Word: trow
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From then on, it was all a cancerous bloom. Suddenly, 200 million Americans--Trow has a penchant for all or nothing thinking--entered a state of degrading obeisance to what he calls "the aesthetic of the hit." It was not what you did or how you did it, but the awareness that people everywhere were doing the same thing that mattered. Since "the ideal became agreement rather than well-judged action...men learned to be competent only in those modes which embraced the possibility of agreement." Things went more awry than ever in the places where power is held...
...ramifications of this trend toward agreement, Trow says, reveal Americans to be a pathetic bunch. Perhaps worst of all is the cult of the celebrity which evolved. Those people, the beautiful, delightful folks on Carson and in People, they are special, but they have all sorts of problems just like us. Since we are so like the celebrities, well, we must be a little special too. And, of course, now our problems bind us all together, too. No one knows what to do about the problems, but if the people on the talk shows and in the "teledramas" have them...
...argument has problems. In the way Trow constructs it, it admits no middle ground. Everything appears contaminated and bleak, and Trow makes no allowance for anything redeeming in American culture. In the concept of consensus, Trow has hit on one of the key underpinnings of the culture. But he has not hit on everything, and his presentation--in the form of a series of block notes ranging in length from epigrams to miniature essays strung together into the longer essay--suffers from being overly polemical...
More important, however, Trow fails to delve any deeper into the causes of the emptiness of popular culture. Loneliness, after all, has always existed, but talk shows haven't. Trow's sole explanation, which consists of his pointing a finger at the marketplace and calling it a "con," is facile. Certainly, popular culture has its moguls and manipulators who know how to supply the required "comfort," even how to mold the public yearning for it. Yet one must wonder if the success of the transaction, the apparent (if usually silent) satisfaction of the consumers, does not suggest a widespread desire...
...SECOND ESSAY of Within the Context of No Context, represents Trow's attempt to illustrate some of the conclusions he reached in the first title essay. In it he profiles Ahmet Ertegun, founder and president of Atlantic Records, one of the truly powerful musical taste-makers in rock and R&B, and a quintessentially beautiful person. Trow does a capable job of portraying Ertegun and his set and depicting the rise of someone of Ertegun's entrepreneurial ilk. But Trow falls short when he ladles the commentary and the terminology of the first essay onto Ertegun and company. Undoubtedly...