High and low culture

[Princess Luna]

I am currently taking a media class in collage, and the chapter I just read was about so called "high" and "low" culture. And it pissed me the hell off, from what I read it seems like things primarlly enjoyed by the upper class (Ballet, Classical Music, and Opera) are hailed as high culture , while entertainment that has larger lower class audience (professional wrestling, hip-hop, and video games) are deemed lower culture and even worthless. The book takes the existence of higher and lower culture as a almost indisputable fact, and barley even bothers to defend it. It will most likely be discussed it my class tomorrow morning, and I am looking for some solid arguments against the concept of high and low culture. I already have that is classist and heavelly Eurocentric.

[Shotgun Opera]

How about completely subjective?

Who gets to decide what constitutes "high" and "low" culture? Is really crappy classical music (and there is PLENTY of it) better than a modern rock song that brings you to tears? Why is it ONLY "high" and "low" culture?

Could probably do an entire semester on it.

[Caj]

I think that actually sounds pretty accurate. Are you suggesting that there aren't subcultural differences between the classes?

[The Young Pioneer]

I don't know what basis is being used for the high and low culture your class is referencing, but I have learned about something similar and actually really like the idea. It's called high and low context cultures.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-eJ8f4OBsNFU/Tb3xUyzuOZI/AAAAAAAAB5Y/4bcWJVWzug4/s1600/00000orgdev_heads.gif

In my personal intercultural relationships it has been pretty true, but of course as with anything it won't be across the board.

Your book sounds irrational, if it's attempting to explain the same thing I've shown above.

[Princess Luna]

I think that actually sounds pretty accurate. Are you suggesting that there aren't subcultural differences between the classes?
My problem is that it is trying to imply things enjoyed by the upper class like classical music are objectively superior to things like hip-hop

[dodger]

The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes ....Rose

“[E]ven the weariest cultural warrior will have to make room for Jonathan Rose’s Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes. . . . a passionate work of history that brings alive the forgotten people on whose behalf so much academic hot air is routinely expended.”—Daniel Akst, Wall Street Journal

Jonathan Rose has written a most enjoyable book looking at what British workers thought about the world, their schools, science, history, geography, literature, papers, films, plays, radio and music. He covers the period from the late 18th century to the mid-20th, using their memoirs, and also surveys, opinion polls, school records and library registers.
A vast popular movement of voluntary collectivism created a hugely impressive working class culture - mutual improvement societies, Sunday schools, adult schools, libraries, reading circles, drama societies, musical groups, friendly societies, trade unions and mechanics' institutes. The London Corresponding Society, the world's first working class political organisation, met weekly; readings aloud provoked democratic discussion.

Education's purpose is to teach us to think for ourselves. The working class's self-improving culture encouraged them to ask questions and voice their thoughts and feelings. The great classics, Shakespeare (often described as the first Marxist), Handel's operas and Scott's novels, all stimulated thought, imagination and independence of mind.

Rose writes well about Marxists' problem of relating to workers. The class described in these pages, complex, thoughtful, independent-minded, savvy, resent being told what to think or what it thinks. This alone explains why there is, as yet, no mass British Marxism, not external influences, or the efficacy of ruling class institutions, or, the ultra-left dogma, misleadership - get the right cutting-edge vanguard and the dim masses will at last play follow the leader.

As Rose writes, "The trouble with Marx was Marxists, whom British workers generally found to be dogmatic, selfish, and antiliterary." They dismissed the workers' hard-earned culture as bourgeois, and "they treated workers as unthinking objects." Do we, now, tell them what to think? MPs and employers believe, "Ah'm paid ter do t'thinkin' `ere." `Marxists' who repeat that approach will, rightly, get nowhere.

Ruskin wrote of those "whom the world has not thought of, far less heard of, who are yet doing most of its work, and of whom we can best learn how it can best be done." The working class will stick with capitalism until Marxists start to learn from them how the world's work `can best be done'. William Podmore....Amazon review.

Tell those academics to look about them,karmorda, the next time they are in a queue to visit a theatre or concert hall. Vouchsafe they might think that any worker might be there to steal their wallet. Enrich himself, culturally, heavens preserve us, what a terrible thought. Look forward to hear how you and others approach nailing that lie. Those barmy backward ideas I thought gone, as were the notion of a black man playing Othello or a Jew Prince Nevsky, being impossible to contemplate. Bogus silly humbug. YER can't get pissed off with academics who are still writing with quill pens, what silly sausages, laugh at them, albeit just for sanity sake.

[Caj]

My problem is that it is trying to imply things enjoyed by the upper class like classical music are objectively superior to things like hip-hop

Oh, ok. That was kind of what I suspected. In that case, it is certainly classist, as you said. As for arguments, well, superiority in that context is completely subjective. There really aren't any rational arguments that can be proposed in favor of either high or low culture.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

The whole concept is problematic and flawed. A John Williams score in a film like Star Wars is operatic in nature and yet is utilised in a massified medium and is considred 'low' culture and conversely a iconic piece of mass culture like Mickey Mouse used by Andy Warhol in a piece of pop art becomes somehow 'high' culture.

The majority of 'low' culture is produced by the rich and made easily accessible to the working class. The same rich people who will deride and dismiss 'low' culture are creating it and profiting off of its distribution. 'High' culture is simply a bourgeoise attempt at excluding the working class from something they have co-opted for their own propaganda purposes in an effort to justify their belief of being somehow 'better'. 'High' culture is more expensive and less easily accessible for the working class who are bombarded with 'low' culture by the rich.

[Oswy]

I am currently taking a media class in collage, and the chapter I just read was about so called "high" and "low" culture. And it pissed me the hell off, from what I read it seems like things primarlly enjoyed by the upper class (Ballet, Classical Music, and Opera) are hailed as high culture , while entertainment that has larger lower class audience (professional wrestling, hip-hop, and video games) are deemed lower culture and even worthless. The book takes the existence of higher and lower culture as a almost indisputable fact, and barley even bothers to defend it. It will most likely be discussed it my class tomorrow morning, and I am looking for some solid arguments against the concept of high and low culture. I already have that is classist and heavelly Eurocentric.

The capitalist class do their best to adopt, create and monopolise culture which sets them apart, and sets the masses apart from them. It's partly about making sure images and rituals help reinforce social, and economic, reality. It's no coincidence, for example, that so-called 'high' culture tends to be expensive to produce and consume - Opera being the perfect example. So, aside from arguments about content being 'superior' (which is bullshit by the way) it's important to remember how form is used to draw class lines, usually by making participation expensive or otherwise subject to elitist 'gatekeeping'.

[manic expression]

How about completely subjective?

Who gets to decide what constitutes "high" and "low" culture? Is really crappy classical music (and there is PLENTY of it) better than a modern rock song that brings you to tears? Why is it ONLY "high" and "low" culture?

Could probably do an entire semester on it.
Yeah, I agree. I think every artform should be taken on its own terms...its origins, audience, internal variations and the like are all part of that and need to be accepted as they are to be enjoyed. If someone refuses to see depth, complexity and skill just because you don't wear a certain style of clothes when you watch it, then that's their loss, and their prejudice says more about them than it does about the artforms they're trying to dismiss.

For example, ballet isn't inherently superior to flamenco, if anything flamenco has aspects of improvisation that ballet almost always doesn't. They're both extraordinary arts taking incredible amounts of skill and mastery, but in order to see that in either one you have to first be willing to understand it as it demands to be understood.

[Bronco]

I don't really see the problem with what you described. It makes sense that things such as opera and classical music are associated with the upper classes because that's traditionally how they would spend their leisure, that's how "high" culture is defined, whereas the likes of boxing are more grass roots activities which are historically working class.

[Zealot]

Saying that they like those particular things because they are lower class seems fallacious and would more likely be a result of economic conditions. It's possible they would like to go to an opera or a ballet but simply don't have the means to do that. And furthermore it is entirely subjective and Eurocentric, as you pointed out. I guess it could even be argued that this "Higher class culture" isn't much more than herd behaviour i.e I don't actually like this wine or this ballet I'm watching but this is what my class does. Similar things can be analyzed almost anywhere with any class.

[danyboy27]

My problem is that it is trying to imply things enjoyed by the upper class like classical music are objectively superior to things like hip-hop

To be able to make such a claim they have to demonstrate why, and i dont see that happening.

things like hip hop and breakdancing are based on other many classical forms of art like ballet, poetry, jazz etc etc.

art always change, always evolve, there is no inferior or superior art.
Art dont make war to eachother, art dont compete. they Meddle, mix etc etc.

There would be no hip hop without shakespeare, and there would be no shakespeare without the developement of the english language made by tribal societies back then.

[Oswy]

...things like hip hop and breakdancing are based on other many classical forms of art like ballet, poetry, jazz etc etc...

I'd accept that hip hop and breakdancing might have seen some influence of ballet (though how much I dunno) but it's still a stretch to say that they are 'based on' it. Credit where credit is due and I think the creativity of the street and the evolution of popular dance forms which came before have to be recognised.

[Lobotomy]

I am currently taking a media class in collage, and the chapter I just read was about so called "high" and "low" culture. And it pissed me the hell off, from what I read it seems like things primarlly enjoyed by the upper class (Ballet, Classical Music, and Opera) are hailed as high culture , while entertainment that has larger lower class audience (professional wrestling, hip-hop, and video games) are deemed lower culture and even worthless. The book takes the existence of higher and lower culture as a almost indisputable fact, and barley even bothers to defend it. It will most likely be discussed it my class tomorrow morning, and I am looking for some solid arguments against the concept of high and low culture. I already have that is classist and heavelly Eurocentric.

are you reading "the age of American unreason" by susan jacoby, by any chance? I had to read that book for class a while ago and the author was talking about that same thing. I agree, it's bullshit.

[manic expression]

I'd accept that hip hop and breakdancing might have seen some influence of ballet (though how much I dunno) but it's still a stretch to say that they are 'based on' it. Credit where credit is due and I think the creativity of the street and the evolution of popular dance forms which came before have to be recognised.
There's no influence on breaking from ballet, but breaking does draw from a ton of different areas. The Nicholas Brothers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBb9hTyLjfM) and other tap dancers, James Brown and funk dance, Kung Fu movies, salsa, the Charleston, gymnastics (the flare originally came into bboying from gymnastics and now the airflare, innovated entirely by bboys, is coming into gymnastics floor routines). The thing is with something like breaking is that anyone can bring anything into it, but above all you're expected to be original, to create your own individual style different from everyone else's...that kind of dynamism is something you rarely see in "high culture"...so yeah I agree with you it's all about that creativity and evolution.

By the way, I heard that ballet's pointe actually came from circus performances so that's something to think about when it comes to "high and low" culture.

[balls deep in revolution]

I think that actually sounds pretty accurate. Are you suggesting that there aren't subcultural differences between the classes?it's not as true as people make it seem. it's kind of funny when leftists buy into the idea that workers aren't into art, ballet, or sophisticated music. workers can only listen to Minor Threat, I guess. it's also hilarious when they buy into the idea that the ruling class doesn't like low brow things or is like some caricature of the sophisticated member of the upper class from the 1800's. none of it is true.

here's a hint: members of the ruling class in the western world don't hold palace balls anymore. upper class culture is doing the same stuff that working class people do, except in expensive beach houses while being able to afford more drugs and getting away with criminality.

[x359594]

...from what I read it seems like things primarlly enjoyed by the upper class (Ballet, Classical Music, and Opera) are hailed as high culture...

In the US ballet, opera and classical music are subsidized by municipal, state and federal money. Even with those subsidies ticket prices are generally beyond the range of working people, though opera in New York City has always had a reserve of low priced seats at popular prices.

Connoisseurship, money and ancillary status markers also seem to go with "high culture" under capitalism. But art museums make provision for ordinary working people to see what was formerly the private property of princes, kings and the 19th century robber barons.

Returning to the performing arts for a moment, in the era of mechanical reproduction (as the Marxist critic Walter Benjamin put it) they're all available in the form of CDs, DVDs and free radio broadcasts which de-couples them from class to a certain extent.

[Princess Luna]

My media professor admitted the book was bad at explaining this, and clarified the point wasn't rich culture versus poor culture, but traditional culture versus pop culture. and that traditional culture develops naturally, while (supposedly) pop culture is created only to make money. I disagree with this, but it does remove some of the classist over-tones.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

My media professor admitted the book was bad at explaining this, and clarified the point wasn't rich culture versus poor culture, but traditional culture versus pop culture. and that traditional culture develops naturally, while (supposedly) pop culture is created only to make money. I disagree with this, but it does remove some of the classist over-tones.

It still carries with it insinuations of class importance. The 'traditions' of high culture are clearly, as x359594 pointed out, the traditions of the upper classes preserved for their own benefit at the exclusion of the working class. Folk traditions of the working class of the past have been subsumed by the creations produced by the upper classes, the so-called 'popular' culture, again for the benefit of the upper classes as they reap money from the masses of consumers that have been educated to accept that and deny the working class their own creativity.

Anyone who deviates from the formulated culture created by the ruling class, either by creating an original trend outside social norms or following one, is alienated by the ideological apparatus controlled by the ruling classes (ie heavy metal being denounced as satanism/rap music denounced as accepting drug culture etc) until this deviation becomes yet another subculture controlled by the ruling class in order to garner yet more profit. Of course, there are a few acceptions.

'Pop' culture is created by the rich in order to exploit the working class while 'traditional' culture is restricted by the rich in order to alienate the working class.

[Shotgun Opera]

My media professor admitted the book was bad at explaining this, and clarified the point wasn't rich culture versus poor culture, but traditional culture versus pop culture. and that traditional culture develops naturally, while (supposedly) pop culture is created only to make money. I disagree with this, but it does remove some of the classist over-tones.
That seems to make little sense as, at one point, all traditional culture WAS pop culture. Everything had a time when it was wildly popular with the public.

It seems that something becomes traditional culture when we've forgotten about the aspects of it we disliked. IE: Classical music, we tend to think of it as good music because all the terrible classical music has been forgotten about. Even today, people tend to idealize music from decades past as better than modern music simply because the bad songs from decades past have been forgotten about, leaving only the good songs.