On Monday, The New York Times reported that John Ashbery, an 80-year old poet, is slated to become mtvU?s poet laureate. Ashbery is a freeform postmodern writer who?s received a number of awards, and mtvU is Music Television?s college network. Once again, we see the arts and the mass media (”commercial” and “entertainment” media, the “culture industry”) coming together in ominous ways.

Reactions have been mixed. LL Smooth J of Gloss sounds thoroughly cynical about it, and he makes a convincing case for his skepticism. It?s tough to trust MTV when they claim to support literary culture, and it?s especially tough when you account for the absurd financial arrangement between mtvU and Ashbery. The laureateship is apparently unpaid, and Smooth disapproves:

Unpaid. Viacom has $25.75 billion in market capitalization and the poet, who is 80 and still has a day job, is going unpaid. Even the music companies aren?t giving MTV their content anymore. Ashbery?s getting worse treatment than the 22-year old coffee gofers.

This seems to be the arts’ tragic destiny. It?s not much of an economic game any more? the people who are trying to innovate are paying for it out of pocket, and they?re often pursuing a thankless passion in the shadow of a short-attention-span culture with anti-intellectual tendencies.

This is an overgeneralization, of course. There?s still esteem for the artist in our culture as a whole? every year, a few artists are funneled into the hands of economic agents, where they?re treated as badges of authenticity. From NASA?s recruitment of Laurie Anderson as its ?artist in residence,? to the New York Metro?s ?Arts in Transit? program, to this Poet Amnesty project of mtvU?s, there will always be a positive association with the arts. Unfortunately, cultural esteem doesn?t count for much in a 20th-century neo-liberal economy, and the arts are too long-term an investment for companies to subsidize.

So it seems like artists these days are forced to trade their ?authenticity? status for the scraps of recognition offered by a public post. I could rail against the short-sightedness of runaway capitalism, but that?s nothing you haven?t heard before. Instead, I?ll lean on a truism that I trust: artists may have to work hard to support their creative impulse, but even if the last poetry book goes out of print, there will always be artists.

And viewed from this angle, isn’t it at least remarkable that MTV, a powerhouse of mass entertainment, is making a nod to the artistic culture that’s made its success possible? Even if mtvU?s motives and approaches are a little dubious, at least they?re offering an old poet the chance to connect with a new generation of ?hipsters? and student appreciators, the primordial ooze where tomorrow?s poet laureates are gestating.