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Friday, September 21, 2007

The Future Lies With The Proles

The Grauniad’s Cif again:

'The future lies with the proles'* - but Winston didn't realise that it would be in the opposite way to what he thought. Prolefeed has taken over popular culture almost completely now.

The thing is though that a big part of the blame must lie with 'the left' itself. For it was the anti-elitism of the left which led to this flattening of culture that makes even otherwise intelligent people (men and women) settle for this vacuous tripe, rather than make a bit of effort to find that which is deeper and - ultimately - far more satisfying.

It is very sad when a person will find that, for example, owning a complete DVD box set of some obscure 60s cult TV show carries more cultural cache than owning the complete works of Shakespeare (A book? How quaint.) And, if this is the most that the 'intelligent' (and I still include the Guardian in this - if now only for reasons of nostalgia) can aspire to, is it little wonder that the prolefeed itself aspires to even lower horizons?

*From Orwell's 1984, of course.

2 comments:

Ian said...

Of course, Shakespeare's plays were entertainment for the masses back in the 17th century, as TV series such as 24 are today. Cultural elitism is just that.

David Hadley said...

Ian,
Like wow, y'know that's really like y'know profound.