Scott Jackisch (a.k.a., “Oakland Futurist Guy”) has a post up with the title, Jersey Shore is better than cat burning. Provocative? Yes. Timely? No. Jersey Shore is so 2010. We live in the age of Honey Boo Boo. This is clear from Google Trends. The red line represents searches for Honey Boo Boo, and the blue for Jersey Shore.
Mama June farting up a storm is still superior to cat burning. But about the Sistine Chapel, I’ll leave you with Mr. Jackisch’s ruminations on that and genital mutilation:
Take genital mutilation. That’s cultural. I place it right along side of the Sistine Chapel as an example of culture. Most of the Mills Students agreed that we need to take the good and leave the bad behind in regard to the old cultures. But I wonder how divisible cultural artifacts truly are. Is the Sistine Chapel integrally linked to oppression and Inquisition? Can the beauty really be expunged of the horrors that funded it and the message it inheres? Some things were lost with the passing of Culture. Some horrible things along with the great.
The question of modularity and contingency in cultural production is one that we don’t often consider. I suspect it’s because we don’t want to.