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Subversion Through Art
By RON JACOBS
http://counterpunch.org/jacobs08052011.html
Let's consider the empire of the mind. You know, that method to the advertiser's madness that somehow incorporates messages into our consciousness about the nature of freedom. An Army of One or the freedom to buy a truck that looks like everyone else's. Freedom of choice as a replacement for genuine freedom. And so on. Beyond the obvious insidiousness of advertising is the much more insistent nature of what is called culture in the modern society of capital. There is no enlightenment involved in the merchandise presented to us by car companies, banks, and other commercial failures whose primary intent is to convince us that our future involves us spending our money on their products. Indeed, there is not even a pretense or supposition that there should be any enlightenment in the equation. So, we spend our time watching and listening to these entertainment products while we work out how we'll get that new car shown to us every ten minutes during the commercial break.
Trotsky wrote that "every ruling class creates its own culture, and consequently, its own art." While one might be hard pressed to justify most television shows and most pop music as art, they are what pass for culture. Once, a conversation with a friend who worked as a college faculty member turned to the question of whether film and music reflected or created popular trends and thought. In other words, does the culture we absorb influence us or do we influence it.
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