Funny how things have changed in this regard, a point in the author's favor. As rap has dominated more of popular music, this opinion has become more and more commonplace and unfitting. Today, only the most out of touch would attempt to distance themselves from rap like this. Of course, the tide has not yet turned on country, mostly because the audience for country has not changed.

If a major effect of this tastemaking is the reproduction and strengthening of the existing class structure, then these terms make an awful lot of sense. Cultural capital and social capital would serve as distractions from actual capital, for if the "dominant elite" appear to have completely cultural and/or social goals, the material ones are obscured.

This is a great criticism! The great religions of our world have been forged over hundreds and thousands of years of tradition, while luxury items as we think of them are a very recent innovation. Religions provide a reason for being beyond the pursuit of material objects; luxury items obviously do the opposite, no matter what history the item holds.

The magical powers of name brands is hardly so nefarious as any of the examples listed, though. I agree that they may represent problematic histories, but these histories extend far beyond a certain brand into the surrounding superstructures and other material conditions. The evil of these histories is just the evil of history.

An extremely good point. Even if luxury goods offer a history, and it seems the history they offer is shallow, then what does that have to do with taxing them? This rebuttal makes me want to reread Bloom's piece and try to uncover his actual motivations for writing it.

Bizarre that the author hardly touches on the relative quality of consumer goods as compared to designer goods. Consumer goods are made cheaply and cruelly, not to last. Designer goods are more often made of finer materials. Shouldn't we encourage more production of these things, simply without the mystique and exclusivity? Why would anyone want to discourage the production of good things that provide pleasure?

They do now! But the existing social structure will not last forever. And unlike the treasures of empires gone by, many designer goods are not valuable enough beyond their mystique to be remembered or even preserved.

How does this relate to vintage/used goods? Often, the history behind these objects is significant for the owners.

What's fascinating is how these social signifiers with aesthetic value can often come from low culture/fashion and are only later appropriated by high fashion. Obviously a Rolex is a bad example, but this signaling can definitely start very small.

I feel like the author is coming close here to an understanding that most of this stuff exists entirely in the marketing and media landscapes surrounding these specials, and not in the specials themselves. Chappelle's Sticks and Stones is painfully devoid of ideology beyond a few barely considered social biases and a generally lame critique of class in America. It is the cultural space it inhabits and the think pieces it generates that are so offensive.

I don't understand what clout the author believes Dave Chappelle is gaining here. It seems to me like Chappelle is saying these hurtful things because he believes them to be funny and provocative, not to become a famous comedian. He already is a famous comedian; here Chappelle is just cutting a fat check with some controversy.

I think this is the most important bit of this article. Of course he doesn't care about any of this stuff anymore!! He's a rich man living on a farm in Ohio; he obviously gave up on the culture at some point. At that height of wealth and seclusion, he probably doesn't care about "adding something to the conversation." He wants a good life for his family and to have fun in his middle age. And good for him! He is a less exciting comedian for it, though.

Is this true? Chappelle's art is certainly shaped by "his time" in the broader sense, as in the early twenty-first century, but is he shaped by 2019? I would certainly say not. Chappelle's art is only shaped by 2019 by way of a brief impression; the time is passing him by too quickly for him to react. After living an abrasive life for so long, he has now briefly encountered a culture growing strongly opposed to such abrasions. He is reactionary in the tamest possible way.

What the author fails to understand is that comedy is PC culture, or at the very least, the two have generated a co-dependent relationship. Without PC culture, what is there to rail against? What makes these jokes so shocking? There's nothing left without PC culture.

I feel like this is the strongest point of the entire article, though it is extremely poorly stated. Whether or not Chappelle is cancelled is almost irrelevant because cancelling is rarely if ever an economic measure. In fact, the controversy over cancelling creates cause for more people to view it, such as in the context of this class. The only real way to be cancelled is to become stale or culturally outmoded, which happens naturally in due time.

When this video first dropped, I was confused as to the excitement regarding its examination of gender. Is it not extremely traditional? The message on race and wealth seems more interesting. Beyonce and Jay-Z seem to me an ordinary coupling of two extraordinary people; nothing about their sexuality or dynamics seems interesting or new.