Speaking of the inevitable debate over new technologies, media and cultural forms, here's an interesting essay on the initial debates over the critical merits of the funny pages. Comics as cocaine!
In the first years of the twentieth century comics inspired "shame and degradation." In the midst of the roaring twenties, however, they were praised for their "vernacular vigor." Then the depression and WWII came along and the national mood changed, and comics were viewed with suspicion. The spectre of Nazism loomed large:
“Often on the verge of hysteria, Donald Duck is a frustrated little monster who has something of the SS man in him and who we, also having something of the SS man in us, naturally find quite charming...”
It occurs to me that I find that amusing not because it reveals the absurd paranoia of previous generations of Americans, but because it is probably true.
And now? Well, High Culture no longer exists. Does it? But the debate over the interweb illustrates well enough that cultural elitism abides. Avast ye narcissistic commoners!
