I enjoyed Tempo very much. Haven't read much else by him, but this article is almost ironically self-unaware in its sweeping generalizations. For a guy who on

I enjoyed Tempo very much. Haven't read much else by him, but this article is almost ironically self-unaware in its sweeping generalizations. For a guy who once wrote that simple 2nd order systems should be considered as weather systems (coincidentally I was pondering these words all day today!), his "banded" view on age vis-a-vis "society" is unnuanced. Surely he realizes that society, including the culture industry, is comprised of people interlocking at all levels and ages, but this reads like someone who just realized that older people have capital to invest and younger people have time to burn. V.R. must surely have put that together earlier? It's as if to comprehend this essay, your definition of "culture" must be constrained to "pop music." If he doesn't believe that people >=40 have meanings manufactured for them, just pick up the NYT for example... The same with sports cars, fancy homes. Perhaps he's simply out of touch with "stuff people over 40 like." The entirety of child-raising, college-funding etc. is all part of culture...