Facebook: Our modern Philistines

This is old news. I think I missed it the first time around. I did. But it is relevant to me because it reflects the essentially anti-Art inclinations of our regressive zeitgeist. I’m sure many of you are aware of the Facebook-Courbet controversy of last year. If not, have at it.

I don’t know why I think we’ve progressed in the last hundred years or so. In fact, I think computer geekery has, in some substantial ways, retarded our growth. What I find amazing is that sex to sell products is fine by our Digital Billionaires. You can have as many Go Daddy ads with big-titted women as possible, but if you display a painting, no less, of a hairy vagina well that’s beyond the pale! Remember: this is Courbet in 1866. I shake my head.

Why is there such push-back here? Celebration of a woman’s vagina (which this is) and of women themselves is verboten, in a world soaked with ads trying to arouse you to buy crap you don’t need. The intent is the real issue here, not the naked picture, per se. Healthy depictions of the female body are considered dirty and pornographic. Real porn is okay, but art is not. I don’t understand it. You probably are waiting for me to have a reasoned explanation for this strange dichotomy, but I really don’t. I’ll speculate, just because it would leave y’all hanging if I didn’t.

Our Digital Billionaires only care about the bottom line–and money. No shit, Dave. But, thing is, it manifests itself in peculiar ways. Their ignorance about Art feeds an approach that’s essentially anti-Art. If anything is bad for business–especially a hairy vagina from the 1860s–well then, fuck, we better censor the hell out of it. Don’t for a minute think that Facebook or any of these “cutting edge” companies gives a shit about Art or anything that ain’t black and white in their black and white world. It’s all about the Benjamins, and don’t ever forget it. Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t give two shits about Art, or what Art tries to do. He’s a vapid man, with vapid tastes. And it shows. Actually, he’s a vapid man in a vapid culture that celebrates vapid things.

And it shows.