Ġ: Jież what do you think is the most abused word in our society?
J: Democracy?
Ġ: Ehe, anything else?... Ok, let me just say then: Culture...
J: I have a hunch where this is leading to... Giving the public what they want, right?
Ġ: It's all you hear about these days. It has become culture's clarion call. Everybody repeats it on every occasion. Nobody begs to differ.
J: We live in an age where Mammon himself provides us with the air we breathe.
Ġ: Seems to me that Karl Marx has lost the political war but won the cultural battle. The masses rule the roost. The free market exists solely for the benefit of the masses. This mass culture is dynamic and truly revolutionary. It has broken all barriers. Class, traditions, taste. Mamma mia! (pun intended). Culture is communism's re-written manifesto. All is grist to its mill and everything comes out finely ground indeed.
J: It certainly provides every new arty chairman with an automatic excuse when reproached for low quality, lack of originality and loss of identity to blurt out: But that's what the public wants, what can I do?
Ġ: Precisely. Unfortunately nobody bothers to explain the extent the public wants is what the public has been conditioned to desire. A generic look at TV's drama series should suffice. The truth is that these episodes impose a simplistic, repetitious pattern, which the public get
and seem to want. As the March Hare explained to Alice: I like what I get. It definitely is not the same thing as, I get what I like... but March Hares never get appointed to sit on cultural committees.
J: And that's not all. That's only the start of the argument. It so happens that the pseudo-chairman, artist and politico who professes this kind of fake logic is merely expressing what he himself wants... Never underestimate the mediocrity of certain appointed architects of culture. And of course, let's face it, grinding out a uniform product via a production line which packages entertainment so that, jaħasra, poor Ġanni u Ġużeppa, at the end of their long day, may be distracted from the burdens of life is easy. Far easier than producing a piece that implies life, and hence effort.
J: Come to think of it: This fun culture asks nothing of the spectator and gives out nothing in return.
Ġ: Hence the beauty, and popularity, of Kitsch. All this tal-poplu stuff (belonging to the people) which is dished out with the invariable tagħlima (the moral at the end). Clement Greenburg in his book Avant-garde & Kitsch calls it The Built-In Reaction. He describes Kitsch as "predigesting art for the spectator and sparing him effort, providing him with a shortcut to something that looks and sounds like the real thing".
J: It explains why when the curtain comes down on certain plays, audiences' reactions are limited to where to go get a pizza, Lucy's new hair-do or Ċikku's Ukrainian escort.
Ġ: Apart from that, it explains many things; like the popularity of musicals for instance. Their usually insipid storyline coupled with melodious songs have an inbuilt reaction enabling the listener to react without forcing him to make his own responses. An I Love You Baby ballad sounds far more romantic than anything Schubert has ever written because of its wallowing tremelos and yearning glissandos. Your most unmusical listener immediately realises the tender aspect of the situation. It does his feeling for him. What T.W. Adorno describes as "when the composition hears for the listener". Thus Clayderman is perceived as much more musical than say Pollini, whose piano is not white, and is not adorned by antique candelabra.
J: Come to think of it, there are books for the masses but no Dante, Cervantes or Homer of the masses; there is a lot of music for the masses but no Bach, Beethoven or Mozart of the masses.
Ġ: Sometimes I think that being old is after all not all that bad. At least my friend we have lived at a time where even bad art adhered to certain standards. The difference was one of individual talent. Kitsch today is not just unsuccessful art. It is non-art. It is even anti-art.
J: Democracy?
Ġ: Ehe, anything else?... Ok, let me just say then: Culture...
J: I have a hunch where this is leading to... Giving the public what they want, right?
Ġ: It's all you hear about these days. It has become culture's clarion call. Everybody repeats it on every occasion. Nobody begs to differ.
J: We live in an age where Mammon himself provides us with the air we breathe.
Ġ: Seems to me that Karl Marx has lost the political war but won the cultural battle. The masses rule the roost. The free market exists solely for the benefit of the masses. This mass culture is dynamic and truly revolutionary. It has broken all barriers. Class, traditions, taste. Mamma mia! (pun intended). Culture is communism's re-written manifesto. All is grist to its mill and everything comes out finely ground indeed.
J: It certainly provides every new arty chairman with an automatic excuse when reproached for low quality, lack of originality and loss of identity to blurt out: But that's what the public wants, what can I do?
Ġ: Precisely. Unfortunately nobody bothers to explain the extent the public wants is what the public has been conditioned to desire. A generic look at TV's drama series should suffice. The truth is that these episodes impose a simplistic, repetitious pattern, which the public get
and seem to want. As the March Hare explained to Alice: I like what I get. It definitely is not the same thing as, I get what I like... but March Hares never get appointed to sit on cultural committees.
J: And that's not all. That's only the start of the argument. It so happens that the pseudo-chairman, artist and politico who professes this kind of fake logic is merely expressing what he himself wants... Never underestimate the mediocrity of certain appointed architects of culture. And of course, let's face it, grinding out a uniform product via a production line which packages entertainment so that, jaħasra, poor Ġanni u Ġużeppa, at the end of their long day, may be distracted from the burdens of life is easy. Far easier than producing a piece that implies life, and hence effort.
J: Come to think of it: This fun culture asks nothing of the spectator and gives out nothing in return.
Ġ: Hence the beauty, and popularity, of Kitsch. All this tal-poplu stuff (belonging to the people) which is dished out with the invariable tagħlima (the moral at the end). Clement Greenburg in his book Avant-garde & Kitsch calls it The Built-In Reaction. He describes Kitsch as "predigesting art for the spectator and sparing him effort, providing him with a shortcut to something that looks and sounds like the real thing".
J: It explains why when the curtain comes down on certain plays, audiences' reactions are limited to where to go get a pizza, Lucy's new hair-do or Ċikku's Ukrainian escort.
Ġ: Apart from that, it explains many things; like the popularity of musicals for instance. Their usually insipid storyline coupled with melodious songs have an inbuilt reaction enabling the listener to react without forcing him to make his own responses. An I Love You Baby ballad sounds far more romantic than anything Schubert has ever written because of its wallowing tremelos and yearning glissandos. Your most unmusical listener immediately realises the tender aspect of the situation. It does his feeling for him. What T.W. Adorno describes as "when the composition hears for the listener". Thus Clayderman is perceived as much more musical than say Pollini, whose piano is not white, and is not adorned by antique candelabra.
J: Come to think of it, there are books for the masses but no Dante, Cervantes or Homer of the masses; there is a lot of music for the masses but no Bach, Beethoven or Mozart of the masses.
Ġ: Sometimes I think that being old is after all not all that bad. At least my friend we have lived at a time where even bad art adhered to certain standards. The difference was one of individual talent. Kitsch today is not just unsuccessful art. It is non-art. It is even anti-art.