There aren't many cultural criticism books nowadays. There used to be tonnes last century...

There aren't many cultural criticism books nowadays. There used to be tonnes last century, but now we have entrepreneur friendly books like Slow, Focus, Thrive.

I've started thinking people don't matter culturally or even really at all unless there's some moving images of them. Almost like they don't exist. Any books about this kind of thing? Please no Lacan, or ilk.

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Because quite frankly, even though you don't like "Lacan and their ilk", they were right. Baudrillard is spot on, look at the phenomenon of cryptocurrency or social media. Please listen to Self under siege by Rick Roderick, fantastic lecture.

Seconding Baudrillard. I used to think that he was a hack but interacting with americans online made me realize that he was 100% spot on.

Last century was all about tearing down the West's unifying principles. Figuring out what was privileged and replacing it with what was oppressed. You can see this, for example, in Deleuze's philosophy. He sees Western philosophy as privileging identity over difference, and thus develops a philosophy that counteracts that by privileging difference. This entire movement of deconstructing Western ideas began, of course, with Heidegger.

Deconstructing the principles upon which a Culture is founded is no different than attacking the Culture itself. Therefore the last century did not simply tear down the Western ideals, it also tore down what we consider Western Culture. All that's left is the structure itself, without the soul that moved it. In truth, the Culture is already dead.

What then is the use in criticizing it, if it is already dead? You can find plenty of books that are critical with the state of the world, especially on the right side of politics, but these do not directly attack Western ideas. On the other hand, critiques by the left claim that the West does not actually possess a Culture, and that it may never have possessed a Culture, that it only stole from other peoples. Both of these, in a different way, do not actually, directly, attack the Culture itself, one by merely attacking it's shallow face, the other by refusing to acknowledge its existence.

As to whether people matter culturally without moving images, I would say people matter culturally before moving images are made of them. Christ is depicted so frequently not because of some original inspiring icon, but rather because there are so many Christians inspired by his life, which is preserved not in an image but in a book.

Deleuze Badrilliard and lacan are unreadable though. Obtuse is stupid, I need something that is kind to the reader and not intellectual masturbation

How the hell is a culture dead?

How is a body dead? If the thing animating it is gone.

low iq pleb

Fuck you those guys are hogwash, they could say things simpler but oh no, they've got to be Philosophers

>There aren't many cultural criticism books nowadays

lmao what? There's too many if anything

I get where you're coming from but really no culture? There is something happening always

What are they ?

If its just the same shit over and over who cares

Every ideology has tons, liberal criticisms, socialist criticisms, alt right criticisms. Fucking everyone has their own polemic and its tiresome

So what are the recent books or do you just have a hunch there's tons

I think that he means that people see their culture more as a global thing instead of a more local and personal one becausethe idea that culture is local and personal is dead.

go the website of any socialist publisher, you'll see commie professors spewing out the "critiques" by the dozens

They aren't hogwash. They're just difficult and in translation (because you obviously don't read French) which compounds it. It's clear that your stupid from the fact you think Baudrillard is so complicated he's a fraud, c'mon.

Your iq, which you care about because you went to public school, is probably like 80-85 - and that's ok. Go do something challenging for you my dude. Watch Inception, follow a recipe. Or just relax, put your feet up. Watch some comedy central -ha, ha isn't it funny? DM your favorite pornstar -we both know you have one- maybe she (or he it's 2018, Obama's America) will get back to you! But the lit board of the Hmong Scrimshaw website just isn't for you.

Lacan is shite but Baudrillard and Deleuze are worth the trouble imho.

Other way around you "shite" poster

All three are worth reading.

McLuhan

Not "no" Culture. Think of Culture as having two parts, the inner and outer. The inner is the ideas that make it what it is, the outer is the expression of those ideas. So we (I assume you're a Westerner) Westerners have for a very long time had ideas about what is beautiful, what is good, what our purpose is, etc. We express those ideas in our art, our architecture, our music, etc. Both of these together form a distinct Culture.

Now, imagine that the ideas which made our Culture the Western Culture stopped being universally accepted as true. The art, the architecture, the music, all of it would be preserved in our history. And, people would still make art, architecture, music, etc. But the unifying ideas which made the Culture Western have been taken away. The outer is still present, but the inner is gone. The new inner is just relativism, content without any unity. Therefore, the outer has become arbitrary, to reflect the inner.

This is the situation we are in, or going through now. Because art, architecture, music, has all become an arbitrary expression of an arbitrary inner reality, people turn to more practical endeavors in general. Eventually, the distinctly Western Culture will become an oddity of the past, commoditized and sold, since its monetary value will be its only value. And, eventually, the Culture as a whole, not just it's artifacts, but its people, will stop being a unified One, and simply become a mass of people spread across arbitrary national boundaries and geographic impasses.

Then some new unifying force will come along, and the cycle will begin anew.

You should check Hans Blumenberg's Legitimacy of the modern age

>Westerners have for a very long time had ideas about what is beautiful, what is good, what our purpose is, etc

Is that so

I may read it, possibly. Ultimately I'm interested in a philosophy of history. I (probably obviously) draw heavily from Spengler, but Hegel's ideas intrigue me too. I am somewhat skeptical of his claims, especially since he seems to settle upon the ancient-medieval-modern distinction which I find absurd.

>interacting with americans online made me realize that he was 100% spot on.
In what sense? I’m curious.