Many of the younger generation of intellectuals, highly critical of the increasing penetration of the market into every sphere of daily life, nevertheless bristle at the merest suggestion that Talking Heads, Bruce Springsteen or whoever else that manifests their irrefutably good taste be subject to the same critical attention. Rock music, it seems, in the United States at least, is one of those social phenomena most impermeable to critical discussion. Decidedly, my article (Telos 57) touched a raw nerve in Scudder. (...) The frenzied tone of his reply and the almost wilfully obtuse misreading of my arguments (never did I argue for a conspiracy of capitalist interests - quite the contrary) suggests that something is badly wrong. (shrink)