3 ms·

And correct: the telos of the clickbait economy is fascist kitsch I'm not sure how to parse this. What does it mean for something to have kitsch as its ultimat

by tremon 6y ago

And correct: the telos of the clickbait economy is fascist kitsch I'm not sure how to parse this. What does it mean for something to have kitsch as its ultimate aim, or for an economy to have an aim? I think I understand what the author is getting at, which is that exciting the lizard brain in humans is easy to do by creating artificial fears and enemies, and that it takes very little effort to construct this "art". But "telos" specifically doesn't mean "a means", it means "purposeful aim". And I don't think kitsch is the aim. If anything, the aim of the clickbait economy seems to simply be to displace all other economies, which is a rather trite statement in itself. On the other hand, maybe the author was simply looking for a high-brow synonym for "product" and missed the mark? It's like saying "the telos of the pottery industry is kitchenware". No it isn't: the telos of the industry is to safely store long-term goods.

SuoDuanDao 6y ago
I think 'kitsch' was used to imply that the products of the clickbait economy trend towards the trivial. Kitsch is not just product, it is cheaply produced product whose value quickly fades; I think it's a fair critique.
dredmorbius 6y ago
Kitsch and fascism have been linked for quite some time. Fro Dwight MacDonald's "A Theory of Mass Culture" (1953): When to this ease of consumption is added kitsch's ease of production because of its standardized nature, its prolific growth is easy to understand. It threatens High Culture by its sheer pervasiveness, its brutal, overwhelming quantity. The upper classes, who begin by using it to make money from the crude tastes of the masses and to dominate them politically, end by finding their own culture attacked and even threatened with destruction by the instrument they have thoughtlessly employed. (The same irony may be observed in modern politics, where most swords seem to have two edges; thus Nazism began as a tool of the big bourgeoisie and the army Junkers but ended by using them as its tools.) https://is.muni.cz/el/1421/jaro2008/ESB032/um/5136660/MacDonald_-_A_Theory_of_Mass_Culture.pdf https://is.muni.cz/el/1421/jaro2008/ESB032/um/5136660/MacDon... (The link is stronger than evident in this passage though most of the connections are more verbose than merits quoting here.)
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  > "... whereas High Culture could formerly ignore the mob and seek to please only the cognoscenti, it must now compete with Mass Culture or be merged into it." Horace's Art of Poetry implies that in his time (as in Molière's or Shakespeare's? What about Goethe?) dramatic writers had to consider a wide audience, including but not limited to: the moralisers (those who are senior in years), the elite (those with a horse, or a name, or a pile of money), and the mob (those who buy snacks at the show). http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0065%3Acard%3D1 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%... Edit: to what degree is meming, insofar as it is "a spontaneous, autochthonous expression of the people, shaped by themselves, pretty much without the benefit of High Culture, to suit their own needs," a new Folk Art?

by tremon 6y ago

SuoDuanDao 6y ago

I think 'kitsch' was used to imply that the products of the clickbait economy trend towards the trivial. Kitsch is not just product, it is cheaply produced product whose value quickly fades; I think it's a fair critique.

dredmorbius 6y ago

Kitsch and fascism have been linked for quite some time. Fro Dwight MacDonald's "A Theory of Mass Culture" (1953): When to this ease of consumption is added kitsch's ease of production because of its standardized nature, its prolific growth is easy to understand. It threatens High Culture by its sheer pervasiveness, its brutal, overwhelming quantity. The upper classes, who begin by using it to make money from the crude tastes of the masses and to dominate them politically, end by finding their own culture attacked and even threatened with destruction by the instrument they have thoughtlessly employed. (The same irony may be observed in modern politics, where most swords seem to have two edges; thus Nazism began as a tool of the big bourgeoisie and the army Junkers but ended by using them as its tools.) https://is.muni.cz/el/1421/jaro2008/ESB032/um/5136660/MacDonald_-_A_Theory_of_Mass_Culture.pdf https://is.muni.cz/el/1421/jaro2008/ESB032/um/5136660/MacDon... (The link is stronger than evident in this passage though most of the connections are more verbose than merits quoting here.)

082349872349872 6y ago
> "... whereas High Culture could formerly ignore the mob and seek to please only the cognoscenti, it must now compete with Mass Culture or be merged into it." Horace's Art of Poetry implies that in his time (as in Molière's or Shakespeare's? What about Goethe?) dramatic writers had to consider a wide audience, including but not limited to: the moralisers (those who are senior in years), the elite (those with a horse, or a name, or a pile of money), and the mob (those who buy snacks at the show). http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0065%3Acard%3D1 http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%... Edit: to what degree is meming, insofar as it is "a spontaneous, autochthonous expression of the people, shaped by themselves, pretty much without the benefit of High Culture, to suit their own needs," a new Folk Art?