what I meant by "ignoring," is that if people offended by this kind of content didn't make a public fuss, these stations would get far less publicity, and far less listeners and lower ratings, thus the airwaves wouldn't be full of them.
jonmc:Of course, charlie. I don't subscribe to your vision of the world, I must be deluding myself. And freedom of speech only applies to stuff Charlie Bucket approves of. But fight on, Billy Jack.
*one tin soldier rides away*
You can ignore Hot 97 as you like: in one way, you're right, there are so many instances of cultural garbage that one cannot possibly address them all. But you've gone a step beyond that. You're advocating that the solution an increasing intellectual and moral bankruptcy is popular culture as a whole, an issue that this particular song brings into focus, will be solved by simply ignoring anything one finds vulgar, useless, or offensive. And yes, I fundamentally disagree with that idea. At the very least, you are defining media as mere product, like Coke or Pepsi - take it or leave it. Media is much more active - it shapes and reflects at the same time
To be clear: I am not writing emails to anyone to complain about this obnoxious song. I proceed from the basis that cultural decline cannot healthily be solved by attacking artistic freedom (censorship), nor by ignoring it. Instead, it can only be explained and addressed by explaining the material basis for that breakdown, rooted in a system based on inequality and irrationality, and calling for a more progressive society society – socialism.
Please explain to me more clearly why ignoring an ongoing cultural breakdown will reverse the problem. What, in your eyes, is the root of the ascendancy of such spiteful, anti-social attitudes in contemporary society?
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Rager that. Over.
posted by squirrel at 7:26 AM on January 24, 2005