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Tuesday, June 24, 2003
AdBluster Steve has the DU to lampoon (fish in a barrel) and I have AdBusters. Having a career in advertising, I feel inclined to respond to and elucidate their intellectual bankruptcy. As their rhetoric (what little of it is explicitly stated) appears to be a mishmash of multifarious anti-capitalist, anti-industrialism dogmas, it has already been thoroughly debunked elsewhere, so I'm sure I'll cover some well-tread ground. Furthermore, I can’t imagine being able to paint a complete picture of their pusillanimity and perfidy in one blog post, so this will be an ongoing project. What struck me as specious enough to start writing about AdBusters and “creative resistance” in general, is the notion that artists are marginalized or exploited by capitalism. I’m dumbfounded even typing that. Where else but in a market full of eccentric capitalists can an artist find funding for even the most bizarre projects? Even the evil Enron was the single largest source of funding for artistic endeavors in Houston. What opportunities are available to the artist in China aside from propaganda? As social critics, AdBusters remind me of a favorite quotation of mine: ”What every artist knows: No matter how great my contemporaries, they are only human. Alas, work calls and I get to go be creative in the service of the “evil” corporate hegemon, because of whom I have indoor plumbing, air conditioning, a means of transportation, a nice computer and a lengthy life-expectancy among other things. Obviously I’m a shill and should go live in the trees. ”All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?”What indeed. posted by Malaclypse the Tertiary at 1:02 PM · |
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