English 680V: Visual Rhetoric in a Technological Age (Purdue)

On page twelve, Lanham posits Andy Warhol as the subversive prophet of attention economics. Warhol's fifteen minutes of fame would, theoretically, make attention both egalitarian and worthless. Or, we also have the internet where everyone is shouting but no one is listening.

When I first read this, I got to thinking that Lanham isn't giving communism a just consideration. He sets up this binary between democracy/capitalism (which rhetors support) and fascism (which philosophers support?!?). Admittedly, I'm trapped in a feedback loop of leftist political thinking, but it seems to me that true communism is entirely appropriate for the digital age. I concieve of a community-oriented; attention egalitarianism does not mean being a celebrity anymore than being a communist means living in a mansion. By establishing communities, my limited resource of attentoin can be assured maximum return of meaning because there's no fat cats (like the Hollywood machine) pilfering and exploiting the inevitable ambiguities.