quoted 3 lines We must realize that MTV is a business, and it is in the best interests of>We must realize that MTV is a business, and it is in the best interests of
>a business to become as profitable as possible. Right now, MTV seems to be
>doing right well for itself...
... and this brings us right back into the fray of the art/commerce debate
and debacle.
Your explanation above is exactly the basis for my contempt of MTV - and
contempt for the business-for-its-own-sake mentality. In my view, commerce
should be the slave to art, not vice versa. That requires a strange
implicit agreement on the part of both the business and the consumer. The
business should refuse to produce bad art, and the consumer should refuse
to be audience to bad art. Demand your right to good art and music! Send
just one dollar to my sampler fund! Oh, sorry.
In a more conservative statement: A business should not exist for the sole
purpose of profit. A business should exist predominantly to fulfill its
function, and profit should only be of concern in that it allows the
continued fulfillment of that function. Idealistic, yes. I believe this
is attainable in a hybrid form in the real world, however. But it's a hard
road, and that's why the Sex Pistols now do car advert music and the
Rolling Stones played prostitute for Bill Gates.
In the case of MTV... if the sole function is entertainment, then MTV is
fulfilling that function for many people. At least if one defines
"entertainment" as pushing an audience's easiest buttons, and no need to
mention where these are located. I would not even define entertainment so
narrowly as pandering, but to go beyond that...
MTV is so bitterly disappointing because its initial self-ordained (and at
times even fulfilled) mission was to set and define new trends and ideas,
to challenge its audience with something new, creative, vibrant,
unpredictable - and yes, intelligent.
Now MTV simply degenerates into eye-candy (more like eye-fist) self-parody.
But I'll give the new channel a shot.
I hope that MTV can re-create itself in a new and vital form, like the
Phoenix rising from the smoldering embers of normalcy, complacency, and
those damn flyers I keep finding under my windshield wiper-blades.
We can get into some deep waters here:
Should art (music, in this case) aim to elevate?
Should art (music) communicate moral values? (A little trick question,
which you'll catch if you've taken your caffeine dose).
Can art (music) communicate moral values?
(correct answer is "yes", "no", or "maybe", or "huh?", depending how you
define "moral values".)
Is there such a thing as an immoral value?
Probably topics better left to the Phil-Lit or Musical Aesthetics lists, so
I'll leave off now.
Zenon M. Feszczak
Philosopher ex nihilo