(dave e)

dispatches from auteurism

I hope, then, that I won't be thought a nostalgic fool if I insist that even in my lifetime there was a much more attractive culture than the one we're enjoying now.

They speak about the dumbing down of America as a foregone thing, already completed, but, duh, it's a process, and we haven't seen anything yet. The contemplation of this culture is not for sissies, and speaking about it without becoming shrill is increasingly difficult, maybe impossible. In spite of this, even for those of us who were most attached to it, there are better things to do than cling to the wreckage of the liberal-humanist literary culture that seemed so invincible thirty years ago, to forever pick over the debris and salt it with our tears. Nevertheless, I can understand why people miss it. At its most radiant, it didn't just shine its light into literature but suffused all the arts, the movies most of all.

Michael Herr, Kubrick

I keep re-reading this, going, "but... but... but..." And there are plenty of reasons to talk back, here, but I think I'm sort of with him on this. Maybe my skepticism is borne of the fact that this claim follows his almost persuasive defense of Eyes Wide Shut.

At the very least, the contention that our collective dumbing-down is an ongoing process seems supported by many of the... uh... events that have succeeded Herr's book's publication in 2000.