News of the Culture or News of the Universe?

There is widespread and justified concern over the steady decline of culture in America-and in the West generally. In this article I examine the societal forces I believe to be largely responsible for this disquieting tendency. Among them I identify the loss of psychic and intellectual immunity to B...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 1988-11, Vol.500 (1), p.116-126
Main Author: Rochberg, George
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Art exhibitions
Art museums
Humans
Kitsch
Modernist art
Music
Poetic meter
Poetry
Popular Culture
Sociocultural Factors
Terrorism
United States of America
Western civilization
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Summary:There is widespread and justified concern over the steady decline of culture in America-and in the West generally. In this article I examine the societal forces I believe to be largely responsible for this disquieting tendency. Among them I identify the loss of psychic and intellectual immunity to Bad Art; the century-long slide into vulgarity, tawdriness, and sleaziness, which have helped turn America into the Land of Entertainment; the loss of standards and criteria of taste and judgment in both the production of art and its critical evaluation; the loss-especially in America-of innocence brought on by the corrosion of human values; and, finally, the rise of sentimentality and the consequent triumph of kitsch, which has come to be accepted as an illusory substitute for genuine seriousness and sentiment. In this context I juxtapose what I call "news of the culture" with "news of the universe."
ISSN:0002-7162
1552-3349
DOI:10.1177/0002716288500001009