What modern invention/innovation do you wish had *never* been developed?

LizzieMaine said:

I could empty a slopjar out my bedroom window, and I guarantee that my act of doing so would provoke thoughts and emotions on the part of the viewer, especially if he wasn't wearing a hat. But that wouldn't make it art.

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Stearmen said:

I think you all missed my point above. This is what the old fogey critics in the late 19th century said about this form of young people dance. Now, it is considered a beautiful form of dance, very conservative. How does that old saying go? "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

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LizzieMaine said:

Brother Powers will strenuously disagree, but I'll say that Lennon and McCartney wrote some good songs. I don't care for all their stuff, especially not the hippie-dippie stuff, but some of their individual songs show real craftsmanship. But Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, and Irving Berlin wrote more -- and better -- songs over a much longer period of time.

"Yesterday" may well be a very fine song. But "All The Things You Are" is a better song on just about every level -- and the tragedy is that the gigantic distended amoeba that is the Baby Boom Generation has so completely engulfed the world's consciousness that the latter is completely unknown to anyone under seventy unless they've among the few to have had any exposure to pre-rock music. An entire culture has been completely wiped out of the popular consciousness, and frankly, those of you who don't realize that have missed out on more than you can ever possibly understand.

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Dragon Soldier said:

And although you'll have to take my word for it, I'm currently watching "The Chase" a UK quiz show, a contestant has just been asked to "Complete the title of the Cab Calloway composition, Minnie the ......." and, after a pause he answered correctly. I'd say he's in his 30s.

So the knowledge, superficial though it may be, is there.

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LizzieMaine said:

When the average 30 year old knows who Jerome Kern or Harry Warren was, then I'll be impressed. I suspect a lot of people in their thirties know Cabell mostly as "that cool old guy that did that Janet Jackson video."

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LizzieMaine said:

But in the '30s, for example, every American knew who Stephen Foster was, who Joe Howard was, who Gus Edwards was, and on and on. Every American schoolchild in the '30s knew "Old Folks at Home" or "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now" or "Look Out For Jimmy Valentine" or any of dozens of other songs written many decades before they were born. The old culture didn't exist merely as a throwback or a curiosity -- it was still a part of the working language of everyday life for just about every literate person. It wasn't the exception, it was the rule.

Why should young people know who John Lennon was but not know, or have only a vague idea, of who George Gershwin was? That's the question I'm getting at.

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LizzieMaine said:

Why should young people know who John Lennon was but not know, or have only a vague idea, of who George Gershwin was? That's the question I'm getting at.

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Dragon Soldier said:

Okay, well then I would say that the currency of popular cuture is directly relatable to the speed and pervasiveness of the media which delivers it. The longer it takes for a critical mass of people to hear a tune the longer it will last in pop culture, the less that people are exposed to a tune the longer it will take for them to become bored with it.

Release a recording today and the bulk of the world's population may have heard it by tomorrow, by next week they'll have heard it.. As many times as they want to and will have been exposed to several newer recordings as well, so things are much more transient.

That's my take on it anyway.

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LizzieMaine said:

And the question then becomes, "well, is that a *good* thing?" Is the only purpose of a culture to be "consumers of media," creating, swallowing, and excreting as fast as we can to make way for the next big thing? Is that the kind of society we actively *want?*

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LizzieMaine said:

But as noted, it hasn't always been such a cycle of consume-digest-excrete the way it is now. The culture of a hundred years ago tended to stick to the ribs of its consumers a lot longer than today's. I submit that this was a *good* thing in that it allowed a real cross-generational appreciation for its products rather than the current everybody-in-their-niche thing we have today.

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V.C. Brunswick said:

When it comes to much of our culture today I think the order is excrete-consume-digest.

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