#1 Odgodjena Apokalipsa
Posted: 15/06/2005 04:45
“...If culture is an aristocratic phenomenon – the assiduous, solitary and jealous cultivation of an inner life that tempers and opposes the vulgarity of the crowd – then even to conceive of a culture that is shared by everyone, produced to suit everyone and tailored accordingly is a monstrous contradiction. (In Heraclitus’s words: “Why drag me up and down, your boors? I toiled for those who understand me – not for you! To me, one man is full thirty thousand, countless worth none.)
Mass culture is anti-culture. But since it’s birth comes at a time when a presence of the masses in the life of society is the most striking phenomenon of the age, then ‘mass culture’ does not signal a transitory and limited aberration; rather, it is the mark of an irretrievable loss,. In the face of which the man of culture (last survivor or a prehistory destined to extinction) can not do otherwise than give an extreme, apocalyptic testimony.
Set against this is the optimistic response of the integrated intellectual. The combined efforts of TV, newspapers, radio, cinema, comic-strips, popular novels and Reader’s Digest have now brought culture within everybody’s reach. They have made the absorption of ideas and the reception of information a pleasurable and easy task, with the result that we live in an age in which the cultural arena is at last expanding to include the widespread circulation or a popular art and culture in which the best compete against each other. Whether this culture emerges from below or is processed and packaged from above to be offered to defenseless consumers is not a problem that concerns the integrated intellectual. Not least, because, if apocalyptic survive by packaging theories on decadence, the integrated intellectuals rarely theorize. They are more likely to be busy producing and transmitting their own massages in every sphere, on a daily basis.
The apocalypse is a preoccupation of the dissented, integration is the concrete realist of non-dissenter. But do those two views not perhaps represent two aspects of the same problem and, if so, to what extent and is it not the case that apocalyptic texts constitute the most sophisticated product on offer for mass consumption? Such a hypothesis would mean, than, that the formula “Apocalittici e integrati’ does not refer to the clash between two opposing attitudes but is rather an expression made up of two complementary adjectives – adjectives which could both be equally applied to the creators of a ‘popular critique of popular culture’...”
"Ako je kultura aristokratski fenomen - neumorno, samotnjacko i ljubomorno uzgajanje unutrasnjeg zivota koji ismijava i suprotstavlja se vulgarnosti rulje - onda cak i vizija kulture koju svi djele, proizvedene da odgovara svakome i prema tome i krojene monstruozna je kontradikcija.
(Heraklitovim rjecima: “Zasto me vucarati gore – dole po vasim seljacima? Radio sam za one koji me razumiju – ne za vas! Za mene, jedan covjek je vrijedan trideset hiljada, bezbroj ne vrijedi nista.) Masovna kultura je anti-kultura. Ali posto njeno rodjenje dolazi u vrijeme kada je prisutnost masa u drustvenom zivotu najupecatljiviji fenomen vremena, onda ‘masovna kultura’ ne signalizira prelaznu i ogranicenu anomaliju; vec je znak nenadoknadivog gubitka. U susret cemu covjek od kulture (zadnji prezivjeli ili praistorijski osudjen na nestanak) ne moze a da ne da ekstremno, apokalipticno svjedocenje.
Nasuprot ovome je optimisticki odgovor integrisanog intelektualca. Kombinovani trud TV-a, novina, radija, kina, komicnih stripova, popularnih novela i Reader’s Digest doveli su kulturu nadomak svacijeg dosega. Napravili su upijanje ideja i prihvatanje informacija ugodnim i lakim zadatkom, rezultirajuci da zivimo u vremenima kad se kulturna arena konacno siri da ukljuci sveopstu cirkulaciju popularne umjetnosti i kulture u kojoj se najbolji takmice sa najboljima. Nadire li ova kultura odozdo ili je procesirana i spakovana odozgo da bi se punudila nezasticenim potrosacima nije problem koji brine integrisanog intelektualca. Ni najmanje, jer, ako apokalipticari prezivljavaju pakovanjem teorija o obrusavanju, integrisani intelektualci rijetko teoretisu. Vjerovatnije je da su zauzeti proizvodnjom i prenosenjem svojih poruka u svaku sferu, svakodnevno.
Apokalipsa je preokupacija protestnika, integracija je konkretna realnost ne-protestnika. Ali ne predstavljaju li mozda ove dvije perspektive dva aspekta istog problema i, ako da, do koje mjere i nije li slucaj da apokalipticni tekstovi cine vecinu sofisticiranih proizvoda na ponudu masovnoj potrosnji? Takva pretpostavka bi znacila, tada, da se formula “Apokalipticna Integracija” ne odnosi na sukob izmedju dva suprotna misljenja nego je prije izraz napravljen od dva komplementarna pridjeva – pridjeva od kojih bi oba mogla biti jednako primjenjena kreatorima “popularne kritike popularne kulture”...”
Mass culture is anti-culture. But since it’s birth comes at a time when a presence of the masses in the life of society is the most striking phenomenon of the age, then ‘mass culture’ does not signal a transitory and limited aberration; rather, it is the mark of an irretrievable loss,. In the face of which the man of culture (last survivor or a prehistory destined to extinction) can not do otherwise than give an extreme, apocalyptic testimony.
Set against this is the optimistic response of the integrated intellectual. The combined efforts of TV, newspapers, radio, cinema, comic-strips, popular novels and Reader’s Digest have now brought culture within everybody’s reach. They have made the absorption of ideas and the reception of information a pleasurable and easy task, with the result that we live in an age in which the cultural arena is at last expanding to include the widespread circulation or a popular art and culture in which the best compete against each other. Whether this culture emerges from below or is processed and packaged from above to be offered to defenseless consumers is not a problem that concerns the integrated intellectual. Not least, because, if apocalyptic survive by packaging theories on decadence, the integrated intellectuals rarely theorize. They are more likely to be busy producing and transmitting their own massages in every sphere, on a daily basis.
The apocalypse is a preoccupation of the dissented, integration is the concrete realist of non-dissenter. But do those two views not perhaps represent two aspects of the same problem and, if so, to what extent and is it not the case that apocalyptic texts constitute the most sophisticated product on offer for mass consumption? Such a hypothesis would mean, than, that the formula “Apocalittici e integrati’ does not refer to the clash between two opposing attitudes but is rather an expression made up of two complementary adjectives – adjectives which could both be equally applied to the creators of a ‘popular critique of popular culture’...”
"Ako je kultura aristokratski fenomen - neumorno, samotnjacko i ljubomorno uzgajanje unutrasnjeg zivota koji ismijava i suprotstavlja se vulgarnosti rulje - onda cak i vizija kulture koju svi djele, proizvedene da odgovara svakome i prema tome i krojene monstruozna je kontradikcija.
(Heraklitovim rjecima: “Zasto me vucarati gore – dole po vasim seljacima? Radio sam za one koji me razumiju – ne za vas! Za mene, jedan covjek je vrijedan trideset hiljada, bezbroj ne vrijedi nista.) Masovna kultura je anti-kultura. Ali posto njeno rodjenje dolazi u vrijeme kada je prisutnost masa u drustvenom zivotu najupecatljiviji fenomen vremena, onda ‘masovna kultura’ ne signalizira prelaznu i ogranicenu anomaliju; vec je znak nenadoknadivog gubitka. U susret cemu covjek od kulture (zadnji prezivjeli ili praistorijski osudjen na nestanak) ne moze a da ne da ekstremno, apokalipticno svjedocenje.
Nasuprot ovome je optimisticki odgovor integrisanog intelektualca. Kombinovani trud TV-a, novina, radija, kina, komicnih stripova, popularnih novela i Reader’s Digest doveli su kulturu nadomak svacijeg dosega. Napravili su upijanje ideja i prihvatanje informacija ugodnim i lakim zadatkom, rezultirajuci da zivimo u vremenima kad se kulturna arena konacno siri da ukljuci sveopstu cirkulaciju popularne umjetnosti i kulture u kojoj se najbolji takmice sa najboljima. Nadire li ova kultura odozdo ili je procesirana i spakovana odozgo da bi se punudila nezasticenim potrosacima nije problem koji brine integrisanog intelektualca. Ni najmanje, jer, ako apokalipticari prezivljavaju pakovanjem teorija o obrusavanju, integrisani intelektualci rijetko teoretisu. Vjerovatnije je da su zauzeti proizvodnjom i prenosenjem svojih poruka u svaku sferu, svakodnevno.
Apokalipsa je preokupacija protestnika, integracija je konkretna realnost ne-protestnika. Ali ne predstavljaju li mozda ove dvije perspektive dva aspekta istog problema i, ako da, do koje mjere i nije li slucaj da apokalipticni tekstovi cine vecinu sofisticiranih proizvoda na ponudu masovnoj potrosnji? Takva pretpostavka bi znacila, tada, da se formula “Apokalipticna Integracija” ne odnosi na sukob izmedju dva suprotna misljenja nego je prije izraz napravljen od dva komplementarna pridjeva – pridjeva od kojih bi oba mogla biti jednako primjenjena kreatorima “popularne kritike popularne kulture”...”
