Tea at Trianon: Endless Recycling

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, February 10, 2025

Endless Recycling

From Coffee and C ovid:

The Times’ ponderous article spent about six pages warming up to its theme. But, “We are now,” the Times finally explained, “almost a quarter of the way through what looks likely to go down in history as the least innovative, least transformative, least pioneering century for culture since the invention of the printing press.”
Least, least, least. Since the printing press.
But why? What, or who, is holding the culture back? Global culture has indeed been stalled, a sociological failure, winning only at participation. You might now begin the whataboutism. What about X? What about Venmo? What about AI? What about Elon’s rocket ships? Stand by. Those gadgets are either part of the problem or exceptions proving the point.
Our modern world is populated by high revision numbers, stratospheric sequel counts, and recycled, geriatric celebrities. We check our iPhone Sixteen —now with three cameras— to find out when Need for Speed Ten starts, and then buy tickets online for an octogenarian Rolling Stones concert. In 2022, the hit Netflix show Stranger Things — a futuristic sci-fi series set back in the 1980’s — and in its season four — featured Kate Bush’s 1985 single Running Up That Hill. The 40-year-old song hit the top 10 in 34 countries.
It’s endless recycling. And it’s not normal.
🔥 There are many examples, but perhaps the most obvious symptom of cultural freeze is stalled fashion. The handful of writers calling out stuck culture focus on how distinct was each decade leading up to the Millennium, right before the Patriot Act passed in 2001. Tracing backwards, the cultural evolution trend holds. But from the 90’s forward, zip. Zero. Nada. (Read more.)