Yes -- I almost forgot about the great Jacques Barzun -- but didn't he also "dive off a cliff and curse the world on his way to the rocks below" in the final, tragic chapters of "From Dawn to Decadence - 500 years of Western Cultural Life"?
He trashed modern European visual art - going back to Cubism -- and even lamented our beloved internet: "The last 20C report on the "World Wide Web" was that its popularity was causing traffic jams on the roads to access and the unregulated freedom to contribute to its words, numbers, ideas, pictures, and foolishness was creating chaos" Does anyone remember what he had to say about Jazz? He was certainly quite involved in the history of European music (and I just read some comments of his that were printed over 50 years ago on the record jacket of a Munch/Berlioz recording on RCA) But as the last living generalist -- Barzun was sui generis, wasn't he? Hardly typical of American academia. ****************************************** There are/were distinguished scholars in America (and elsewhere) who question, and reason, and think intelligently about culture and its values. Happily, they don't dive off a cliff and curse the world on their way to the rocks below. They offer reasoned views and don't make blanket condemnations. I'm thinking of people like Jacques Barzun and Donald Kuspit, for example. The tendency to make wholesale and unreasoned judgments against "contemporary" art -- as vague a term as can be uttered -- is nothing but cultural racism. It has all the same features and goals of racism that divides peoples by irrelevant and indefinable attributes for the sake of power. Intellectual America is very sensitive to racism in all forms and that's one reason why serious cultural scholarship here turns away from totalizing judgments and smug elitism. Good arguments and challenging debates examine new art and much can be said for and against the most provocative work. It is worthless to keep seeking absolutist, grandoise, totalizing divisions between good and bad, etc. It won't even lift an eyelid. As the kids say, "Whaateverr!" _____________________________________________________________ Need cash? Click to get a loan. http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2211/fc/Ioyw6ijlffBDuRMzEqEFF0Jxkdzki8 vdwVt7Nk5n7IrGCWbtjTTUpu/
