Brilliant essay. I prattle on about this to anyone who will listen - they typically don't because I sound like a loon - and a boring one at that. A few years ago, when my then-teenager was aghast that I didn't know anything about the Frankfurt School and Continental Philosophy (associating such terms with breakfast) I started listening to old college lectures and reading some writings by Marcuse. For me, it smacked of elitism and had nothing to do with uplifting the lives of the working class.
I do sort of quibble about your assertion on advertising. I read Marshall McLuhan's "Mechanical Bride." The hatred of the middle class oozes from each page. While I dislike advertising and its manipulation, I do appreciate that it was a way for those lower on the economic ladder to feel as if they were part of 'royalty.' Two essays from the book truly encapsulated the elitism for me. In the essay on the use of 'Gallup Polls', it quoted Gertrude Stein making fun of American GIs and their need to follow popular opinion and how 'France had been saved' from this. It took two seconds to unravel that a gay Jew living in France, who survived outside of a concentration camp, must have been a collaborator. And indeed it appears that she was. But that she would make fun of this while her fellow Jews and other desirables had been exterminated was beyond grotesque. The other memorable essay was the disdain for an ad placed in a newspaper that described how the Bill of Rights was about what the government shall not do. For McLuhan, a professional class would always be preferred over the smelly rogues looking to limit government.
Brilliant essay. I prattle on about this to anyone who will listen - they typically don't because I sound like a loon - and a boring one at that. A few years ago, when my then-teenager was aghast that I didn't know anything about the Frankfurt School and Continental Philosophy (associating such terms with breakfast) I started listening to old college lectures and reading some writings by Marcuse. For me, it smacked of elitism and had nothing to do with uplifting the lives of the working class.
I do sort of quibble about your assertion on advertising. I read Marshall McLuhan's "Mechanical Bride." The hatred of the middle class oozes from each page. While I dislike advertising and its manipulation, I do appreciate that it was a way for those lower on the economic ladder to feel as if they were part of 'royalty.' Two essays from the book truly encapsulated the elitism for me. In the essay on the use of 'Gallup Polls', it quoted Gertrude Stein making fun of American GIs and their need to follow popular opinion and how 'France had been saved' from this. It took two seconds to unravel that a gay Jew living in France, who survived outside of a concentration camp, must have been a collaborator. And indeed it appears that she was. But that she would make fun of this while her fellow Jews and other desirables had been exterminated was beyond grotesque. The other memorable essay was the disdain for an ad placed in a newspaper that described how the Bill of Rights was about what the government shall not do. For McLuhan, a professional class would always be preferred over the smelly rogues looking to limit government.
Thanks for your comment.
Much appreciated.
You break things down in a very accessible way.
Thanks a lot!
I try, especially that English is not my mother tongue