A Quote by David Brooks

I'm thankful that we live in a crassly commercial, polarized culture, so media jackals like me have a lot of work to do. — © David Brooks
I'm thankful that we live in a crassly commercial, polarized culture, so media jackals like me have a lot of work to do.
Also, the commercial media in a superior position, really, to any other corporate lobby, because where would people hear about commercial media or corporate media criticism, where would they hear criticism of them other than in the commercial media?
I was on television a couple of years ago and the reporter asked me, "How does it feel being on mainstream media? It's not often poets get on mainstream media." I said, "Well I think you're the dominant media, the dominant culture, but you're not the mainstream media. The mainstream media is still the high culture of intellectuals: writers, readers, editors, librarians, professors, artists, art critics, poets, novelists, and people who think. They are the mainstream culture, even though you may be the dominant culture."
As I've indicated, most books go out of print within one year. The same is true of music and film. Commercial culture is sharklike. It must keep moving. And when a creative work falls out of favor with the commercial distributors, the commercial life ends.
The irony of the media and people in big cities is that they're charged with defining the entire culture, when in reality they don't even live in that culture. They live in such a rarified, tiny world.
I think subjectivity plays into everything. It's unavoidable; you couldn't avoid it if you tried. I think, potentially, a lot more commercial movies, it seems to be that the people making the films are trying to elicit the same reaction. I think a lot of the most interesting work in art and in films are often kind of polarized opinions and affect people in very different ways, which may be less successful commercially, but they elicit a dialogue that's quite interesting.
Mainstream media would convince you that there's commercial culture and that's all - but this other music is still here.
All of us somehow felt that the next battleground was going to be culture. We all felt somehow that our culture had been stolen from us-by commercial forces, by advertising agencies, by TV broadcasters. It felt like we were no longer singing our songs and telling stories, and generating our culture from the bottom up, but now we were somehow being spoon-fed this commercial culture top down.
We live in a media culture and whoever controls and influences and uses media the best has the power for change.
People say I manipulate the media. Well, duh. We live in a media culture, so why on earth wouldn't I?
All this shouldn't last; but it will, always; the human 'always' of course, a century, two centuries... and after that it will be different, but worse. We were the Leopards, the Lions; those who'll take our place will be little jackals, hyenas; and the whole lot of us, Leopards, jackals, and sheep, we'll all go on thinking ourselves the salt of the earth.
I've noticed that a lot of people, subsequently, when they introduce me are very careful not to say the Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt. A lot more people are saying Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport.
I'm thankful for a pair of shoes that feel really good on my feet; I like my shoes. I'm thankful for the birds; I feel like they're singing just for me when I get up in the morning... Saying, 'Good morning, John. You made it, John.' I'm thankful for the sea breeze that feels so good right now, and the scent of jasmine when the sun starts going down. I'm thankful.
We live in a culture where everyone's opinion, view, and assessment of situations and people spill across social media, a lot of it anonymously, much of it shaped by mindless meanness and ignorance.
I want to be thankful for all of the things that I've been blessed with, and I've had a great run. I have a huge fan base, and I'm still able to work a lot. I don't know if I'll ever have another big impact record on commercial radio again, but you know, everybody's gonna have to face the reality that their day's gonna come to an end, too.
It's funny: I spend time in the book criticizing social media, but I'm also aware that a lot of my success is because of social media. I can broadcast myself and my work to thousands of people that are following me or my friends. I do think that social media can be good for self-promotion.
One thing that struck me about going to those tech conferences was all the enthusiasm for free culture, and remixing, and social media, but people's greatest ambition was to be sponsored by Chipotle or something equivalent to that. It was this weird mix of collaborative, utopian claims and this total acquiescence to commercial imperatives.
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