Here from my motorized reclining couch I can see that everything is beautiful, all the companies and their products. I am recognizing the degree to which my cynicism towards popular culture is only making me miserable. True discernment is acknowledging the emptiness of the superficial without condemning it as “sin.” There is a time and place for fast food, but if you don’t permit yourself to taste you will know neither it’s pleasure nor it’s true downside.
I reflect on all the cheese whiz I consumed on the road to “elite” acculturation. Lev Grossman, Tao Lin, Dan Brown… these have as much a valid place in the canon as Dostoyevsky… there are many paths up the mountain.
TL;DR: Yes there is bad art, but it’s absolutely necessary.