Adam Kaiser finds a fine case of mass existential longing.
Few things are more problematic than our reactions to conflicts of this sort. Conflicts regarding which books, films, works of art, television programs, sporting events etc., are "okay" to choose and which are not.Throughout the post-modern era, when sincere enjoyment was out of favor, one could always ironically engage with ‘childish’ lowbrow media – so long as one did so with a wink and a nod, as if to say, “I don’t seriously enjoy this, I’m just pretending to, for now.” Of course, we always secretly really enjoy it.
And it works exactly the same way from both ends of the political spectrum. Those things we'd prefer that our "comrades" not be privy to.
This part pertains more to the relationship you establish with yourself here. It's one thing to keep your "guilty pleasures" away from those you suspect might not be approving -- "Your reading this?! You're watching that"?! -- and another thing altogether coming up with something that enables you to keep doing it anyway.Still, this secret pleasure is always bracketed with the conscious knowledge that the work is ‘objectively bad’, in that it contradicts one’s self-proclaimed values or aesthetic taste – thus giving birth to the irony of the pleasure.
Then the psychobabble...
Sincere joy? Authentic joy? True satisfaction? About what? Though by all means lets first pin down the irony.This is why one simultaneously judges the person who sincerely enjoys bad or over-nostalgic work while also taking pleasure in it oneself. Still, since ironic pleasure is founded on a self-contradiction – to experience as good that which one knows is bad – it can never be ‘authentic’ or ‘sincere’. So, while irony may seem a possible resolution to the paradox of the popularity of unpopular values in popular culture, we soon realize that irony can never bring true satisfaction. It’s only a consolation prize awarded in the absence of sincere joy.
And ever and always it seems to revolve around the manner in which our individual lives unfolding out in a a particular world historically, culturally and pertaining to our uniquely personal experiences.
And how often has the sincere and authentic joy that some experience been at the expense of others?
Being authentic and sincere? You tell me. About exterminating the Jews? About a Marxist revolution? About taking America back again to the 1950s? About reelecting Trump?
Nostalgia, morality, and mass entertainment. Your assessment or mine?