More intelligent life please

More intelligent life, an Economist sister publication, carried recently an enthusiastic article to the effect that culture is thriving, people are going to opera, listening to radio classic fm, reading the classics, going to museums like never before, etc. I had meant to write a comment to it saying that most of this culture revival is happening in the culture-lite area, which is great for those who participate in it, of course, but not necessarily great for high culture itself.

I am reminded by much of it of the god-awful Messiah which I was obliged to hear in Chiang Mai, Thailand, once. My neighbor said, oh, isn't it great? Sure they are doing it badly, but they are doing it and in time they will get better, just you wait. But I didn't want to wait and left, feeling that the Messiah should be performed well or not at all. A lousy performance of Messiah is as good as half a parachute. And so is all middle-brown (read: dumbed-down) culture.

Knowing in advance that no good discussion is ever to be had on internet, I didn't write this reply, but in another issue of the same publication someone else did, an American, as it happens, saying that all of this culture consumption is really nothing but shallow collecting of qualifications to be put in one's Facebook profile; nothing more than a burnishing of one's online personality; an empty show. The implication was that this was shallow and fake. The author went on to quote someone else who said that modern youth was growing up culturally well qualified but immoral. The immorality was measured by supposed readiness to plagiarize as long as one got away with it.

Why did I say "American as it happens"? Because of the moral turn of the criticism. Morals are serious business with the Americans, so serious in fact, that nothing else is. Thus, if you are going to say something weighty in the US of A, it must be moral. (Or else it is nothing).

I got sufficiently ticked-off this time to write a reply. (Mea culpa). I wrote:

"I too find most of these cultural qualification displays on Facebook empty; but, not being Anglo-Saxon perhaps, am not inclined to jump immediately to a moral critique. (Why is everything important immediately moral with you people?) The problem with all these cultural qualifications, it seems to me, is not that their owners do not see a problem with plagiarism (I am not sure that plagiarism is a problem; certainly Bach did not think so, whom am I to disagree); or are inclined to rob a bank; or be otherwise despicably immoral in some really despicable ways; but that they have nothing interesting to say about all the books they read and all the music they hear and all the art they consume. Read the blog entries and their comments. They are all shallow and dull; occasionally a brave effort results in what is at best a cute pirouette. All that experience and all these qualifications seem unable to stimulate the little minds to produce an original, interesting thought.

It's very very bad, George, but it is not a moral issue."

It is a lot worse than plagiarism, in fact: intellectual conversation is dead. Other comments on same the article made this point abundantly plain.

One comment jumped out for me. A fellow signing himself Mahratta wrote:

"The author's assertion that appreciation of culture should not simply be a hollow self-advertisement but should be taken as a true personal mission strikes me as particularly important. Regretfully, this is the only section of this opinion piece that I can identify with."

Regrettfully, I do not know where to go to read more of Mahratta.