But What If We're Wrong?: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past
updated 5h ago
updated 5h ago
Competing modes of discourse no longer “compete.” They coexist.
Keely Adler added 8mo ago
Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story is literally about media alienation, so it can’t really be about media alienation.
Keely Adler added 8mo ago
Before we can argue that something we currently appreciate deserves inclusion in the world of tomorrow, we must build that future world within our mind.
Keely Adler added 8mo ago
History is a creative process (or as Napoleon Bonaparte once said, “a set of lies agreed upon”). The world happens as it happens, but we construct what we remember and what we forget. And people will eventually do that to us, too.
Keely Adler added 8mo ago
The defining music of the first half of the twentieth century was jazz; the defining music of the second half of the twentieth century was rock, but with an ideology and saturation far more pervasive.
Keely Adler added 8mo ago
If you are heavily involved with normal Internet culture, you are partially involved with branding (even if you’re trying to be weird and obtuse on purpose). Internet writing is, by definition, public writing. Which means our Contemporary Kafka must be doing something slightly different.
Keely Adler added 8mo ago
important writing finds a way to accurately represent life, and that the writing that does so will consciously intermingle with the meaningful culture of the time (impermanent though it may be).
Keely Adler added 8mo ago
The prevailing acceptance of nontraditional sexual identities.
Keely Adler added 8mo ago
The work itself is not above criticism, but no individual criticism has any impact; at this point, attacking Moby-Dick only reflects the contrarianism of the critic.
Keely Adler added 8mo ago