This is the stumbling block and stumper for me: if the non- West is less corrupted, how come the most pernicious visions of the West make such headway?

Because it seems to me that almost anywhere and everywhere, it does: the most wretched aesthetics of the west carry the day to the point that rap (for example) is uttered in almost every language in the world.

Where does this not carry the day? People can point to a few places where some Canute, through deliberate and active suppression, uses the powers of coercion to the best of his ability to hold back the tide of sewage.

And yes, from an NRx PoV that shows what a dynamic ruler can do with the power of the state. But from a reactionary PoV beyond that, it is (or at least should be) deeply disturbing to the point of requiring much more analysis than it has been given (usually the analysis runs to the deep depths of “well, masses everywhere suck, so they need the goad” – Thanks for that on the spot report, Les. Your parting gift is a smack in the back of the head).

So there seems to be a problem with “vital cultures” everywhere that makes them vulnerable to this kind of corrosive influence. (And corrosive it certainly is). And if any “vital culture unaffected by it” is only due to the active force of some Canute, then it is in a sense artificial – not an aesthetic *culture* or civilization as such, but one that will waver and succumb when that grip slackens, and fall prey to this (and this is what people will listen to and look at out of sight of the forceful hand; so it becomes a kind of Potemkin for people like us to admire from afar, while in the homes of people living in the places we point to as examples artistic vitality, people are actually listening too and looking at western swill with a local twist/voice – Gagnam style).

I can only think that the obsession with abstraction was a kind of monkish attempt to ‘renounce the world’ (misguided in this case) and detach art from ‘worldly concerns’, i.e., representation. Get to the pure thing! But the pure thing IS simply representation; ergo you end up with art without art. Rap survives this problem by basically being (setting aside the underclass value resonance) the raw form of poetry: an imitation of a form of drama: a fight with words, the bragging of a warrior, or the telling of a tale.

It seems to me that graphic novels certainly are not moribund, though they are far too ‘representational’ to ever be considered fine art by the high end, and they often concern themselves more with pandering (usually titillation) than is proper for really steadfast works of fine art. I do not, however, think they have the time left to mature. It will have to be carried over, so to speak.

http://randomghost.tumblr.com/

http://fbroi.tumblr.com/post/101484553178/the-scale-is-inhuman-but-it-still-gives-you-a

The generative approach is often the hardest but I see that it is the only way to reconcile walking forward while looking backwards.

Although scavenging is what I’m good at.

Whoever said decopunk has my thanks. Tear apart the old for the benefit of the new. At least its something other than steampunk.