What do people think? More than an agree or disagree, what questions does the question raise for you, or what roads does it take your thoughts down?
It feels like false premises to me, because for example attending the performance of a play is not a form of human disconnection, it is participation in the communal activity which is the experience of this piece of art. The entire premise of fandom—which is just a specialized subset of the common referents of a culture—is the connections that people form through their shared knowledge of plays or music or books or films or television or sports. It doesn't feel to me like some second-order, glassed-off way of being in a society, and it feels deeply peculiar to me to cast the enjoyment of art as such. [edit] Do I think it's dangerous to treat the real lives of people like a fictional narrative scripted for the entertainment of third parties? Duh. But I am not sure that's a participation-vs-spectatorship problem.
no subject
It feels like false premises to me, because for example attending the performance of a play is not a form of human disconnection, it is participation in the communal activity which is the experience of this piece of art. The entire premise of fandom—which is just a specialized subset of the common referents of a culture—is the connections that people form through their shared knowledge of plays or music or books or films or television or sports. It doesn't feel to me like some second-order, glassed-off way of being in a society, and it feels deeply peculiar to me to cast the enjoyment of art as such. [edit] Do I think it's dangerous to treat the real lives of people like a fictional narrative scripted for the entertainment of third parties? Duh. But I am not sure that's a participation-vs-spectatorship problem.