Sunday, November 27, 2005
Inventing Popular Culture - Comments
This book quoted a lot and was hard to follow in some points. I found some fascinating stuff in different parts and will endeavor to discuss those...
Page 16
" the invention of popular culture as mass culture was in part a response to middle-class fears engendered by industrialization, urbanization, and the developement of an urban-industrial working class..." This is a response to people wanting to better themselves and others wanted to continue class distinctions. Residential separation (suburbs to urban areas) kept compounding this separation. The middle class asserting itself as the mass culture to be distinct from the lower class mass culture meant a weakening of social authority and a dismantlement of cohesion in culture. Popular culture in this framework seems to be the new elite. We will create our own middle class culture to differentiate ourselves from the lower/working class.
Page 18-19
Matthew Arnold defines the "inequality" of races and cultures as on sort of a continuim. There is a basis that our human natures have in common between aristocracy, middle class and working class and that is evolutionary in nature. Therefore the lower class are just not as "far along" as the upper class. Education for the lower class is to help them function and civilize them to be overpowered by the elite and middle class. Their role is "subordination, deference and exploitation." So for him having a culture spring out of the populace or "working class" is in itself anarchy. It is taking power from the power elite. As disturbing is this is I think much of it still pervades our culture.
Page 48-starting
Democracy's practice of hegemony is not only to rule the society but the dominant classes in democracy leads it through this exercise and therefore universalizes the upper class. In other words we all experience what the upper class experiences. They are our voice. They lead us through the understanding of the collective. Which makes sense as why racism, classism and exploitation of the poor is not mentioned. If the upper class doesn't experience it or think it is important then it is not mentioned. I found this so true! Even as many Christians come into the moral elite this also becomes true. The voice of those in the lower classes are not heard and definately not collectivized. We lived through a modern world in the west dominated by experiences of the white upper class male. Now many people want a voice in postmodernity.
Page 81 - starting
The discussion of the roots of cultural identities being in the "collective memory" I found fascinating. We confirm what we remember through the memory of others. However, this is not an exact science. Post event information and eyewitness testimony play a fascinating role in constructing meaning from the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The Gospels do what memories do "bring the past into the present." But they do so from the collective identity of those telling the story. The Gospel authors believed Jesus was who he said he was. That framed their memories and arguments and stories. This was an internal process. However, since we have devices to record things now... memory is a more external endeavor. Our memory is not so much internal as a picture, video or sound played back for us. It is outside ourselves. So is this memory really a part of ourselves?
Page 100-101
Then to the argument of cultural views on art. High art vs. low art. I have always found that so interesting. There are certain films or books that are popular culture in nature and they are somehow not seen as fully "artistic." It seems unless it is created by people of the dominant class it is not really art. Art is funded by the elite and has deference to politics. Michaelangelo was bound to the Medici family who were basically the mob of their day. Shakespeare's "historical" plays payed homage to Queen Elizabeth and her family line and not always historically accurate to be pleasing to her grace.
Page 16
" the invention of popular culture as mass culture was in part a response to middle-class fears engendered by industrialization, urbanization, and the developement of an urban-industrial working class..." This is a response to people wanting to better themselves and others wanted to continue class distinctions. Residential separation (suburbs to urban areas) kept compounding this separation. The middle class asserting itself as the mass culture to be distinct from the lower class mass culture meant a weakening of social authority and a dismantlement of cohesion in culture. Popular culture in this framework seems to be the new elite. We will create our own middle class culture to differentiate ourselves from the lower/working class.
Page 18-19
Matthew Arnold defines the "inequality" of races and cultures as on sort of a continuim. There is a basis that our human natures have in common between aristocracy, middle class and working class and that is evolutionary in nature. Therefore the lower class are just not as "far along" as the upper class. Education for the lower class is to help them function and civilize them to be overpowered by the elite and middle class. Their role is "subordination, deference and exploitation." So for him having a culture spring out of the populace or "working class" is in itself anarchy. It is taking power from the power elite. As disturbing is this is I think much of it still pervades our culture.
Page 48-starting
Democracy's practice of hegemony is not only to rule the society but the dominant classes in democracy leads it through this exercise and therefore universalizes the upper class. In other words we all experience what the upper class experiences. They are our voice. They lead us through the understanding of the collective. Which makes sense as why racism, classism and exploitation of the poor is not mentioned. If the upper class doesn't experience it or think it is important then it is not mentioned. I found this so true! Even as many Christians come into the moral elite this also becomes true. The voice of those in the lower classes are not heard and definately not collectivized. We lived through a modern world in the west dominated by experiences of the white upper class male. Now many people want a voice in postmodernity.
Page 81 - starting
The discussion of the roots of cultural identities being in the "collective memory" I found fascinating. We confirm what we remember through the memory of others. However, this is not an exact science. Post event information and eyewitness testimony play a fascinating role in constructing meaning from the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The Gospels do what memories do "bring the past into the present." But they do so from the collective identity of those telling the story. The Gospel authors believed Jesus was who he said he was. That framed their memories and arguments and stories. This was an internal process. However, since we have devices to record things now... memory is a more external endeavor. Our memory is not so much internal as a picture, video or sound played back for us. It is outside ourselves. So is this memory really a part of ourselves?
Page 100-101
Then to the argument of cultural views on art. High art vs. low art. I have always found that so interesting. There are certain films or books that are popular culture in nature and they are somehow not seen as fully "artistic." It seems unless it is created by people of the dominant class it is not really art. Art is funded by the elite and has deference to politics. Michaelangelo was bound to the Medici family who were basically the mob of their day. Shakespeare's "historical" plays payed homage to Queen Elizabeth and her family line and not always historically accurate to be pleasing to her grace.
# posted by ErinW @ 4:56 PM 
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