Daniel Henninger on "how Spider-Man, Starbucks, and McDonald's beat the beatniks":

OpinionJournal - Wonder Land

... The sense grows that one is everywhere being confronted, manipulated and pushed by someone's marketing campaign. Yet despite the torrent, no backlash has emerged like the beatniks of the '50s or the hippies of the '60s and '70s. We have the anti-global demonstrators, but they're obviously idiots. Where's the outrage?

It's nowhere, because the fact is that "Spider-Man" (the ultimate misfit) is really good. So is Sam Adams beer and Starbucks coffee, Callaway golf clubs, Pepsi, Prada, Krispy Kreme, Harry Potter, Barnes & Noble, Walgreens, Wal-Mart, the Discovery Channel, Levis, LensCrafters, Absolut, ESPN, Dominos and Diana Krall.

The mass market in America, the median of quality, has risen, not fallen. We may all be drinking from the same coffee cup and spending weekends together watching the same computerized movie graphics, but, as the saying goes, it's all good. The fears of corporatized conformity were overblown. East Germany was conformity. This is commercial anarchy born of competition.

While he makes the point, I'm still in mourning over the current state of The Arts (books, movies, painting...whatever). It all seems...ugh. I'll be seeing "Spider-Man" this weekend and expect to enjoy it. I'll buy the next Tom Clancey pot-boiler, though I think his best was his first (saved only by stars of brilliance within his latter works), etc., but when I watch "Casablanca" (for the umpteenth time) I see a certain magic that movies today lack. Nothing I've read in science fiction books of recent years matches the magic of "Stranger in a Strange Land." On and on, etc., etc., etc.

Of course, Henniger makes the accurate and valid point that I can always watch the older movies, read past books, and such. Which makes all the difference. Excuse me now, I've got to go brew a mocha with my Starbuck's expresso machine.