I felt the same way. I would liken it to the author technically living in the same city, but they were describing the other side of it and mistaking their small sphere and local description for the rest of us in that city. Their idea of the art world was similar yet very foreign. A few proverbial landmarks could be seen from both our relative places, but they lost me with their inaccuracies so their critiques and conclusions didn’t land.

Art has already been industrialized. Content, which is the only thing AI can make, is not all of art. Art and the creative fields are part of an evolutionary survival strategy to impart experiences to others. If you’ve ever wondered why the Greeks had only two genres, Drama and Tragedy, it is because Drama was about helping people navigate the world, and tragedy was a warning of what not to do and why. So if class consciousness will help people the most, then the most substantial form of art will pass that experience along (e.g., Social Realism). Modern narratives are mainly content—and we can see that they are unsubstantial because they are “just entertainment” (Fun fact: American films had their right to free speech revoked in 1952 for this reason). They exist for profit. Art is much more than that, and if art helps us, the working class, better navigate life with experiences we don’t yet have, I would argue such art is inherently revolutionary. That is why the ruling class can’t make new stories; they only make entertainment and content, lest they risk imparting valuable lessons to the working class. And yes, this is a summed-up version of a fascinating thread of soviet art philosophy but one that the author of that article has either never encountered or has a more limited audience (i.e. western lib artists) the article is applying to than let on in the preamble.

In addition to the other responses, we don’t have much nuance in our political conversations. Partially because we hear the same thing repeatedly but also because other views don’t break into our bubble that often. It ends up framing everything much more like a script to be followed. If you’re challenging the “left-wing” candidate, you must be doing so from the stance of someone who supports the right-wing candidate. That’s the script. And very often, those roles come with baggage (eg, ‘trump supporter’, ‘misogynist’, etc.). So because you have put yourself in one of those roles/boxes, the script in their mind is being followed, and you’ve taken on that baggage.

You can see this in our media discussions as well. Who likes what movies, franchises, why, etc. Many people are unaware that they are acting this prescriptively, so we often talk past each other and rarely act in as good of faith as we think we are engaging in. Neo-liberalism is built on flexible word choices, slogans, and terms without meaning. This results in a lot of reverse terminology, empty words, and a clinging of identity and labels around more solid terms. The latter has the effect of simplifying people and positions into boxes that result in script-like behavior due to regurgitating known responses and interactions with people in that label over there. The implication that you might not fit that label demands an immediate and intense examination of the subject matter in a few seconds or risk not appearing smart/moral/etc. So not only is that a threat to their image, but it’s a lot of internal pressure in a short time—hince the response you got from them was very reflexive and combative.

It’s not weird at all. In fact, I’d argue it is very healthy.

Stories are our way of transferring human experience from one to another. Our brains intentionally blur fiction and reality to facilitate this transfer regularly. While not a positive example, you can see it in action when fictional representations of, say, trans people are only informed by the media consumed due to the lack of other experiences to draw on. Once an experience/story is no longer relevant or helpful, we forget it. When you read a forgettable story, that’s exactly what happened.

To categorize them in the way of the Ancient Greeks, Tragedies are cautionary tales, and Dramas are explorative/navigational—meaning they primarily help us navigate the comprehensive options of situations.

Looking at the stories themselves, we can see their structure parallels that of proper arguments.

One-act stories are a thesis—they answer a single question Three-act stories are a thesis, countered by an antithesis, and then the synthesis/conclusion. Five-act stories are more based on Marxist thought—a thesis that examines the contrast, contradiction, and possibly the negation of the negative before forming its synthesis.

Long story short, what is a story beat but elaborate dressing for points A, B, and C, leading us to the next logical point and its reasoning? It’s an illusion and allegory of crashing emotions, symbols, and situations for our subconscious to process the same way it does all our experiences. Memory itself is a story we are retelling ourselves.

And that’s underlying all stories that at least have some structure holding them up. Of course, it’s going to affect you. And it should.

I’ve taken a morbid interest in watching the drama of the Kaldorei/Night Elves story unfold and the drama erupting from it. For some in the Imperial core, it’s the first thought they’ve ever given thought to the complications and effects of colonization and genocide on a people. Is it anywhere near enough? Oh, hell no. But the capitalists’ need to sell [edgy] stories at least is breaking the veneer of silence civility of not talking about hard issues. And they’ll keep having to push that line to make money. And as they do, more voices that generally get glossed over will slip through in the trend-chasing. And now and again, we might get a comrade’s allegorical voice (see some of the classics like A CHRISTMAS STORY). Contradictions exist in storytelling, too, and it plays out the same way as it does in other areas. It will affect you like everyone else because you are digesting it like everyone else. We communists, arguably more so because we can see most of it as the junk food it is—and trying to enjoy the odd bit of nutrients that slip through capitalism/liberalism’s processing. But these imagined yet shared common experiences are also what will provide us with the common ground needed to reach others here and there.