Gay Connoisseurship, Democracy in Art, and the Progressive Dumbing Down of Culture

In school, Fran Lebowitz was punished for reading books of sardonic essays behind her textbooks and laughing out loud. When her own essays finally got the attention they deserved, she was offered six-figure sums for books she hadn’t even written yet. Evidently the educational system not only fails to nurture genius, it also punishes and attempts to sabotage it.

There are other influences besides the educational system that, according to Lebowitz, have led to the dumbing down of our culture. One is the fact that art and culture aficionados don’t know enough about culture to know that it’s now being endlessly recycled to the point where it is, in Lebowitz’s words, “death-dealing.” Everything looks new because no one knows about the past. (read more here)