Of course there’s “high” and “low” culture…right?
November 26, 2008
Is something like Strictly Come Dancing ever going to make people more self-aware; more inqusitive of the world around them; more appreciative of beauty (and ugliness); more disturbed by old codes of behaviour, than say…oh I don’t know, Hamlet? I’m not saying ligher entertainment has no place, but this idea that’s come up in discussions that we shouldn’t call it for it what it is because it’s ”elitist” to do so strikes me as very strange. There’s obvious differences in depth and approach between the arts of “high” culture and mass culture, even if nobody could say one is “better” than the other.
As T.S Eliot has said of poetry: “there is always the communication of some new experience, or some fresh understanding of the familiar, or the expression of something but have no words for, which enlarges our consciousness or refines our sensibility.”[1] Like Aristotle, we might take the view that art can cleanse us and offer all of us catharsis, tall and short, coloured and not-so-coloured, female and male, rich and poor…. [2] Art does indeed expand our understanding of ourselves and the external world and does help us understand concepts that are impossible to articulate in any other way; we when read or hear something GREAT, we can experience a revlation of sorts and come away from the experience as “better” people, whether the work is terrifying or beautiful. Like the early Hegel, we may believe that art reveals truth in a direct, intuitive way, and I think that the more people can experience ”high” (or whatever you want to label it) art it in the public sphere, the better.
[1] Eliot, T.S, On Poetry and Poets, page 18
[2] Kraut, Richard, The Cambridge Companion to Plato, page 357
J.S Mill distinguished between different forms of pleasure in conception of utilitarianism to counter criticisms of Bentham’s account of the theory. Take this passage from Martin Amis’ novel, Money, for example:
‘Watching television is one of my main interests, one of my chief skills. Video films are another accomplishment of mine: diabolism, carnage, soft core. I realize, when I can bear to think about it, that all my hobbies are pornographic in tendency… fast food, sex shows, space games, slot machines, video nasties, nude mags, drink, pubs, fighting, television, handjobs’[1].
[1] Martin Amis, Money, (Vintage, London: 2005), p. 67
If people are willing to spend a little bit more time enjoying the art, the world would be a better place. Unfortunately, they often settle for other things (low art) instead. What a pity!
It’s true.
I think it has to do with what is said here:
“The academic left decries high culture as elistist and Eurocentric,
denounces aesthetics as totalitarian, and refuses to debate cultural value. The right
ossifies traditional culture before modernism, but rejects contemporary high culture in
much of the arts, as well as in the literary and theoretical fields where European imports,
especially from Germany and France, are blamed for the closing of the American mind.”
(http://www.macba.es/uploads/20070329/QP_07_Huyssen.pdf) — interesting article, by the way.
Unfortunately, it’s impossible to discuss this it seems, without the left and right being brought into the discussion; and with it, issues of class. I don’t think such distractions need to be taken into account though: a much more interesting and useful question is that age old question of subjectivity and objectivity. Our species has invented and evolved art to preserve something “good”, and the fact that we do it so intently and value it so highly is evidence that there indeed is something valuable there. And is all art “good”, or good for society? Is it wrong to distinguish between “high” and “low” art, as J.S Mill distinguished between different forms of pleasure? I believe relatively unbiased statements that can be made about art works and cultural phenomena, such as “Duchamp’s urinal is over-rated”. But they are not proveable nor are they logically self-evident. This example is based on the experience of the work and the experience of the esteem in which the work is held. And it reads as “objective” to me becaue I tend to regard true statements as unbiased, regardless of whether they can be proved as 2+2-4 can be.
The more I look into it, the more I think “objective” is a useful term to use in speculating about art. It refers to what is out there, just a little beyond our reach, that supplies the durability that great work can manifest over centuries and centuries.
Here is a view of high and low culture, a view I tend not to agree with: http://www.creative-i.info/?p=290
“By and large, working class life as it is actually lived is demonized and denigrated eg, so-called binge drinking, the violence of an alienated youth whose lives have been effectively criminalized by this awful neo-fascist New Labour government has led to the complete polarization of society into two mutually exclusive worlds. And who is doing the polarization? The middle class elites who run the media that targets the working class, from the tabloids to Big Brother and it’s reflected in the way the BBC for example has ‘dumbed down’ its programming. In the past it promulgated a distinctly middle class view of life, pushing so-called high cultural values and all but ignoring working class life and experience and even where it deigned to explore working class life it was expressed through the filter of the middle class values and attitudes.”
Hmmm. Seems to be pushing that old “middle class guilt” thing again. Lots of blogs I come across do the same. Are there any decent defenses of the need for “high culture” online? I’m not sure distinguishing between “high” and “low” culture needs to be seen as elitist or involve issues of class or anything else negative at all. But perhaps that’s just an idealistic view, or perhaps I’m misunderstand what high art and low art implies, which is something different from the vague discussions of subjectivity and objectivity I’m interested in.
Robert.
EDIT – for some reason, the response to my initial post by another user doesn’t come up. :-S