction (a "higher" and a "lower" make no sense in the realm of scientific facts),
But what of art, poetry, literature, all the things that suggest we are not just a chance agglomeration of matter? These too, in their time, had to be subsumed to the dominant ideology. Art for art's sake (which is to abandon the idea that it can be related to the human good) or the setting up of arbitrary and subjective taste as the ultimate arbitrator in these matters. This was another way of saying that it was the quantitative feature of desires or preferences that counted as 'the good'. Which is to say, in effect, that in a Gnostic age power and force are the key determinants. Either that or everything is a wild game of chance that has no intrinsic value.
Culture is supposed to be radical because it helps break down the solid structures of the capitalist order (except, breaking things down into the fragmentary is precisely what is required by late capitalism). The idea that there is no continuity to the self is supposed to be liberating since we avoid all fixed roles. But such a perspective (a "view from nowhere") has been tremendously useful for a system that requires both the constant re-invention of the self and the fluidity of values. "Go with the flow". "Just do it". Screen capitalism plays its role in this as well. Not just in terms of distraction and entertainment (in an age of boredom nothing sounds more valuable than a bit of showbiz), but in fostering the constant desire to "update" and to follow the latest bit of trivia.
Men are reduced to walk--on parts in a monster documentary film which has no spectators, since the least of them has his bit to do on the screen."
The same type of conductor who undertakes the insatiably engrossed celebration of the Adagio of Bruckner's Eighth lives a life closely akin to that of the head of a capitalist combine.."
'Pop culture was acquiring its own cultic aspect, one neatly configured for technological dissemination.'
'Champions of online life promised a utopia of infinite availability.'
An advert directly following this article (by Alex Ross) runs:
What are the most important aspects of your personal economy?
~
If culture had once at least afforded the possibility of some kind of resistance to the onslaught of capitalism and market mentalities it now seems ever-more true to say that it is little but a handmaiden of that expansion.
I think this was realized very early on (the 1960s and possibly even earlier if the swinging twenties are taken into account). That markets and consumerism are a way of breaking the hold of the old, inherited hierarchies of a feudal order is itself a very old theme in the history of modernity (Adam Smith). It has helped to foster the idea that the only freedom of note is a 'freedom from'.
A return to worldly life as a source of meaning in contradistinction to the positing of some form of transcendental aspiration, in radical opposition to the notion that there was something like a human nature and a telos of Man. No, this was it and this was as good as it gets. Deal with it, make your peace with the settled habits of living an earthly and bodily life and string the moments together as best you can.
But there was always the nagging suspicion that there is an accidental life and a true life and nothing that was said nor any human system that was devised could quite quell that unease. So, in addition to the lust for power and status and money indifference and comfort had to be added to the mix for us to think of a self-sustaining reality.
Dispose of any notion of distinction (a "higher" and a "lower" make no sense in the realm of scientific facts),
But what of art, poetry, literature, all the things that suggest we are not just a chance agglomeration of matter? These too, in their time, had to be subsumed to the dominant ideology. Art for art's sake (which is to abandon the idea that it can be related to the human good) or the setting up of arbitrary and subjective taste as the ultimate arbitrator in these matters. This was another way of saying that it was the quantitative feature of desires or preferences that counted as 'the good'. Which is to say, in effect, that in a Gnostic age power and force are the key determinants. Either that or everything is a wild game of chance that has no intrinsic value.
Culture is supposed to be radical because it helps break down the solid structures of the capitalist order (except, breaking things down into the fragmentary is precisely what is required by late capitalism). The idea that there is no continuity to the self is supposed to be liberating since we avoid all fixed roles. But such a perspective (a "view from nowhere") has been tremendously useful for a system that requires both the constant re-invention of the self and the fluidity of values. "Go with the flow". "Just do it". Screen capitalism plays its role in this as well. Not just in terms of distraction and entertainment (in an age of boredom nothing sounds more valuable than a bit of showbiz), but in fostering the constant desire to "update" and to follow the latest bit of trivia.
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