The State of the Culture, 2024

But let’s turn around and look at those folks in the audience. It’s sobering to see what they’re actually doing. Consumers of culture have so many options to choose from—so what do they pick?

The brutal truth is that there’s an ocean of stuff out there, but consumers sip it with a narrow straw.

This endless, mindless diversion is a necessity in a society that prizes entertainment above substance. Intellectual or philosophical ideas require too much effort and work to absorb. Classical theater, newspapers, and books are pushed to the margins of cultural life, remnants of a bygone literate age. They are dismissed as inaccessible and elitist

There is too much culture for culture to have manners, method or modulation. Things don’t cohere. They don’t line up in the beautiful diffusion waves running vividly in from the margin. This means it’s much harder to figure what and when culture will reach us. No more taking a position in the diffusion stream, as an innovator, early adopter, or lat