Austrian Economics vs. Romantic Aesthetics
Paul Cantor proposes "an 'Austrian' theory of culture, drawing chiefly upon Friedrich Hayek's theory of spontaneous order." Here's an extract:
[U]nlike many forms of art, a television series cannot be created all at once, but must of necessity be produced over long stretches of time -- weeks at first, but over years if the series is successful. This is one reason the television series does not fit the "perfect plan" model of artistic creation, but it is very well suited to the feedback model. Creating episode after episode, and unable to go back and alter earlier efforts in light of subsequent developments, television producers often find themselves in the embarrassing position of having introduced lapses in continuity into their shows, if not outright contradictions. A devoted fan may have fun pointing out such inconsistencies, but they mark television shows as failures according to the strict demands of coherence imposed by the organic model of poetic form. But what a television series loses in coherence over the years, it gains in its ability to experiment with new possibilities and find out ways to improve the show and expand its range.
The whole essay is here.
