If art, even popular art—especially popular art—were simply a repository of an era’s wishes, to be matched beat for beat with its time’s psyche, it would not be art. It would be, well, a Comment, or an op-ed piece, with all the necessary fatuities of its kind.
Adam Gopnik http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/four-kinds-of-opinion-pieces-i-will-not-read?mbid=social_twitter