When Bryan Caplan first read a draft of Tyler Cowen’s In Praise of Commercial Culture 15 years ago, he thought Cowen was mostly crazy:
A combination of my reverence for classical music and Randian contempt for modern culture made me strongly reject Tyler’s claim that the state of the arts has never been better.
Fifteen years later, I have to admit that he was largely right. From the standpoint of the consumer, the supply of great art has clearly never been better. And even from the standpoint of the producer, it is easy to argue that, overall, this is the best of times
[…]
First with digitization, and now with the Internet, consumers’ situation practically has to improve every year, because we keep everything we used to have, and add some more.
[…]
When I was a kid, if it wasn’t at the local store, you basically couldn’t get it. You probably wouldn’t even hear about it. This is truly an area where the Internet has changed everything.
[…]
If your goal is to communicate with informed, thoughtful people who share your tastes, the Internet has made that incredibly easy. It’s probably a lot easier to find someone to discuss Mahler today than it was during Mahler’s heyday.
[…]
One of Tyler’s best points: The past often looks better than the present if you compare the best to the best. There is no living composer as great as Bach. Nevertheless, the present looks much better than the past if you compare the fifth-best to the fifth-best. Who even wants to listen to the fifth-best Baroque composer? But the fifth-best punk rock band (say, the Dead Kennedys) is excellent.
“There is no living composer as great as Bach.”
No, but there was Vivaldi.
As the highest art form, classical music (broadly defined) is the most sensitive and susceptible to spiritual and ethnic corruption. To truly revive classical music, we must purge the corruption.
Phileas Frogg, the past few decades have proven that Richelieu was right on this point. And he never even imagined the folly of overly educating women.
“There is no living composer as great as Bach. Nevertheless, the present looks much better than the past if you compare the fifth-best to the fifth-best.”
I doubt this.
“Who even wants to listen to the fifth-best Baroque composer?”
I have half-a-dozen friends who would make time for this even though their schedules are packed.
“But the fifth-best punk rock band (say, the Dead Kennedys) is excellent.”
I don’t think the Dead Kennedys were really a punk rock band so much as a satirical joke. I think they are musically horrible even though I used to have them on CD.
I actually think Japanese cultural appropriation was the best thing to happen to both jazz and punk music.
Judy and Mary might be the tenth-best Japanese punk rock, but they are IMNSHO better than the Dead Kennedys.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbBq38D0qPo
McChuck: “And he never even imagined the folly of overly educating women.”
You cut to the quick like a dagger to the heart.
https://i.ibb.co/Cwy07jx/goodevening.jpg
Gaikokumaniakku: “I have half-a-dozen friends who would make time for this even though their schedules are packed.”
I’m with you, six million percent.