David Brooks’s recent NYT column “Lord of the Memes” is a bit extreme for my taste, but nevertheless it’s worth reflecting on. He writes, “Now the global thought-leader is defined less by what culture [one] enjoys than by the smartphone, social bookmarking site, social network and e-mail provider [one] uses to store and transmit it. […] [P]restige has shifted from the producer of art to the aggregator and the appraiser. Inventors, artists and writers come and go, but buzz is forever.” (Feeling uncomfortably meta right now as I write about writing about writing about culture….)