High culture’s contempt for kitsch revealed its own bad conscience

Evidence

For most of the twentieth century, the spiritual leader for critics was neo-Marxist theorist Theodor Adorno, who maligned popular culture as manipulative propaganda. Writers in this lineage advocated for true artists and fought against the cynical excesses of the culture industry. They saw their job as separating art from kitsch, and in the early aughts, that meant elevating the Strokes and the White Stripes as good and impugning Creed and Hoobastank as bad. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 117 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Critics once saw their role as separating authentic art from manufactured kitsch — W. David Marx, Blank Space: A Cultural History of the…, 117; Higher art must approach the masses by assimilating kitsch — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 874

Broader Connections

• Critics once saw their role as separating authentic art from manufactured kitsch #corroborates (0.80) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 117