Search results

Do you ever wonder why conservative pundits drop the word?faggot? or talk about killing and then Christianizing Muslims abroad? Do you wonder why the right?s spokespeople seem so confrontational, rude, and over-the-top recently? Does it seem strange that conservative books have such apocalyptic titles? Do you marvel at why conservative writers trumpeted the?rebel? qualities of George W. Bush just a few years back?. There is no doubt that the style of the political right today is tough, brash, and by many accounts, not very conservative sounding. After all, isn?t conservatism supposed to be a.

The legacy of the 1960s -- Historical reasons for the decline?: changes in American political culture -- The world of political argument: creating a politics of generation X -- What can be done?

It's hard to remember the sorry state that pop music fell into during the 1980s. Who wants to recall the silky synthesizer sounds of Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet that became the musical equivalent of Valium? Or heavy metal bands like Van Halen, who airbrushed technical guitar chops over idiotic machismo and emotional absence. Or the "classic rock" radio stations (before the advent of the internet) that suggested all good things came from the past, from the charmed late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1981 the music critic Lester Bangs asked a young acquaintance what bands she liked. She spat out bands like The Yardbirds, Cream, and The Doors. For Bangs, this indicated how young people of the eighties had "absolutely no culture" of their "own." Rock felt old and staid, dull and dated.

If we are going to have a civilized society, we need to pay our professional culture producers. We have to consider the merits of subsidies, of providing money that we'll never get back. We need to rethink what provides us with the grounds of creativity—the perpetual search for a bit job, or a job with integrity that allows for the freedom to think and reflect. We can continue to believe that culture is something that will magically crystallize out of thin air, that people will still write books and essays and teach the next generation no matter what they're paid. We can continue to expect free culture on demand and ignore the arguments of the producers of The Hurt Locker . We can remain like the adolescent I once was and demand that culture be free without thinking about the consequences. But we'll be poorer if we do, poorer in ways that are more difficult to measure than the stock ticker.

An essay discusses the idea of a free culture: one in which consumers feel slighted for not receiving culture for free on their computer. The author argues the results of piracy on the creators of the culture. Adapted from the source document.

Need it be said we live in gloomy times? The most optimistic among our commentariat talk of a jobless recovery: the
banks and Wall Street recuperate while more Americans face unemployment or watch their wages and benefits
stagnate. All this, of course, follows massive mortgage defaults and rising homelessness. Numerous journalists now
speak of a "lost generation" coming of age—young people unable to find jobs and sinking into psychic despair.
Depression 2.0, the Great Recession, or whatever you want to call it, has renewed a sense of what it means to get
the blues . Which brings us to Morris Dickstein's marvelous new book that explores "the crucial role that culture can play in times
of national trial."