PLAYING TO THE GALLERY IN A PLUMMETING CULTURAL SCENE

PLAYING TO THE GALLERY IN A PLUMMETING CULTURAL SCENE

Playing to the gallery has come to possess us these days as ever-increasing superficiality seizes us 'in captive bonds' of seeking public adulation for deeds undeserving of such accolades. This slavish clinging to seeking appreciation instead of striving for excellence in any endeavour is lowering cultural standards by the day. Creative individuals of merit are becoming rarer by the day as mass mediocrity proliferates. The connoisseur has been replaced by the commoner in estimating talent and passing verdict thereon on the artistic merit of performers. The result is a heaping up of untalented individuals in those spheres of human activity where earlier outstanding men of merit shone and lit up their respective realms. Now the stage is there but the performer is gone. We must endure discordance where melody reigned once, cacophony where harmony once flooded the scene. We are at the nadir of artistic culture, at the trough of intellectual output, verily at the lowest point of civilisation unless, of course, the downward movement has baser depths to touch yet.

Written by Sugata Bose