First, a considerable number of people known as popular aesthetic culture have anti-traditional aesthetic characteristics. According to the traditional point of view, aesthetics always has some kind of utilitarian nature beyond specific material. As Marx said, businessmen can't see the aesthetic value of minerals; However, popular aesthetic culture is often accompanied by utilitarian purposes-producers are driven by material interests, and consumers always pursue entertainment satisfaction or even functional stimulation on the objects they appreciate. Literature and art have become tools here again: tools for class struggle and political preaching in the past, but now tools for simple entertainment and functional stimulation.
Second, it has so-called "fast food". It's a one-time consumption, and you can throw it away after eating. It does not seek permanence, but only instant; It does not seek the cultivation of deep emotions, but only the satisfaction of surface functions.
Third, it often has the characteristics of anti-art, which is particularly obvious in some avant-garde arts. There is the so-called "ink splashing art" (one kilogram of ink and one kilogram of water are splashed on the audience's high-end suits and white shirts when the lights are turned off, and the ink splashing artist has escaped when the lights are turned on); There is a so-called "blood-dropping art" (the artist punctures his own blood vessel, making 100CC blood drop on the red-hot iron plate, emitting white smoke and faint sound to dispel the sweetness of blood). The artistry of this performance art is really hard to understand.
Fourthly, in a sense, this popular aesthetic culture does lack humanistic spirit, because in it, "people" are sometimes degraded and "things" are sometimes raised.
However, we should see that the popular aesthetic culture (including popular literature and art) is not all negative, and a considerable number of popular literature and art works are tasteful.
Moreover, although popular literature and art are strong at present, serious literature and art will never die out. Don't be pessimistic
Today's era is an era of "competition" and also an era of "harmony" and "dialogue"; In other words, now is not an era of "life and death". If you live, you should also allow others to live.
This is especially true in literature and art. There is no need to be so angry about the dispute between two kings (Wang Meng and Wang Xiaoming) or three kings (Wang Meng, Wang Shuo and Wang Xiaoming). Wang Xiaoming doesn't have to be too pessimistic, and Wang Shuo doesn't have to feel too good.
History is just.
A pluralistic and prosperous literary era is coming.