Keen on Colbert

Wow, Andrew Keen blows himself up in less than one minute of Colbert Report interview:

Keen: Even the nazis didn't put artists out of work
Colbert: Tell that to Egon Schiele*
Keen: Well they had their own artists

That is such a staggeringly stupid comeback. And it's exactly to the point. Keen's position is simply that we're better off with gatekeepers - even if those gatekeepers were Hitler, Stalin or Mao - all of whom of course were adept at using imagery (i.e. art) to further their oppressive politics. Which tells us that art in an of itself is meaningless. Only free art has a chance of meaning anything. Which means that gatekeeper-less media are A Good Thing. For art as well. This man is really, really, an idiot.

*Schiele died (in the Spanish Flu epidemic) in 1918 before the formation of the nazi party - but Colbert's point comes across.

Posted by Claus at August 20, 2007 11:53 PM | TrackBack (0)