He argues that part of the problem is in the adopted notion that everything is subjective, that there are no objective criteria for deciding whether something is of quality or not. Rowlands refers to this as something contributing to the “Collapse of Enlightenment” or what I like to think of as the dumbing down of culture. By allowing everything to devolve down to one’s “feelings” Rowlands argues, “Ultimately, the most deleterious consequence of the inability to distinguish quality and bullshit is that it leaves us ill equipped to think about our own lives and so make them better.”
Just to give a bit of my own example, in my torturous attempt to land a literary agent for my work, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been rejected not for any objective thing, but because that agent did not “fall in love” with what I had written. I’ve even had them complement me, tell me how talented I was, etc. (Granted it was all generic praise and none have shown any indication that they’ve actually read what I’ve sent them).
Personally, I find this “fall in love” excuse not only insulting and condescending, but utterly stupid because it only reinforces Rowlands’ point that when one is solely concerned with personal feeling above all else, quality then takes a backseat. So they’re not looking for books of quality but books they “love.” Well, as a writer, I have no control over what someone chooses to “love”—I can only write well and make my arguments the best I can make them. This notion then, of valuing what one “feels” over objective criteria has a helpful (or rather destructive) role in the dumbing down of culture, or as Rowlands puts it, “The Collapse of Enlightenment.”
And all of this certainly does show a pattern in the rise of vfame. When one places feeling over objectivity, one can rationalize that everyone is just as good as everyone else in any specific endeavor because one “feels” a certain way. If this is so, then what separates the mediocrities that reach vfame versus the ones that don’t only comes down to luck. For if we didn’t know of Paris, Lindsay or Britney, certainly there would be others to replace them. And there will be, a few years from now, when the public has grown tired and they’ve all gotten a little older and a little less interesting. Their “fame” is based in ephemera because they represent nothing of lasting substance.
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