Quality

“… at every epoch and in all countries, most art has been bad. But the proportion of trash in the total artistic output is greater now that at any other period. That it must be so is a matter of simple arithmetic. The population of Western Europe has a little more than doubled during the last century. But the amount of reading–and seeing–matter has increased, I should imagine, at least twenty and possibly fifty or even a hundred times.” Aldus Huxley, Beyond the Mexique Bay. A Traveler’s Journal, London, 1949. First published in 1934.

Walter Benjamin found Huxley’s view “obviously not progressive.”

This reminds me of some discussions about YouTube and other new media.