Treating audiences as intelligent is branded elitist while material elites consolidate
Evidence
It’s worth reminding ourselves of the peculiar logic that neoliberalism has successfully imposed. Treating people as if they were intelligent is, we have been led to believe, “elitist”, whereas treating them as if they are stupid is “democratic”. It should go without saying that the assault on cultural elitism has gone alongside the aggressive restoration of a material elite. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 599
Categorization
- DEEPTHINKING: Named reversal: egalitarian gesture in media dumbing-down paired with aggressive material inequality
- SEED: Essay angle on how ‘democratic’ and ‘elitist’ labels got inverted to serve the culture industry.
- XREF: connects to: Anti-snobbery media norms produced an infantilized rather than diverse culture; Poptimism dismissed experimental culture as elitist while fixating on mass-popular output; Public-spirited questioners get socially demoted to eccentric oddballs — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics: how Americans…, 299 (+1 more)