Class is Back (sort of)

In a May Substack post, literary critic Christian Lorentzen wrote that Biden-era culture, like Biden-era politics, is mostly boring. The culprit, he argued, is the hegemony of the brand: “The cult of marketing is the reason for cultural boredom.” More recently, NYT opinion columnist Michelle Goldberg cited Lorentzen in working through her own boredom with contemporary art, music, film, literature, etc. Yes, contemporary culture is boring, Goldberg agreed, but the reasons go far beyond marketing malaise.