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Earlier quoted context omitted.
Curious what subcultures comes to mind for you. I havent finished my coffee, but and drawing a blank on cultural interests that cant be commodified.
Not sure how mainstream furries are. Sure, they have conventions and whatnot but do you expect to see one on a box of cereal anytime soon? Probably not.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's a pretty weird description of the British Museum. Yes, I know people can (and do) criticize the collection they have as the spoils of colonialism, but in no way do they present their collection as "merely aesthetic objects" -- they do explain what the artifacts are in terms of the cultures that created them.
I believe "merely aesthetic objects" in this case should be interpreted as "dead objects". The very word "artifact" signifies the distinction. These objects were once alive - they were parts of active interactions. Now they are dead and ossified. This is the difference between your album CDs when you actually listened to them, and then when you put them on a display case on the wall.
—Joyce Messier, Disco Elysium
Gibson is a concrete example. He fashions critiques of capitalism in a book, the book is distilled into the aesthetics of cyberpunk, and the cyberpunk aesthetic is repackaged and resold to us.
Fascism is only concerned with aesthetic, the substance of a culture doesnt matter to them
What does fascism have to do with anything?
Places like Ordensburg Vogelsang, where they trained Nazi officers, explains how they cut themselves to look experienced in battle, among other things. The Wikipedia page doesn't do the place justice. It's terrifying to visit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordensburg_Vogelsang
Fascists have strong opinions on "correct" art:
Dumpster diving is one of those sub-cultures that is hard to commodify. One of my kids prefers the ethics of dumpster diving. What a privilege.
I did take some new people on cleaner, more mellow excursions, they absolutely loved it.
This is what makes capitalism so insidious, it coöpts our very reality. It is an amazingly persistent mind virus.
"One may dye their hair green and wear their grandma’s coat all they want. Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself. Even those who would critique capital end up reinforcing it instead." —Joyce Messier in Disco Elysium Probably inspired by Mark Fisher: "The power of capitalist realism derives in part from the way that capitalism subsumes and consumes all of previous history: one effect of its 'sys…
That's a pretty weird description of the British Museum. Yes, I know people can (and do) criticize the collection they have as the spoils of colonialism, but in no way do they present their collection as "merely aesthetic objects" -- they do explain what the artifacts are in terms of the cultures that created them.
You might take a collection of dried leaves and put them on display and call it a “tree museum”, but your visitors aren’t going to get a good appreciation for what trees are like just by looking at their dead refuse
there are still subcultures: the ones unpalatable to corporate interests; ones around topics that are illegal, very politically fringe, or centered on weird sex stuff
"One may dye their hair green and wear their grandma’s coat all they want. Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself. Even those who would critique capital end up reinforcing it instead." —Joyce Messier in Disco Elysium Probably inspired by Mark Fisher: "The power of capitalist realism derives in part from the way that capitalism subsumes and consumes all of previous history: one effect of its 'sys…
That's a pretty weird description of the British Museum. Yes, I know people can (and do) criticize the collection they have as the spoils of colonialism, but in no way do they present their collection as "merely aesthetic objects" -- they do explain what the artifacts are in terms of the cultures that created them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would also add things that are unprofitable and/or participating in them requires a high degree of personal investment which can't be substituted with money. Which describes a lot of things if you think about it.
Curious what subcultures comes to mind for you. I havent finished my coffee, but and drawing a blank on cultural interests that cant be commodified.
The problem of a lot of subcultures is that they define themselves in large part by flashy externalities, and commodification is part of their DNA.
For example: You like an underground band's music, as you feel the message they broadcast through their music resonates with you, and you'd like to display your participation, so you buy their merch and go to their shows.
No matter how authentic they may seem, they've already sold themselves off as a commodity, and you've participated in the low effort transaction of buying a piece of identity, like you'd buy a share of a company's stock.
Now, if later the band gets popular, that share of identity gets diluted, and you get to be one of those annoying people who insist you like the band before they were cool.
Firstly, there are many tiny subcultures that by definition you will not know about if you are not part of them. Secondly, I think that there is a hidden assumption in western audience that sub\counter culture are universally good, So when we see negative ones they do not register as counter cultures. The Man-o-sphere, N-th level gender advocates, Fascists, National Purity, Marxists, Libertarians. If anything there i…
> There is no longer any cultural center to even deviate from when everyone lives in a personalized media landscape.
I realized you hit the nail no the head. Everyone needs to feel special in their own little world. As far as I can tell this is not turning out to be a good thing. Humans are social creatures: we must learn to cohabitate without denigrating one another. The personalized media landscape has done nothing but lead to fracturing.