Is Culture Really Dead?

The Atlantic

15-07-2025

The Day the Music Died
In the June issue, Spencer Kornhaber considered whether popular culture is really in terminal decline.
Spencer Kornhaber perfectly articulates the ersatz nature of pop culture today. Something I think he missed about modern pop music, though, is the relatively infrequent use of instruments. The listener can feel the emotion of a song created using actual instruments. It's the difference between fast food and a home-cooked meal. I think this helps explain the moment country music is having; listen to country, and you'll hear a real guitar or violin. It makes me wonder if music can survive otherwise.
I was delighted to see my local radio station, KMUN, mentioned in Spencer Kornhaber's article. A community-supported station in a rural area of the Pacific Northwest, KMUN is itself an institution fighting against the decline of popular culture. The station has a small staff, and many programs are provided by volunteers. There's lots of folk music, yet each show has distinct music and artists. The same is true of the station's classical programs. A few shows frequently have musicians in the studio performing on air. Local residents discuss current events and issues and can even propose their own programs to present, after taking a class in radio technology.
Kornhaber's article focuses on cultural conformity, and yet here's good old KMUN doing radio with variety, purpose, eccentricity, and community. I hope The Atlantic 's readers will give it a listen!
Astoria, Ore.
I'm sincerely thankful to Spencer Kornhaber for talking with Ted Gioia. I know the headline of Kornhaber's article calls to mind the year 1971, but the great fragmentation of our culture dates even further back. Early-20th-century philosophers warned that the 'mechanization of culture' would undermine the meaning and purpose of life. ChatGPT and other AI technologies seem to be the culmination of that trend.
David Thomas
Rockville, Md.
As I reviewed the list of the artists mentioned in Spencer Kornhaber's article, I wasn't surprised that so many people think contemporary music is in decline.
To those people I say: Cécile McLorin Salvant, Waxahatchee, Black Pumas, St. Paul & the Broken Bones, boygenius and its individual members, Lianne La Havas, Samara Joy, Wet Leg, Indigo Sparks, Joan Shelley, Lake Street Dive, Lucius, Sierra Ferrell, Dana Gavanski, Khruangbin, Leon Bridges (or Khruangbin and Leon Bridges), Bahamas, Amyl and the Sniffers, Nels Cline, I'm With Her, Rufus Wainwright, Laura Marling, Molly Tuttle, Billy Strings, and, and, and …
Anyone who thinks that the world is not awash in great music is simply not looking in the right places.
William Rogers
Washington, D.C.
Spencer Kornhaber replies:
William Rogers points out a reassuring fact: If you look for it, you can still find most anything you seek in culture—including rock and folk musicians who faithfully adhere to 20th-century standards for excellence. But I want to push back against the notion, embedded in the other letters, that maintaining cultural health is mostly a matter of preservation. We should of course champion skilled instrumentalists and scrappy radio stations, and we should think critically about what's gained and lost in every technological transition. It is as important, and harder, to nurture greatness that's flourishing in new forms, using new techniques. We need maximalist, forward-charging art that can compete with, not simply provide refuge from, the attention-scrambling modern forces that might otherwise drive us into a dark age.
What Is Classical Music?
The term is applied to radically different compositions across more than 1,000 years of history, Matthew Aucoin wrote in the May issue. We need a better definition.
In his article about what he calls 'written music,' Matthew Aucoin rightly laments the inability of cash-strapped public schools to teach musical literacy. Not so long ago, urban public schools were at times sites of world-class music education. Aucoin mentions Miles Davis in his article, so it's worth remembering that Davis often heaped praise in interviews on his first trumpet teacher, Elwood Buchanan, who worked for the public schools of his hometown, East St. Louis, Illinois. It was Mr. Buchanan, Davis said, who encouraged him to play light, fast, and without vibrato—three things that would soon become synonymous with the Miles Davis style. Elvin Jones, one of the most influential drummers in jazz history, had only a ninth-grade education but credited his musical development to his middle-school music teacher in Pontiac, Michigan. Meanwhile, in Chicago, a succession of jazz greats—Nat King Cole, Dinah Washington, and Gene Ammons, to name just a few—studied under the same inspiring teacher, Walter Dyett, who ran the music program at DuSable High School. A similar testimony appears in the biography of the legendary multi-instrumentalist Eric Dolphy.
This legacy of musical education reminds us of the power of public schools to nurture the next generation of talent. As Aucoin suggests, making sure those programs are fully funded today is a solid investment in the future of written music in this country.
Bravo to Matthew Aucoin for his wonderfully insightful and enlightening article. I am a specialist in the field of musical notation, with the bulk of my career behind me. I was, as Aucoin puts it, the 'modern-day equivalent of medieval monks laboriously copying out illuminated manuscripts.' It's true—I spent several years in apprenticeship under a professional copyist and then went on to prepare music for Broadway shows, films, symphony orchestras, operas, nightclub acts, commercials. All with pen and ink.
In part for this reason, I think it's worth writing an addendum to Aucoin's proposed description of classical music. His article deals mostly with music as an expression of the artist. I submit, however, that the need for music-notation literacy includes the world of commercial music, too. This would extend the benefits of musical literacy beyond the concert hall and into the general public; perhaps it could even make school music programs more relevant and less susceptible to budget cuts. Just as architects need construction workers to realize their expressive concepts, composers and songwriters need arrangers, orchestrators, and copyists.
As someone who has no musical aptitude but appreciates those who do, I enjoyed Matthew Aucoin's 'What Is Classical Music?' But I have to disagree with his statement that 'the written word is as prevalent today as it ever was.'
Northwestern's Medill School reports that in the past 20 years, the United States has lost more than one-third of its print newspapers. As a former president of my local library's board of trustees, I saw CDs, DVDs, artwork, and maker spaces take over floor areas that previously had been filled with books.
For many, the increase in time spent on social media and watching streaming entertainment correlates with a decline in time spent reading. Aucoin rightfully wishes that we Americans would spend more time listening. But we also need to spend more time reading.
Jay Fisher
Lisle, Ill.
Behind the Cover
This issue features a collection of stories marking 80 years of life in the Atomic Age. Among these are Ross Andersen's reporting from South Korea and Japan, two countries that may pursue nuclear weapons; Tom Nichols's analysis of America's system of command and control; and Noah Hawley's essay on Kurt Vonnegut and the bomb. For our cover image, we selected a photograph of a 1954 bomb test at Bikini Atoll. The image was found in a government archive by the photographer Michael Light. The so-called Yankee test released an explosive yield equivalent to 13.5 million tons of TNT, about 900 times that of Little Boy.
— Lucy Murray Willis, Photo Editor