Comment by wewxjfq
9 hours ago
You're so wrong that you're right again. The US funded and promoted modern art as a counterpoint to communism. There was even a submission about it a few weeks ago on here. [0]
> Nothing out of the ordinary or quirky, no individuality, all chains, all the same style.
One could say the same about capitalism/consumerism. In fact, many creatives have done so over the years. Bland and bleak life in the suburbs is a common theme. "Broad lawns and narrow minds" as Hemingway might have called it. So is the forlornness of a nondescript white-collar cubicle job. Even recently, the Backrooms taps into this.
The key difference is that communism converges on certain artistic styles as part of the ideology whereas market economies freely experiment. That’s why in communist societies you saw the suppression of artists and any deviation from the norm.
Consumerism, in my view, is also bad, but it’s not bad in the way that it affects art but bad in the way that demand for cheap goods forces fragile supply chains. It’s sort of lumped in with the suburbs critique. This poor building pattern arose because of demand for efficiency and cheap goods at all costs results in bland construction patterns. It just so happens that the blandness is a hallmark of communist styles of art and ideology.
The artist critiques you’re mentioning are criticizing the right thing (suburbia) for the wrong reason (capitalism and markets). In my view.
Capitalism of course has worthy critiques, but I think at least some if not much of the negative effects we see today are the result of massive nation states which are un-democratic.