Repressive Desublimation of One-Dimensional Man

Marcues argues that higher culture and social reality have existed together as two spheres. Higher culture is it’s own reality; it is a world of ideals that exists in contradiction to social reality. Meanwhile social reality is not affected much by the ideas of higher culture. Yet, in today’s culture, the two are mixed. Social reality has incorporated higher culture and is using it to perpetuate social reality, but in doing so, the values and higher truths of the higher culture is stolen and the sphere turns into a mockery of what it used to represent. Marcues calls this modern process repressive desublimation. This concept can be related to celebrity endorsement of commercial products. From Marcues view, the celebrities could be considered to be producers of art and they and their products are used to perpetuate demand for consumer culture in today’s industrialized capitalist societies. Marcues would argue that in doing so, the artists’ and their art, which would be considered as higher culture, lose some meaning as it is mixed with commercial activity, a representation of social reality. This would cheapen the value of the artists and the art. Do you think that Marcues is right? Will mixing higher culture with social reality deform art and cheapen it? Are higher culture and social reality meant to exist separately?