Sex and Death are the two moral compasses by which politics, ethics and aesthetics habitually find direction. The cultural traumas we have inherited from the past cause us to feel guilty about not feeling guilty, and to perceive pain and suffering as the essence of reality. The over-saturation of words like poignant and haunting in the critical reception of art, films and music constructs a trauma oneupmanship whereby the most harrowing experiences are synonymous with the most authentic and worthwhile. This masochism reiterates the old modernist diatribe against the duping opiate of mass media which kills us slowly in the name of entertainment. After each World War, all meaningful representation was charged with carrying the burden of history. Thus popular culture and high art went their separate ways, serving as they did different classes their respective meat (hot superficiality to one and cold profundity to the other). The post modern trend for a blurring of boundaries between the sentimental and the austere has helped to dispel some of this attitude but self-flagellation seems to be inherent in the bourgeois self image.
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