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Wow, I just read that debate, and it's truly fascinating and somewhat distressing. A lot of the anxiety I have about culture at large comes from the idea of post-modernism, something only truly accessible and enjoyable to a select few, but forced on the many. And somehow it has come to prominence due to the fact that the aforementioned select few are often in places of prestige and power. And more than that, it's self-sustaining; not, as is said in the notes on that debate, simply within the circles, but in society at large. A lot of people are swept up in liking, or at least defending, these inexplicably ugly tastes, which is much more offensive than those styles merely existing.
That's not what's really depressing about this.
The most telling lines of the whole debate are as follows. It's not his weak defense where he claims he has a right to feel the sense of harmony too, it's the fact that he believes the purpose of architecture is this:
It's their anxiety being expressed as art inflicted on other people.
You could possibly construct some kind of steelman about it the same way you could for "raising awareness", and honestly this has been one of the great functions of genuinely distressing art through the ages; to bring attention to some awful thing that should never be forgotten. But on the other hand, nothing will ever be all right. There's money to be made and power to be attained in making sure nothing is ever all right, so people get to continue to inflict their neuroses on others.
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