Here is a piece on art that possibly illustrates some of what Ray has
said about the current state of art in a corporate/capitalist-dominated
world:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/v20n5/culture.pdf
that probably will make Ray's blood boil.
And here is a squib I stumbled over:
It is vain to summon a people who have been rendered so
dependent on the central power to choose from time to time the
representatives of that power; this rare and brief exercise of
their free choice, however important it may be, will not
prevent them losing the faculties of thinking, feeling, and
acting for themselves, and thus gradually falling below the
level of humanity. -- Alexis de Tocqueville, in
Democracy in America, 1840
while looking for background on Eric Fromm's _Escape from Freedom_.
Fromm's thoughts about the conditions that contribute to a propensity
to submit to authoritarian regimes leads me to wonder if the growing
number of un- and under-employed, especially educated people in
inescapable student-debt servitude, will contribute to such a
propensity or to a contrary effect of increased "authenticity"[1].
Given the "average" number of weekly hours spent watching TV
(under-reported in proportion to the (unknown) number of folks whose
viewing time is close or equal to zero), I wonder what amount of
unpleasant reality is needed to offset the contribution to de
Tocqueville's loss of "the faculties of thinking, feeling, and
acting for themselves" that is engendered by 25 or 30 hours of TV a
week.
Am I off topic here? Dunno...
- Mike
[1] ...the degree to which one is true to one's own personality,
spirit, or character, despite external pressures...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authenticity_(philosophy)
--
Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada .~.
/V\
[email protected] /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/ ^^-^^
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