The Age of Light

I thought that this essay, although quite short, was a very densely written piece. Man Ray chose his words very carefully and the essay is somewhat difficult to understand because each sentence is deeply meaningful.
I am assuming that Man Ray is in some capacity introducing a collection of photographs, either in a book or in a curated show. He invokes a sense of the progress of civilization from the beginning. The title, "The Age of Light" is remniscent of the Ice Age or the Age of Discovery or various other denotations of time periods. He is introducing the idea that civilization has progressed and is entering a new period of creation and exploration. His opening statement corroborates this idea by claiming the the sole motivation of society is to perpetuate itself and the work of an artist is considered "wasteful." He goes on to say that as humans are incapable of improving themselves, they are also incapable of learing from the past. I took this to mean that although the main driving force of humans is continuining their existence, they deviate from this purpose and don't learn from their past mistakes of doing so.
Man Ray uses very forceful and absolute diction in his piece. I believe this is because his piece is so short he wanted to write meaningfully in a short amount of time. In my opinion this forceful language detracts from his message because I lose sight of what he is arguing. His arguments seem flawed because such sweeping statements such as "the all-absorbing motive of society," and "No plastic expression can ever be more than a residue of experience," seem too generalized and therefore untrue.