One thing I like to think about is how, in this time when unimaginable rivers of garbage and filth flow freely, we also have a time in which people like me with below-average incomes _can_ borrow or even buy reproductions of great music and art, etc. I'm sure it's better to see a Samuel Palmer etching in a museum than in a book if you have the choice, but at least you can savor the reproduction.
What a good and necessary point to make. I'm a cultural pessimist, so it's all too easy to give in to the gloom afoot. But as LR points out, we have options today for combatting the Kultursmog that previous generations didn't. My dear friend Fr. Joe Wilson of Queens is quick to lament the haplessness and cluelessness of the contemporary American Catholic church, of which he is a faithful priest, but he is also quick to point out how a vast library of Church teaching, Christian thought and philosophy is available at a reasonable cost, via Amazon.com and other online retailers. A parishioner suffering through the AmChurch Kultursmog at a desultory parish could have sent to his doorstep in a matter of days volumes that even scholars only a short time ago would have suffered almost anything to hold in their hands. Similarly, sitting here at my home computer, I could click onto iTunes and in a matter of minutes, download and burn onto a CD a vast array of the best music ever written in the West.
That's amazing. That's really, really amazing.
And we increasingly have the freedom to homeschool, and form voluntary associations that make it possible to preserve, as best we can, the "permanent things" for ourselves and our children. And the Internet makes it possible for us to "meet" each other, and network, and stay in touch. Yes, the times are bad in many ways, but we are far from bereft of resources. Thanks, LR, for reminding us.
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Yes, I remember reading that when it came out. It's a good essay.
There are other areas of society where one sees this. For example, one can talk about how there was a time when a relatively large percentage of people -- mostly young men -- knew enough about auto mechanics to be able to repair their own cars. Granted, cars have become too complex for this; but I think there is something cultural at work, as well. There was an article in Salon (I think) last week about how personal computers are no longer configured to enable users to practice writing their own code -- which is how many of today's programmers initially learned how to do it and got interested in it. The point of the article was, if kids can no longer practice writing code on their own, where is the next generation of programmers going to come from?
There was also a time when kids would assemble their own radio kits. For that matter, do any kids build models anymore?
In so many ways we have become a passive, spectator, consumer society more and more over the last century. Even in our economy -- there isn't much that we manufacture anymore. I can't shake the feeling that we're going to turn into one of those societies that show up in dystopian science fiction stories -- people so intellectually atrophied that they can no longer repair the machines built by their ancestors. That is, unless some more dynamic society doesn't conquer us first.>
Scott and David J., good points.
But humankind is resilient. I remember the large number of hours my son has spent building, and modifying, his computer. And he still does this. Computers to him are the Heathkit radios of our day.
As far as cars go, (again, thanks to my son) there is lots of modifying going on -- just not with the motor, but with sound systems, and paint, and wheels, and on and on.
So give a kid (generally male) something to take apart and put together, and he'll do it.
But I'll agree wholeheartedly with you on on facet of this, which is the "mash-up" community. Yes, people are still trying to create, but they are doing so by lifting things created by others and putting them together. Unfortunately, the end result is less creativity than before.>
Like other frequent commentators here, Scott Lahti, you're interesting.
I hope we will hear more from you.>
>Like other frequent commentators here, Scott Lahti, you're interesting.
Thank you, Lutheran Reader. Your kind words - press-ganged into a completely different context - reminded me of an anecdote told by standup comedian Daniel Tosh:
"Girls say to me in bars things like, 'I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual.'
"I like to reply with, 'I'm not honest, but you're interesting.'"
>I hope we will hear more from you.
I shall let "Carl Phillips", the announcer from the scene of the first-landed Martian cylinders in Grovers Mill, New Jersey, in Orson Welles's famed 1938 WAR OF THE WORLDS broadcast on CBS, speak for me in words describing Rod's blog and my own intentions herein:
"From here I get a sweep of the whole scene. I'll give you every detail as long as I can talk and as long as I can see.">
As if I weren't spoiled enough by round-the-clock every-room-tuned 1940s music courtesy of XM satellite radio, I recall how much I'm missing by not checking ritually, and flagging world without end for viewing and/or taping, the ongoing *embarras de richesse* over at Turner Classic Movies, as September's offerings revealed in such jaw-dropping amplitude. Especial tempters, must-sees, long-soughts, desert-islanders, Holy Grails, and sentimental favorites, from Bunuel to Cocteau to Dreyer to early Kurosawa and earliest Kubrick, from Murnau's once-in-the-bluest-of-moons Sunrise - possibly the greatest of all silent films - to Gary Cooper and Patricia Neal in Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, to Ronald Reagan's best performance in Kings Row ("Where's the rest of me?" as he awakens in hospital to discover his doctor - and rival - has removed his legs), and Garbo's untiring Queen Christina - all for merest starters - every two hours it's showtime without a single commercial, and time to stock up on VHS blank tape. Thank you, Robert Osborne, and thank you, Ted Turner.>
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