Nostalgia

When I was a little kid I had an awesome sweater. It was mainly black yarn, but knit onto the front were the faces of the four Ninja Turtles in neon green (with blue, red, orange, and purple for the masks, of course). I still have all three of the live-action Ninja Turtle movies on VHS. I had some of the toys and the NES games. I watched the cartoon. I liked the Ninja Turtles, and I still do.

I’m certainly not alone in liking the Ninja Turtles. They are a pop-cultural phenomenon, and perfectly within the scope of this blog to write about. But, when I began thinking about

Ah... childhood.

The Good, The True, and the Beautiful

This post is a follow-up to Consumerism. Click here to read that article first.

A thing of beauty, teaching the truth?

So, in the last article, I outlined a philosophical underpinning of consumerism. Because the producer produces to get money, the consumers’ tastes (as indicated by coughing up the dough) are treated as practically an end in themselves. Neither the producer nor the consumer is required or expected to look behind these. This need not be a conscious position taken by people involved in pop-culture, because it is