On the German family not allowing themselves to see the evidence of horror all around them: when I lived in Bath I was told that the open courtyards below the ground floors of the grand Georgian houses would have been full of servants doing laundry, repairing things, even having baths. The trick for the society folk walking past was simply to never allow themselves to look down, or to notice the scruffy life going on right under their noses.
Yeah, I think that's a really important point - that this kind of purposeful ignorance of other people's humanity is frequently the bedroom of functioning civilisation. (I've been listening to a lot of audiobooks about Roman history recently and obviously the slavery system relied on exactly that.)
That Guardian roundtable made me reflect on one of Helen Lewis’s recent substacks about the politicisation of arts criticism and what a stifling bore it is to read aspiring intellectuals praise or condemn a film based on whether it reinforces their own moral viewpoints.
How difficult is it to engage with the a piece of art based on whether it achieves what it sets out to achieve, demonstrates great technical craftsmanship or ENTERTAINS rather than whether it flatters us and strokes our fragile egos?!?
I never thought I’d reach a stage in my life where I looked back fondly on the idea that art should challenge our preconceptions, but here we are, with 75% or critics seemingly determined to praise and reinforce only the dullest and least imaginative of achievements, and poised to condemn anybody who achieves something vaguely interesting.
That was such a good post by Helen. I can't decide how much to blame moral cowardice or market forces - people do click on this stuff, and I feel a bit of culpability that I've linked out to three bits of criticism in this newsletter, two of which I'm drawing attention to purely because they've annoyed me. But it's exactly the same issue as with the Barbie hagiography: people aren't asking "is this a good film", they're asking "is this a feminist film". It's the triumph of the Soviet style of criticism, where everything is divvied into revolutionary or counterrevolutionary.
Market forces might be the cause AND the solution! I wonder if the feedback loop of positive criticism encouraging the commissioning of anodyne entertainment will lead to a blip in history of really bland, boring art, and people will vote with their wallets and eventually the market will self-correct.
Like, I’d queue to watch Barbie again tomorrow. I will never watch the third series of Ted Lasso again, even if you pay me. There’s a limit to how many times people will pay for a cinema trip to watch something celebrated by critics that won’t entertain them. I can’t imagine the vast swathes of people voting for Trump in the US will queue to watch culturally sensitive blockbusters that forget to make them laugh or feel something. There has to be an end point when people slow down on trying to change the world by commissioning only noble right-side-of-history art.
This might be misguided optimism, but I can dream!
It’s called civil inattention, the ability to ignore people in plain sight. Except of course the Höss family were engaging in hideously uncivil inattention. Such a great essay, missus, thank you.
Civil inattention is from Erving Goffman. It’s how we walk down a street in a city and don’t freak out at all the stimulation and strangers. Though obviously I used it in the context of how we pretend not to hear anyone else in a public toilet.
Of the Best Picture shortlist I’ve only seen Past Lives, Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon, but I thought all three were scintillating films. Oppenheimer I thought was a masterpiece.
On the German family not allowing themselves to see the evidence of horror all around them: when I lived in Bath I was told that the open courtyards below the ground floors of the grand Georgian houses would have been full of servants doing laundry, repairing things, even having baths. The trick for the society folk walking past was simply to never allow themselves to look down, or to notice the scruffy life going on right under their noses.
Yeah, I think that's a really important point - that this kind of purposeful ignorance of other people's humanity is frequently the bedroom of functioning civilisation. (I've been listening to a lot of audiobooks about Roman history recently and obviously the slavery system relied on exactly that.)
That Guardian roundtable made me reflect on one of Helen Lewis’s recent substacks about the politicisation of arts criticism and what a stifling bore it is to read aspiring intellectuals praise or condemn a film based on whether it reinforces their own moral viewpoints.
How difficult is it to engage with the a piece of art based on whether it achieves what it sets out to achieve, demonstrates great technical craftsmanship or ENTERTAINS rather than whether it flatters us and strokes our fragile egos?!?
I never thought I’d reach a stage in my life where I looked back fondly on the idea that art should challenge our preconceptions, but here we are, with 75% or critics seemingly determined to praise and reinforce only the dullest and least imaginative of achievements, and poised to condemn anybody who achieves something vaguely interesting.
That was such a good post by Helen. I can't decide how much to blame moral cowardice or market forces - people do click on this stuff, and I feel a bit of culpability that I've linked out to three bits of criticism in this newsletter, two of which I'm drawing attention to purely because they've annoyed me. But it's exactly the same issue as with the Barbie hagiography: people aren't asking "is this a good film", they're asking "is this a feminist film". It's the triumph of the Soviet style of criticism, where everything is divvied into revolutionary or counterrevolutionary.
Market forces might be the cause AND the solution! I wonder if the feedback loop of positive criticism encouraging the commissioning of anodyne entertainment will lead to a blip in history of really bland, boring art, and people will vote with their wallets and eventually the market will self-correct.
Like, I’d queue to watch Barbie again tomorrow. I will never watch the third series of Ted Lasso again, even if you pay me. There’s a limit to how many times people will pay for a cinema trip to watch something celebrated by critics that won’t entertain them. I can’t imagine the vast swathes of people voting for Trump in the US will queue to watch culturally sensitive blockbusters that forget to make them laugh or feel something. There has to be an end point when people slow down on trying to change the world by commissioning only noble right-side-of-history art.
This might be misguided optimism, but I can dream!
It’s called civil inattention, the ability to ignore people in plain sight. Except of course the Höss family were engaging in hideously uncivil inattention. Such a great essay, missus, thank you.
That's such a useful concept - civil inattention and coining the opposite. I will use them both,
Civil inattention is from Erving Goffman. It’s how we walk down a street in a city and don’t freak out at all the stimulation and strangers. Though obviously I used it in the context of how we pretend not to hear anyone else in a public toilet.
Of the Best Picture shortlist I’ve only seen Past Lives, Oppenheimer and Killers of the Flower Moon, but I thought all three were scintillating films. Oppenheimer I thought was a masterpiece.
https://culturall.io/how-nolans-oppenheimer-engages-the-atoms-of-great-biography/