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June 08, 2007
In the age of postmodernity is there is a distinct threat posed to the integrity of personal narratives, due to the fact that our lives are mediated increasingly by all manner of images, tropes and fictions that are collectively, and largely
anonymously, authored by the culture industry. Insofar as such manufactured cultural forms take up the function of narrating our biographies — eg., how pop music become effectively the ‘soundtrack of our lives’ — there is, at least potentially, a loss of personal agency.
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Gary. I stumbled across your blog recently and was impressed with your tenacity. It would be hard for me to come up with something thoughtful - and on a different topic - to say everyday, what with focussed dissertations taking up all my brain power.
This is just an exploratory query then: You seem more Adorno than Benjamin on the possibilities for authentic expression afforded in the wake of the culture industry - I wonder how you valorize "culture" in relation to plain old "language" when it comes to laying out the foundations for personal expression? For example, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (axiom) is just one that argues thought and expression is shaped by speech/writing conventions. Is culture "worse"?
Cheers. I will be reading everyday from now on!
D