Here is my question: if I point out that the cultural depth of many Americans goes no farther, seemingly, than that of the script of their favorite movie, do I have the right to feel, or should I then feel, superior?
My sense is no. These are my people. You are my people. I owe you a life debt. I owe you my efforts to get you out of this trance. If I want to say that you are stupid, I owe you something better. I owe you my life blood. I have plenty.
It is far too easy, otherwise, to use “cultural criticism” as a means to the very simple end of feeling well endowed with virtue and moral elevation without doing the work of being worth a shit to anyone.
I was sitting at Hooter’s tonight, after a long day as both a worker–very literally, as I am sweaty, covered with dirt, and physically worn out–and a Capitalist (since I own my company), looking at my bartenders fat ass, wondering about the process of getting into those shorts, when it occurred to me that I really should read Theodor Adorno. It was of course a logical progression. He’s not somebody I expect to like or agree with, but all of these people were pointing out real problems, even if their reflexive (SIEG HEIL!!!) solution was always Marxism, which in practice meant “And here a miracle happens, and the unicorns and rainbows appear, and the children dance, and we all live happily ever after.”
But I want to crunch the gap between Edmund Burke and Theodor Adorno. In what respects were BOTH of them right? I don’t know. I intend to find out.
Could we (and You) not always view We as a Synthesis, and the dream of a new We as the project of cultural evolution?