"People have a weird habit of acting as if the university is an institution of the Enlightenment, dedicated to the free enquiry of the individual intellect. It’s not! The university, alongside the capitalist mode of production, is one of the only major institutions that come to us out of the Middle Ages. It belongs to the age of repetition: the era of Dede Korkut."
I'm pretty sure Sam Kriss knows Pierre Menard is a fictional character dude. He's using the story to make a point about how we've thought about originality in different ages. The idea is that an oral society couldn't come up with a story like Pierre Menard, not that the story is literally true.
Is it true that we don't have a monoculture, though?
The author argues that algorithms have reintroduced monoculture: there was a period before the year 2000 when we had a monoculture (because of the scarcity of information) and a period after 2012 when we had a monoculture (because of effective information-sorting algorithms). The kind of cultural fragmentation you're talking about only existed 2000-2012, or in what he calls the 'hipster era.'
Post-2012, 'nerdy' things like comic book movies and gaming streams are basically mainstream to the point of being inescapable. People who remember the previous 'pre-nerd' monoculture are primed to think of those things as niche and marginal interests, but they're really not.
I don't think most frat boys are in the habit of quoting Adorno. And with this particular author, it's not always advisable to take everything at face value...
Basically he makes the argument (I think slightly tongue in cheek) that Twitter is analogous to a certain understanding of the Christian Hell, in that it's not a form of suffering you're condemned to, but a form of suffering you actively seek out. More deep social media commentary, but there's also some interesting tidbits in there about different theories of Hell, from ancient Chinese grave inscriptions to CS Lewis.
"Everyone acts as if the problem with Twitter is the other people, and the agony of having to look at their terrible opinions, but they keep saying the truth. Hellsite hellsite hellsite. The problem is you. The problem with Twitter is that you are a demon in Hell."
I'm not sure entirely how serious the author is being here, but it's a very entertaining read - a history of various interpretations of Hell in theology and literatue, and an argument for why the "hellsite" of Twitter might be something similar.
Is it a highly political article? There's one short section on politics, but there's definitely nothing on Trump, and I don't see how his indictment is particularly relevant...
"People have a weird habit of acting as if the university is an institution of the Enlightenment, dedicated to the free enquiry of the individual intellect. It’s not! The university, alongside the capitalist mode of production, is one of the only major institutions that come to us out of the Middle Ages. It belongs to the age of repetition: the era of Dede Korkut."