Musings on Random Musings

[Bazza]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

A crystallized' date=' symbolic manifestation of a deeper cultural trauma, if you will. And one that accelerated what it represented in an intense cultural feedback loop. America had a classless blend of low and high culture before MTV aired, but afterwards American popular culture has consistently driven downward to the lowest common denominator, creating an trash unter-culture, with MTV frequently pioneering the way or quickly jumping on the bandwagon by showcasing gossip journalism, toilet humor, slapstick, reality television, exploitation films, high-gloss packaging vacuous drivel, and the like. And while popular culture has always been associated with low culture by some, there is no strict requirement low culture be crass, vacuous, shivering, quivering, soul-killing, intellectual novacane. It isn't just MTV, but when I look back at life to date, MTV has come to represent the mainstreaming of trash culture and the sanction of an indecorous social milieu. Its Prolefeed for the bread and circus set. In the form of a pithy maxim: yes, the day MTV aired was the day American culture died.[/quote']

Now that you mention it, a lot of what you said here I can relate to. specifically two people I work with both under 20 are very much a product of the "MTV culture". And also to that without MTV we may not have the constant "internet memes".

 

rhetorical question: Is it too late to get high culture back?

[Bazza]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

And here I thought American Culture plunged into the garbage heap in 1776.

 

Nice prophecy you have there

[OddHat]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

rhetorical question: Is it too late to get high culture back?

 

We had high culture?

[Bazza]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

We had high culture?

 

Weel I doubt personally that the middle class did have high culture, as an alternative then, can we have a culture (low or pop or high) that isn't trash unter-culture, gossip journalism, toilet humor, slapstick, reality television, exploitation films, high-gloss packaging vacuous drivel, crass, vacuous, shivering, quivering, soul-killing, intellectual novacane (list provided by Von D-Man).

 

It would be a positive change.

[Vondy]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

We had high culture?

 

There certainly was highly regarded American literature, poetry, theater, and art. And still is on occassion. And a good deal of low culture isn't indecorous trash and sometimes transcends its essential form. There's nothing wrong with low culture in of itself. I admit to reading a great deal of historical and crime fiction, and playing role-playing games, on top of quintessential American literature and poetry, classics, and Jewish studies. I'm talking about the mainstreaming of base expression, negative mores, ugly humor, and crass, value-less tripe as the nuveaux-unter-pop-culture. We've added a third, sadly acceptable, strata: high culture, low culture, and this abyssal trash-unter-culture that's become mainstream.

[archermoo]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

There certainly was highly regarded American literature' date=' poetry, theater, and art. And still is on occassion. And a good deal of low culture isn't indecorous trash and sometimes transcends its essential form. There's nothing wrong with low culture in of itself. I admit to reading a great deal of historical and crime fiction, and playing role-playing games, on top of quintessential American literature and poetry, classics, and Jewish studies. I'm talking about the mainstreaming of base expression, negative mores, ugly humor, and crass, value-less tripe as the new nuveaux-unter-popular-culture. Its like we have a new strata with a third, sadly acceptable, lowest common denominator tacked on: high culture, low culture, and this abyssal trash-unter-culture that's become mainstream.[/quote']

 

I guess I'm glad I stopped watching MTV when they stopped playing music.

[Vondy]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Weel I doubt personally that the middle class did have high culture....

 

The middle class was better read and culturally informed in my mother's generation. Poetry and literature were required learning in school. My mother had to know many great American poems by rote, as well as highly regarded American writers, beowulf, and some greek classics. I'm on the tail end of that. People even five years younger than me miss a lot of references I make that older folks get. But I may be outside the norm. We didn't have a TV until 1981 and I didn't watch it more than an hour a day all the way through high school. Books were king in my home, and knowing bible, folklore, mythology, important poems, and American literary greats was insisted upon. Even now I only watch 1-2 hours per week of television, and I'm picky about it. This is why I said a classless blend of high and low culture. Public school used to provide a dose of high culture to everyone.

[Vondy]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

I guess I'm glad I stopped watching MTV when they stopped playing music.

 

I was eight and it was summer vacation and we were on the west coast when it came on the air so I saw the historic moment. I watched it for about twenty minutes and never, of my own volition, turned it on again. My exposure to it was from it being on when I visited with people who glommed onto its memes. Frankly, I remember a time before the Internet, before personal computers were mainstream, before cable television, before mobile phones, before MTV, before seat-belt and bicycle helmet laws, and before being male was deemed criminal. I remember how happy I was to have... an eight track. And when Atari was the hottest new thing! I don't get the world we live in. Maybe that's a good thing.

[teh bunneh]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

I think American culture started to keel over right around the time that People magazine started getting published. A whole 128-page weekly magazine devoted to nothing but what TV and movie celebrities were wearing, eating, and sleeping with? Gah.

 

American polity started to die about the time that CNN went on the air. 365 days/24 hours of "news," in a world that really only gives us 2-3 hours of worthwhile information per day, tops (and that includes weather and sports)?

[archermoo]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

I was eight and it was summer vacation and we were on the west coast when it came on the air so I saw the historic moment. I watched it for about twenty minutes and never' date=' of my own volition, turned it on again. My exposure to it was from it being on when I visited with people who glommed onto its memes. Frankly, I remember a time before the Internet, before personal computers were mainstream, before cable television, before mobile phones, before MTV, before seat-belt and bicycle helmet laws, and before being male was deemed criminal. I remember how happy I was to have... an eight track. And when Atari was the hottest new thing! I don't get the world we live in. Maybe that's a good thing.[/quote']

 

And I've got what, 5 years on you? I watched it to watch music videos, and even at that only rarely. I certainly remember a time before the internet, and before personal computers really existed. On the flip side of that I've been around computers for almost all of my life, since that is what Dad did for a living. At one point he had a PDP-11 in the basement. We also had an Osborne 1. When MTV came out I was spending a fair amount of time on computer BBSs, using at first a 150 baud acoustic coupler. I remember being wowed at the speed of a 1200 baud modem. And my brothers and I really liked using dad's real-to-real tape player. Though I don't think we ever had an 8-track.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

We had high culture?

 

Cheech and Chong?

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

The wrapper on a 3 Musketeers bar says "45% LESS FAT". So that would be... 45% less fat than what? A stick of pure lard?

[Enforcer84]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

MTV was the death of American Culture?

 

I could almost get behind that. It was the day music died maybe.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Weel I doubt personally that the middle class did have high culture, as an alternative then, can we have a culture (low or pop or high) that isn't trash unter-culture, gossip journalism, toilet humor, slapstick, reality television, exploitation films, high-gloss packaging vacuous drivel, crass, vacuous, shivering, quivering, soul-killing, intellectual novacane (list provided by Von D-Man).

 

It would be a positive change.

 

But then what would we all have to feel superior about?

[L. Marcus]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Furries.

[Klytus]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Furries.

 

But not everyone know what furries are...

 

... as evidenced by this footage of Christopher Judge learning about them.

 

http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=24636

[Enforcer84]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Furries.

 

I've never quite gotten the anti-furry thing.

 

Not true. I can see some of it. There are those that make me uncomfortable. But I'd equate those furries with similar trekkies, lord of the rings fans, buffy fans, reservoir dogs fans, spiderman fans, NFL fans, Soccer hooligans, art snobs and people who like quoting greek scholars until they achieve climax...you get the picture...not all of a particular fandom, but just the ones who fail to interject their life with smatterings of real world.

 

There are things out there that make (IMO) furries seem quaint.

[Narf the Mouse]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Or, y'know, RPG fans who get into ranting, raving discussions about editions.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Exactly, especially the one's who disagree with me.

[SteveZilla]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

I guess I'm glad I stopped watching MTV when they stopped playing music.

 

Ditto, and QFT.

 

I think American culture started to keel over right around the time that People magazine started getting published. A whole 128-page weekly magazine devoted to nothing but what TV and movie celebrities were wearing, eating, and sleeping with? Gah.

 

American polity started to die about the time that CNN went on the air. 365 days/24 hours of "news," in a world that really only gives us 2-3 hours of worthwhile information per day, tops (and that includes weather and sports)?

 

I agree that the inane focus on the famous (who sometimes are famous... for being famous) has been a detriment.

 

And similarly for the 24-7 'news'.

 

Exactly' date=' especially the one's who disagree with me.[/quote']

 

Why can't you understand that it's only because you're wrong?

[Enforcer84]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Why can't you understand that it's only because you're wrong?

 

Did someone say something? I hear a voice-like buzzing but no words.

[lemming]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Go for it' date=' then. It's the trifecta. Bonus points if you can handle Raw Food Veganism. [/quote']

 

Knowing people that are raw food vegans, carnivores, polys, and quite a few other views; Every group has self righteous jerks. They're the ones that tend to annoy more people so you overlook the ones just going about their business.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Ah! They're bait!

[Old Man]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

The wrapper on a 3 Musketeers bar says "45% LESS FAT". So that would be... 45% less fat than what? A stick of pure lard?

 

IME junk food made of sugar is advertised as "fat free" while junk food made of salty fat is advertised as "sugar free".

[Narf the Mouse]

Re: Musings on Random Musings

 

Do not assume I doubt the existence of altruism. It's part of healthy brain function' date=' as real as rock. Also, as a friendly reminder, replies to posts in this thread should be posted in Musings on Random Musings.[/quote']

Then I don't understand the purpose of your post.