There is a huge trapdoor waiting to open under anyone
who is critical of so-called "popular culture" or (to redefine this subject)
anyone who is uneasy about the systematic, massified cretinization of the major
media. If you denounce the excess coverage, you are yourself adding to the
excess. If you show even a slight knowledge of the topic, you betray an interest
in something that you wish to denounce as unimportant or irrelevant. Some
writers try to have this both ways, by making their columns both "relevant" and
"contemporary" while still manifesting their self-evident superiority. Thus—I
paraphrase only slightly—"Even as we all obsess about Paris Hilton, the people
of Darfur continue to die." A pundit like (say) Bob Herbert would be utterly
lost if he could not pull off such an apparently pleasing and brilliant
"irony."
Thursday, June 14, 2007
A creeping popularism
I promise that this is my final Paris Hilton link,from Slate Magazine,Christopher Hitchens writes
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