Art and culture has gone to shit

Saturday, May 10, 2025

Commendably long and thoughtful piece by Spencer Kornhaber in The Atlantic arguing that Substack’s @tedgoia ‘s declinism in essays about 21st Art And Culture is over pessimistic. Instinctively, I want it to agree with Ted Gioia, but Kornhaber’s main argument is that artists are being just as creative, but faster, because (essentially) The Internet. Trouble is, that The Internet demands reams of content creation, not thinking, so the actual content created is cosmetic and puerile. There might be new art, but it’s just not very good.