The Cult of Yesterday

Capitalism, Necromancy, and the Dark Side of Nostalgia

River Quintana

Feb 09, 2024

Some of the sources of Pop Art VI, Peter Blake

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Capitalism, it seems, can’t let go of the past. Like a necromancer, it reanimates the corpses of bygone trends, ideologies, and aesthetics, then sells them back to us at a markup. This... See more

But this obviously contributed to a feeling of decline in the long-run, because mass culture continued to do the thing it always does: avoid artistic innovation in order to maximize profit. But once poptimism established that only the mainstream "mattered," it set up audiences to judge the health of culture on its least artistic output. If we have... See more

Here we see a really pivotal moment of change, when art must become something that does not make people uncomfortable, so that they will spend money. The kind of person who is expected to consume art is transformed in the mind of the producer. The people who might very possibly love being expanded by what they see are never given the chance.

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