The decline of Western civilization continues
The Los Angeles Times site has an excellent, wide-ranging essay by Scott Timberg on the declining cultural influence of arts critics. Timberg contrasts today’s celebrity-driven arts journalism with the days when individual critics like Clement Greenberg and H.L. Mencken shaped public tastes by championing individual artists and introducing emerging artistic movements to a broader audience. The reasons for this shift are complex. “Besides the Internet and its rash of blogs,” Timberg writes, “suspected culprits include the culture of celebrity, anti-intellectual populism, stingy newspaper owners and what some critics say is a loss of vitality or visibility in their art forms.”
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Read the Los Angeles Times article
