On the Cultural Frontline: Trash Novels

I've always believed, and wanted to believe, that the great ideas shaping, forming, and creating our thought came from Art. Capital A, mind you. Anyone who endeavors to be an artist hopes to make a lasting impression, and if an idea is emerging in and amongst our cultural zeitgeist, well, I would hope it would come pouring out in some quintessential artistic achievement. Behold, the landmark of our beautiful minds!

Reading Ron Rosenbaum's article over on Slate made me think about where the collective mind of culture exists. Even asking where, or in whom, our culture lays is a loaded question. Are we talking mainstream America? Does anyone know what mainstream America is?

Before the Renaissance (and even the 20th Century), expressions of art were vastly limited to those with means. Education for the masses lived in trades and flowed in their veins. We might believe something like Plato's Republic to be totemic of a civilization, but in an era when expression was limited to those with privilege, I wonder how pandemic their beliefs actually were. As spindly disciple Aristotle expounds about the Form of things while Plato gorges himself on an overripe mango in th middle of the market, the beleaguered blacksmith does not know if the sword he holds is a Sword or not. And he doesn't give a rat's ass either.

But in this era, in this culture and country, personal expression is a gluttony. Thoughts, notes, posts, rants, raves, comments, images, memes saturate our daily life so far that we don't come close to consciously registering all of them. Does expression grant autonomy of thought? Hardly.

Maybe it's unsurprising that mainstream culture or thought would begin to manifest itself in novels found in an airport bookstore. Maybe watching the permutations of American Idol shake its rangled head tells you more about this country than any lovingly-crafted political documentary could even dream of.

Rosenbaum's article points to both low and high forms of fiction wrangling with the same subject. I'm not sure if its more or less comforting to think that both the educated and non-educated parts of our culture are toiling over the same issues--that we can express hopes and fears across 300 million people seems "Hands Across America" inspiring but somehow rings hollow.

The growing paradigm that I have failed to advance in my mind is that as everything in the world becomes more available and connected it also becomes more fragmented and niche-oriented.

What truly binds us, as people? The radio show that everyone and their pa heard is gone. The newspaper everyone read has been recycled. I wonder if the concept of culture will be synonymous with community some point in the future, so dispersed our minds will be.