By: Dara

Dara — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:45:20 +0000

But if even in rebuttal you’re posing them in opposition–albeit a mutually beneficial opposition–you’re glazing over what I feel to be the more interesting part of the dynamic. I didn’t intend for my post to elbow into the center-stage paternalism discussion in the least; you can find me doing media criticism in the coatroom while you folks occupy the lecture hall.

By: Kate

Kate — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 13:50:23 +0000

You’re right, my language doesn’t even begin to cover it - which is why it was a throw-away comment designed merely to distance myself from conservative attempts to design oppositions between ideal and real cultures, rather than to diverge from the main point of the post. :-p When I talk about oppositions between “noble” and “base” cultures, I am using the language of the paternalistic social conservatives who seek to protect the world from Britney Spears by forcing Haydn upon them. While we might agree that “high culture” “low culture” is a false dichotomy, the “noble” “base” distinction, a different false dichotomy, involves the stronger value judgement usually referenced in such arguments - and one must engage with the language of such arguments in order to demonstrate their flaws. And one way of rebutting them is to point out that the former are often inspired in opposition to the latter - that a musical world in which Haydn is enforced by law will be a lazy and unproductive musical world with very little creativity, wheras musicians confronted by the predominance of Britney Spears acn be defensive enough to become more proactive.

By: Nicola

Nicola — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 02:13:29 +0000

Eliot Spitzer caught in bed with CNN?

Comments on: This post isn’t about prostitution. It’s about the mainstream media instead!

By: Dara

By: Kate

By: Nicola