Art as a political/social platform

1) I agree with you both that art cannot be so readily dismissed as a product of desublimation. This leads me to believe that Marcuse's concept of repressive desublimation may be be an overly simple diagnosis of the role of art in society. Take technology as an example. Designs and artistic ideas are transformed into everyday objects that are gratifying and instantaneous. Marcuse would say that this is repressive for art and very much so, for us, because it is dominating us. However, we do not feel that it is repressive. Instead, we are completely trapped in illusion of feeling like we are liberated, the world is our oyster, we can have control of time....etc. We don't feel repressed. We actually feel quite content and comfortable. I think that this can be brought back to Evelyn's point of how art is not all repressive and can provide more to people like bringing communities together.

2) I have a question (on a slightly different note). Is it possible for non-commercial outlets of art like fostering community to counterbalance those repressive commercial outlets like commercialism of art?