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In short, we are generally O.K. in spite of notable low spots and areas of significant concern. Our movies are mostly silly. Our books? Mostly small. The quality of our cultural criticism is generally so low that one cannot tell how good or bad any artist is, but in literature, at least, it is highly unlikely that any writer touted as a heavyweight in our era will make it to the ring in yours. Movies that once were judged by normal artistic criteria are now valued by the amount of money they make over a weekend. For your horrified amusement, see if you can dig up a print of something called Scream or The Blair Witch Project.
Our theater? Mostly lights and tricks. Music? Mostly sappy-sentimental, and rap--a rhythmic fusion of grunts and hisses, minus the notes. Like Wagner, it's not as bad as it sounds, but one misses doo-wop, pop and jazz, especially jazz. Teddy Wilson, Billie Holiday, George Gershwin, Miles, Ella, Satchmo, Bix. I hope they have survived. It is, of course, possible that you long for Dr. Dre and Limp Bizkit the way I long for Cole Porter, but are you crazy?
Humor? It rarely translates from age to age. Have you heard the one about the dyslexic atheist who did not believe in Dog? Are you out there? I can hear you breathing.
Money drives the culture. Television has recently hit on the old successful formula of big-money quiz shows. The new ones give away millions to people who know which Presidents' faces appear on different dollar bills. (The most candid of these shows is called Greed.) The likable and funny fellow who is host of Win Ben Stein's Money may turn out to be the symbolic spokesperson of the age. He challenges contestants to match his wealth of information and simultaneously implies that education for its own sake is preposterous. If you're so smart--Stein asks merely by existing--why aren't you rich?
Signs of the times: When your bank says no, Champion says yes; You have a friend at Chase Manhattan; You get much more at the Money Store; Diamonds are forever; American Express--Don't leave home without it; Thank you, PaineWebber.
The nation has become a kind of giant store; everything is for sale. Catalogs rise like dough in our mailboxes, offering "the best double-buffer shoe polisher"; "the only floating practice green," which transforms "any pool into a challenging golf shot"; a "baby elephant sprinkler topiary" that sprays water from its moss-covered trunk. Fame is for sale. New hair, necks and noses are for sale. Debt is for sale. Every inch of space is used for advertising. A good pass in a pro basketball game is identified as an "AT&T Great Connection." Politics is for sale; candidates buy public opinion to try to get elected. Love is for sale, or at least a variation of it. Last year a man in Minnesota advertised for a bride, hired friends to interview candidates, and wound up with what the market would bear, as did she. The wedding took place in the Mall of America.
The idea, as ever, is to make people feel that they have to have purposeless merchandise they do not want. In a restaurant, a waiter will giddily announce, "We have mahi-mahi!" A sensible person would say, "So what?" America says, "I'll take it!"