<b>Jeff</b>: Maybe I didn't express myself very well, but I am very disparaging of pop culture. I never said that it deserved to survive above and beyond the truly talented. I don't know a way around it though. If the public demands and consumes crappy art of all forms, how can you stop them? Was profit even a consideration in Mozart or Michelangelo being supported? There work was revered so they were kept on a leash it would seem. Being seen on the SuperBowl Halftime Extravaganza was not in their radar. I know they didn't go to "art school." That's why I put it in quotation marks. However, today kids do go to art school and think that their unproven work deserves recognition out of proportion to its merit. <b>I don't think I ever said that people who aren't popular aren't talented. All I said, I believe, was that people who aren't popular aren't making any money AND too many people who arent' talented are making money.</b> The problem lies in the marketplace not in the product-- although the two are pretty bound up. Schlock is easier to find, to revise, to re-produce and sells more readily. Another evil of capitalism, I suppose... How do we determine cultural merit? Didn't urinating on a Cross get funded. Where's the merit in that? How does that "preserve American culture?"
I don't know how to determind cultural merit. I think that is a very tough question to answer. I just think we should keep looking for the answer and just because there are evils of capitalism doesn't mean we have to accept them and perpetuate them for fear that if we don't we may become communists. That is throwing the baby out with the bath water.
I'm not a fan of unfettered capitalism. It's not possible. Men and women can be too greedy, but I am a fan of the pendulum remaiing on the side of capitalism over socialism. You're right; there are no easy answers. Collectively, our values are too hollow. Our extraordinary high levels of consumerism. Keeping up with the Joneses is a real issue in America. Our popular culture is plastic. Our pace is frenetic. Give me Mayberry anyday.
