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UNIT 4 CULTURE - 'HIGH' and 'LOW'; Conservation of Culture POPULAR and MASS

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UNIT 4 CULTURE - 'HIGH' and 'LOW'; Conservation of Culture POPULAR and MASS Documentation, Preservation and UNIT 4 CULTURE - 'HIGH' AND 'LOW'; Conservation of Culture POPULAR AND MASS Structure 4.0 Objectives 4.1 Introduction 4.2 A history of the high/low culture debate 4.2.1 Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the beginnings of the debate 4.2.2 Matthew Arnold and the distinction between culture and anarchy 4.2.3 F R Leavis 4.2.4 T S Eliot 4.3 Contemporary approaches to the debate 4.3.1 Cultural studies and the distinction between high and mass culture 4.3.2 Marxism and culture 4.3.3 Some later day approaches to the study of culture 4.3.4 Postmodernism and/as culture 4.4 Let us sum up 4.5 References and further readings 4.6 Check your progress: possible answers 4.0 OBJECTIVES After reading this Unit, you will be able to: x determine the meaning of the terms high/low culture, and popular/mass culture; x trace the history of the connotative and denotative progression of these terms; and x examine how the high/ low distinction was first posited, how they developed conceptually, and how the terms are approached within the study of culture in current times. 4.1 INTRODUCTION What is high culture? What is low culture? And what is popular/mass culture? To begin with, let us say that high culture is talked of as something belonging to a privileged group, and or something held in high esteem in a particular culture, for example, the great literature, architecture or painting of a particular age. It was generally supposed to be the domain of the educated, the wealthy and the privileged sections of society. Popular or mass culture is usually explained as an oppositional concept to high culture. While high culture is supposed to be the culture of the ruling classes, popular culture is, as the name suggests, all that is popular, widespread or common i.e. the culture of the masses. It comprises what is popularly accepted in society. Low culture is a term that is used in a derogatory sense for certain forms of popular culture. The distinction between high culture and popular culture may be illustrated through the following example, which I found on the internet. The picture of a nude man/woman hanging in an art gallery 104 is looked at as a work of art, while the picture of a naked man/woman that Conservation and Preservation: Some appears in a newspaper is not art, but the opposite of art (sometimes bordering Ethical and Legal on the pornographic). Issues The justification for the distinction is found not in the cultural form itself (a picture of a naked man or women is much the same whatever medium it is presented in) but in the theoretical elaboration of that form. Thus, when a painting is hung in an art gallery what is being admired is the skill and composition, the cultural references and representations. When a picture appears in a newspaper, these are absent and all that is left is a titillation factor. The idea of a hierarchy of cultures was implicit in the earliest approaches to the study of culture. In fact, in the previous unit, we have seen how the whole idea of colonialism was based on the differential cultural capabilities of the colonizer and the colonized. Apart from this, and also partly in common to this are the issues of race and ethnicity, which have, for a long time, been considered natural markers for cultural hierarchy, thus stereotyping one community in relation to another in terms of ability, characteristics and behaviour. We can also observe an evident disparity in the portrayal of the male and the female and differences in cultural traits are determined. We will now try to analyze the history of how the debate of high and low in culture progressed, right from the earliest times to now. 4.2 A HISTORY OF THE HIGH/LOW CULTURE DEBATE It becomes important for one to know the history of high/low cultural debate. We will be looking at some important scholars who have made important contributions to this debate. 4.2.1 Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the beginnings of the debate The beginnings of this debate can be seen in the ideas of Sameul Taylor Coleridge. That culture is a resource that has to be marshaled in order to maintain the equilibrium of society was an idea that was first put forward by Taylor in the book titled On the Constitution of the Church and State. Coleridge establishes a distinction between civilization and cultivation. According to John Fiske, civilization in Coleridge's ideas refers to the nation as a whole, while cultivation is the domain of a small minority whom Coleridge refers to as the 'clerisy'. Civilization is used by Coleridge as a term for culture. Coleridge defines the clerisy as a group of learned people who are responsible for the preservation and dissemination of national heritage. It is the clerisy who will thus guide the progress of civilization: the objects and final intention of the whole order being these - preserve the stores, and to guard the treasures, of past civilization, and thus to bind the present to the past; to perfect and add to the same, and thus to connect the present to the future; but especially to diffuse through the whole community, and to every native entitled to its laws and rights, that quantity and quality of knowledge which was indispensable both for the understanding of those rights, and for the performance of the duties correspondent. 105 Documentation, Coleridge thus maintains some kind of distinctions between high and low culture, Preservation and Conservation of civilization and cultivation in his terms. Culture Cultivation, a term which was earlier used exclusively in relation to growing and preparing of crops and plants, and with agriculture in general, was used by Coleridge in a symbolic way to talk of the growth and development of human beings. The idea of cultivation/culture as a stabilizing factor in a society beset with the pangs of coming to terms with the industrial revolution was thought of by Coleridge in terms of the Romantic ideal of perfection that informs all human enterprise. Check your progress 1 Note: 1) Your answers should be about 30 words each; 2) You may check your answers with the possible answers at the end of the Unit. 1) How does Coleridge define cultivation and civilization? ................................................................................................................ ................................................................................................................ ................................................................................................................ ................................................................................................................ ................................................................................................................ 4.2.2 Matthew Arnold and the distinction between culture and anarchy The point of departure for the inquiry into the distinction between high and low/ popular culture is Matthew Arnold, a major English thinker of the nineteenth century, who, ironically, did not say anything about popular culture. In his discussion on the issue, which is contained in the book Culture and Anarchy, Arnold never once talks about popular culture. He first defines culture in the initial pages of the book as follows: The whole scope of the essay is to recommend culture as the great help out of our present difficulties; culture being a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world, and, through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits, which we now follow staunchly but mechanically, vainly imagining that there is a virtue in following them staunchly which makes up for the mischief of following them mechanically. In talking of the 'best that has been talked of and said in the world', Arnold sets the agenda for the debate on what constitutes culture. According to him, culture means 'high culture': it is the best that can be achieved by man, and is exclusive. It represents the pinnacle of human achievement, and is thus representative of both the potential and the aspiration inherent in him. It is a corpus of the best body of work which has to be upheld so that all of mankind may benefit from it. Culture is a body of knowledge, the concern of which is to 'make reason and the 106 will of god prevail'. Culture... is a study of perfection…perfection which consists in Conservation and Preservation: Some becoming something rather than in having something, in an inward Ethical and Legal conditionofthemindandspirit,notinanoutwardsetofcircumstances. Issues Arnold suggests that culture is 'perfection', and also a striving for this perfection. This perfection is to be attained bythe process of 'reading, observing and thinking', as also by the 'disinterested and active use of reading, reflection and observation, in the endeavour to know the best that has been known'. Talking of the function of culture, Arnold goes on to say that culture 'seeks to do away with classes; to make the best that has been thought and known in the world current everywhere; to make all men live in an atmosphere of sweetness and light'. Thus Arnold saw culture as a moral and political force which functioned for the betterment of a people. As said at the very beginning, Arnold never explicitly talks of popular culture in contrast to culture proper. However, as the very title indicates, culture is placed in direct contrast to anarchy, which is equated to popular culture. At one stage in the text Arnold talks of 'a much wanted principle… of authority, to counteract the tendency to anarchy which seems to be threatening us'. He talks of the distinction beween the 'highly-instructed few' and the 'scantily-instructed many'. Arnold's main concern, it seems is that the anarchy that is characteristic of the working classes is to be mitigated by effective doses of 'the best that has been thought and said in the world'.
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