“First, it is (in general) in the best interest for producers/publishers/distributors to push new products over older products because it results in more sales. If I already own the Beatles’ “Revolver,” Halo 1, and Star Wars: A New Hope (the non-”special” edition), then I have no motivation to buy additional copies of these products unless the artists come out with sequels or newer, “better” editions. So it is in their best interest to put their efforts behind new products (albums, games, movies) and to discourage people from holding on to or being satisfied with their old products.”

I didn’t take immediate notice to this when it dealt with music, games etc. because many of the games that I play usually have AMAZING sequels, and I never really noticed a reduction in quality as second generation products were made. but now after a bit of recollection, It makes sense.

The one product where I do see this happening is cars. Everyone here has noticed those hybrid classic/new cars that have been going around right? They’re american cars that try to include the capabilities of new cars but they have the look of a classic car,(Newer Ford Mustangs,Dodge Challengers, Camaro’s…)and they’re selling like HOTCAKES! I have a particular friend who is shopping for a new vehicle and at the moment he very much in love with the New Dodge Challenger. I personally think the car looks awful, it reminds me of something from The Jetsons, but I analyzed the cars specs and the specs of it’s classic counterpart and found that an older challenger is not only cheaper, but faster, and MUCH more durable than that of the newer challenger.

After I took all of my data and verified it, I presented it to my friend, and he blew it off, he was only interested in the vehicle because it is considered the “New Age Musclecar” a muscle car for this generation, if you will, and he wants something that represents this “New” generation of ours,(with a tag price of over 60,000).

Quite Honestly, I know why these cars are made. The baby booming generation is almost to the age of mid life crisis, and what better way to act like a 20 year old again than with a NEW car that reminds you of the car you had in high school? Pretty smart marketing on GM’s part, or not, aren’t they being bought by Fiat?

All in all, Alan I have to agree with you, this infatuation with the new is beginning to dishearten me. It’s very rare to find good quality anything anymore, and when you do, people disagree with you.

@the “Dane” You sir are wrong and your accusations are absurd. Please cease from your foolishness immediately and never darken my blog post with your misreadings again!

The Danes last blog post..20090417.teaParty

In other words, I was trying to identify an ideology (the treatment of cultural goods as consumable and a myopic privileging of what is new simply because it is new), explore the basis of that ideology (in this first part of the article it covers consumerism, the second part discusses technology), and consider whether or not this ideology is valid and good.

Certainly I accept that works that enter into “tradition” are typically what were “new” in the past, are shaped by current cultural concerns, and can be of less quality than newer works. But I would say that these issues are secondary to the larger and more widespread problem of disregarding or dismissing our cultural tradition outright.

I’m not sure if that responds to everyone’s comments. If not, I’ll wait until the next part is published to see if anything is clarified by that.

Really, I think it all depends on the reason for privileging new cultural produce over older cultural produce. If my primary reason for engaging a cultural product is to examine it as a product of contemporary culture, then privileging the New over the Old is absolutely requisite (take for instance CAPC, which is built on an examination of contemporary pop artifacts rather than what was cool in 1968 or 1740). If my goal is to engage canon, then spending any time new product is a waste of time, energy, and resources. If my priority is to engage quality product that convey worthwhile ideology, concept, training, beauty, etc., then the privileging the new product is just as bad as privileging the old.

And so, you’d either have to make a case that engaging cultural product in search of quality is The Way to Go and other readings are either illegitimate or, at least, not as legitimate or you’d have to just presume that the reader of this article has quality in mind from the outset. (Though that may not be the case as we’re on a site dedicated to Pop Culture, good or bad. In it’s own way CAPC pushes its readers to privilege the New by posting the majority of its articles with a goal toward discussing what’s current—for example, I’m tempted to see Up so that I can read and interact with the article discussing it.)

It also depends on what medium of product you’re referring to as well. Let’s pretend that one’s goal really is to seek after quality product. In certain media, new may not mean better but old certainly means worse. Take for instance comic books. The last decade has been almost a golden age for the medium, with books of quality and depth being produced at a rate faster than I can purchase. This was not the case before 1995. There were occasional worthwhile reads, but so far as picking up a random book and hoping it would be transcendentally good, you’ve got a much better chance post-millennium. The same held true for movies before 1930 (and really even before 1940). The medium was too new and the true auteurs would not feel comfortable until the techniques had been broken in a bit.

As far as your elevation of tradition goes, I don’t buy it. I’m dismissing your evidence as the things that the people were supposed to be recalling throughout the generations was inspired by God. That’s a whole lot different from elevating something for all time that was merely inspired by man.

Here’s my problem with the priveging of tradition: the stuff you’re seeking to privilege is merely the new hot stuff of a prior generation. Sure some of those pop-culture hits of yesteryear fall by the wayside, but the only stuff that lasts is a subsection of the stuff that was popular. Chesterton is not quite correct when he says the most obscure of all classes are the dead who we remember only through tradition. Even more obscure than them are the dead who were never pop-culture celebrities in the first place. Though he doesn’t deserve the recognition, Charles Dickens will be remembered for all time, solidly entered into the canon of literary tradition. A host of better writers, however, will be lucky, in a hundred years, to even be granted a footnote.

Tradition, when not ordained by God himself, is just nostalgia and sentimentality dressed up as respectable. Tradition is a ghost and a phantom. There’s no substance there. Not in tradition as tradition anyway. Sometimes, I’ll grant, tradition gets lucky and intersects with quality and value. But the thing of it is: tradition was never about assuring and preserving quality. Tradition is wholly concerned with something else.

Folk culture.

What tradition does is build a sense of community. Not real community, but a sense of it. And sometimes out of that sense grows real community. Tradition is valuable sociologically because it gathers disparate personalities and histories and unifies them under a common banner. Of course, Christians don’t need this because we are united in something much greater than a set of culturally codified rules (i.e., tradition). We are one in Christ so the additional bonds of extra-curricular traditions are really little more than clique-makers. I don’t have time for them myself, but I can see the allure to others.

The Danes last blog post..20090417.teaParty