Comment by mihaic
4 days ago
While I think that you're mostly correct in everything you're saying, I don't think it's the best kind of correct.
> You're applying normative criteria to evaluate something
I'm explicitly not trying to be objective, purely trying to judge the end result, if I like or dislike it, and what I estimate the future products would look like if the trend continues. I want a world where humans want to create, where the creative process itself is rewarding, and where our common culture is filled with most of the best works. I have no arguments further than that is what I want.
> it's essentially a rework of Hamlet
When humans rework something, they impart a piece of themselves into the final product. The end result feels like it has soul. An amalgamation designed to maximize revenue no longer feels like it has soul.
> try comparing them to the average film from the '40s, '50s, or '60s
You're right, some periods were really worse. I don't want to emulate those. But there were miraculous decades in both music and film that I want to use as a benchmark, since we know what's possible at least.
> I want a world where humans want to create, where the creative process itself is rewarding, and where our common culture is filled with most of the best works.
Well, that's definitely a moral proposition. And it's also a good description of the world as it already is.
> When humans rework something, they impart a piece of themselves into the final product.
Personally, I've never encountered any human residue while watching a movie or reading a book. Only memes that propagate independently of their point of origin.
I've also never encountered any "soul", though I have often encountered enjoyable, enlightening, and relatable works irrespective of whether the creators intended to maximize their revenue.
> I don't want to emulate those. But there were miraculous decades in both music and film that I want to use as a benchmark, since we know what's possible at least.
If you use the absolute best of everything as the benchmark against which to measure everything else, and you oppose the very existence of anything that doesn't measure up, then you are fostering an environment that is exactly the opposite of the world you claim to want.
> Personally, I've never encountered any human residue while watching a movie or reading a book.
In that case, I think we're simply debating if we like vanilla or chocolate.
I find modern culture to be crap. Whatever arguments you have against this, the fact still remains that I not longer can find what I want, something I once had.
I don't care if it hurts the economy or makes the lives of some people worse, I want movies that I enjoy watching.
> I find modern culture to be crap.
So did Socrates. Ironically, being jaded about contemporary culture is older than the hills.
My own personal feelings aren't that far off from yours -- a lot of aspects of life seem to have been much better in the past, especially in the '90s -- than today. But I'm only in my mid-40s and understand that my particular perceptions are likely informed by the bulk of my life experience taking place during a particular time slice of what very well may be a recurring cultural cycle.
Looking at how the overall cultural mood of American society has developed over time, I think I would have liked living between the 1920s and 1970s far less than today, but agree that things seem to have been getting particularly bad over the past ten years or so.
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