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Your view is very cynical. But as you say, everyone engages in these kinds of status games - even totally powerless people will happily debate the greatest X of
by allturtles 6y ago
Your view is very cynical. But as you say, everyone engages in these kinds of status games - even totally powerless people will happily debate the greatest X of all time, so I don't see how this process can be seen as one driven by the powerful only.
I also don't see how your egalitarian vision of a 'flat' cultural world is practically possible. There is limited attention and time span available to people to experience culture (read/listen to music/look at paintings, etc.) That time span will have to be allocated to certain works over others, and doing it randomly is obviously a bad system. People will inevitably give each other advice on the best way to invest that time and a canon will emerge.
If it could exist, I think it would be a very unpleasant world, personally, with no common cultural referents. Allusion would disappear from cultural works, because only a tiny fraction of your audience would recognize what you're alluding to.
- wpietri 6y agoIt's not driven by the powerful only. But for a long time they were definitely the ones who determined the canon. I'm not interested in a perfectly flat world. I disagree that a unitary canon will emerge on its own. I don't object to individuals saying, "I like X, maybe you will too." What I object to is the use of power to create and maintain status hierarchies. I also think it's ridiculous to suggest that lack of an imposed canon will end cultural references. When I look at social media, I see a carnival of reference. Things still become widely seen, widely heard. And if your dark fantasy came true, so what? That would mean that each person has found art that is more meaningful to them than whatever was previously being imposed as important, and found community with that "tiny fraction" of others who found the same things valuable. Should they required to spend time on things they like less?
- allturtles 6y ago> imposed canon > Should they required to spend time on things they like less? This is where I'm not getting you. What are the powerful forces imposing the canon? Who is forcing you to listen to music (or read books, or watch movies, etc.) that you don't like? What is considered great arises out of organic, decentralized processes. There's no central bureau of music that requires everyone to listen to Mozart because they decided he's the best.
- wpietri 5y agoYour serious belief is that everybody just happens to like things? There are no structural forces that influence what gets created, promoted, or held up as "great"? That in the arts there's nobody with more power than anybody else? I suppose by the same token, the highly improbable demographics of Fortune 500 CEOs, legislators, and faith leaders are just some statistical quirk? Please tell me more about this world you live in. I would like to visit sometime.