Don't Believe the Hype
Animadversions on the Critique of Popular Art
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3139315 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Richard Shusterman (0000-0002-0467-9781, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1993 |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 101 |
| Publication date | 1993-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Poetics Today (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0333-5372 • E-ISSN: 1527-5507 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/1773143 |
| OpenAlex | W2329168849 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 4 |
In the aim of promoting greater legitimation for popular art, this paper critically examines the major philosophical arguments against the aesthetic legitimacy of such art. The paper's position is one of meliorism, which recognizes popular art's flaws and abuses but also its merits and potential. The meliorist position holds that popular art should be improved because it leaves much to be desired, but also that it can be improved because it can and often does achieve real aesthetic merit. (Meliorism insists, moreover, that if popular art is dismissed as altogether undeserving of aesthetic attention, its aesthetic quality will suffer further, since its assessment will be abandoned completely to market forces.) In making its case for meliorism, the paper refutes the major arguments for holding that popular art cannot help but be aesthetically worthless, and it concentrates on the following so-called intrinsic defects of popular art: spuriousness, passivity, superficiality, and lack of creativity
Aesthetics · Art · Aesthetic Perception and Analysis · Art History and Market Analysis · Philosophy · Social and Cultural Dynamics
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |