Virtually all of the greek tragedies were, if we take Greenberg seriously, kitsch of the highest mundane magnitude.
>>25531862I don't suppose ((Greenberg)) had the perspicacity to level the same criticism at the Bible, whose authors were obviously trained on Greek drama.
>>25531870So why is John such a shit Dionysus play?
Why would you take him setiously? His own distinction between kitsch and true art is circular and sociologically loaded. There's a reason why art theorists never went into philosophy seriously: because they are both too vain and stupid for sustained critical thinking.
>>25531877All reasoning is circular. Take some epistemological philosophy or philosophy of language logic or maths.
>>25531880And some circles are big and virtuous. Greenberg's is particularly vicious, allows the critic to arbitrarily decide what is manufactured and what organic, and is just another case of a modern mass democratoc man hating himself and the things he supports and stands for in a deluded and haphazard manner while justifying modernist destruction, which leads to more of the same things he hates. He hates the society he supports and wants for doing what it naturally does. Why not advocate for slavery and stratification if you hate it so much? Also, some ground themselves in basic beliefs. Read Cisholm for once, unless you need a basic primer.
>>25531887I swear /lit/ just has a handful of obnoxious christians who try to shoehorn their pathetic hedonistic religion of love and tenderness into everything.
>>25531886>And some circles are big and virtuous.Excellent answer, good work.
>>25531886It's also just another marxian excuse to remove skill as a requirement in art and to mindlessly destriy conventions, albeit with the thin nuance of doing so "within an existing tradition." But still, I don't think Greenberg has a good answer to OP's point. Greek theatre fulfills all the aesthetic requirements of kitsch, though the socioeconomics are different. But then again, nobody gives a shit about whether or not people like something because they just moved to a city or something as equally meaningless. Marxism is dumb.
all greek tragedies are the sameits all cucking and hubris or whatever and finally the catharsis
>>25531901Ok. If you think that everything ends in vircles and that there is nothing else to distinguish the good from the bad, then all I can do is leave you to your self-made hell, since discussion is clearly impossible with you. Have fun honey.
>>25531930That's the point. They are more formulaic, more sentimental, and more conventional than the kitschiest piece of modern art today.
>>25531981And yet they're better than every piece of modern art. Curious, no?
>>25531981Modern art, like abstract painting? and period blood on canvas type thing? Fascinating statement.
>>25531992They may very well be that. My point is, however, that they fulfill all the hallmarks of kitsch as people use that term post-greenberg. The irony is that Greenberg would obviously be very angry if anyone had ever told him this.>>25531994No. Art made in the modern era
>>25532000No one knows who Greenberg is.
>>25532006Ah, sorry. I forgot that very few people on /lit/ read much or are familiar with artistic terminology.
>>25531994exactly, take that fuggin chud
>this extremely small percentage of surviving examinations of the human condition we have, of which only one is wholly represented, is formulaicYou know what OP, you're right. Anything grand and stylistic is pretty much comparable to broadway. I can't imagine what the difference would be. Oedipus Rex is basically the same experience as watching Cats.
>>25532009Are you Greenberg? Why does no one read your book?
>>25531895>Chrsitianity>hedonisticAshamed atheist cope
>>25531862ok but have you actually read onethey're super boring
>>25532027https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8t03bm
>>25532012You are being sarcastic, but I see what you are getting at and in response I will tell you to look at it this way: for an ancient greek man, watching Oedipus Rex may have been his equivalent of a modern man watching cats. Perhaps the only reason you disagree and see something like Oedipus Rex as being totally different from Cats is more so just because, to you, ancient greek culture, its conventions, formula, it's traditions and beliefs, are fundamentally alien. But to an ancient greek man, it is anything but. It is mundane. In fact, he more than likely already knew how the play would end before ever having seen it.
>>25532020I don't make the rules. Christians prefer the eternal pleasure machine in the sky to burning meditation in hell
>>25532027Yes. Is boringness a defeater for kitsch?
>>25532013Greenberg is (thankfully) dead, and (hopefully) in hell.
>>25532105Also, I want to just say that I am by no means affirming the concept of "kitsch." In fact, I am criticizing it via reductio ad absurdum. Greek tragedy is kitsch if we take the seminal essay about kitsch seriously.
>>25532105>for an ancient greek man, watching Oedipus Rex may have been his equivalent of a modern man watching catsThis was not the case. Greek tragedies were rituals that grew out of religious origins. The catharsis that was spoken of earlier in the thread is a religious cleansing for the audience. I've linked a good performance of the Yeats translation of Oedipus Rex above. You may find the introduction interesting, as it relates to what I am posting. Part of what makes the tragedies so profound is how extremely adjacent they are to religious rituals. This is sometimes mistaken for a bizarre and primal quality, but no, I believe it is religious in tone.
>>25532107well, wouldn't you?
>>25531934You can't differentiate a compliment from irony.
