Raymond Williams
- General process of intellectual development as societies advance through history.
- A particular way of life > sub-cultures etc.
- Works of intellectual and artistic significance.
> works that are accepted as very important // represent cultures.
Culture emerges because of the economic organisation of society.
> emerges from the base
> LEGITIMISES IT.
Marx (1857)
Raymond Williams (1983) Keywords
4 definitions of popular culture
> well liked by many people (quantitative)
> inferior kinds of work
Lesser or inferior form of high culture. mass production/kitsch
> work deliberately setting out to win favour with the people.
Relies on taste // aims to be populist
> Culture actually made by the people themselves
Value judgements // organic - e.g. brass bands in mining communities.
Caspar David Freidrich (1809) 'Monk by the sea'
High.
VS
Jenny Morrison's 'Sea & sky in watercolour'
Popular.
Popular press vs Quality press
Popular cinema vs art cinema
Popular entertainment vs art entertainment
Jermey Deller & Alan Kane
'Folk Archive'
Works of creativity made by people for people.
Humorous reaction caused by judging the works and believing you can do better.
Judging things in the same way you'd judge elite art.
Judging them by your aesthetic code is flawed...
Laughing at the working class
Failing to make art
Popular culture entering into the sphere of high art.
> Graffiti
- Banksy exhibiting in galleries
Starts representing the people, is then taken on to represent the views of the minority (high culture)
E.P. Thompson // 'The making of the English working class'
Change in culture happens during time of industrialisation & urbanisation.
Classes are put together yet seperated. In close proximity in the cities yet seperated in areas of high & working class.
Working class in factories / slums
Bourgeoisie in nicer areas of city.
People then create their own cultural forms
- literature - music - recreational arts etc.
before this - the classes did not work against each other.
Chartism - allowing the working class to vote.
Political movements.
Matthew Arnold (1867) Culture & anarchy
Culture is :
> "The best that has been thought & said in the world"
> Study of perfection
> Attained through disinterested reading, writing and thinking.
> Pursuit of culture
> Minister the diseased spirit of our times. (anarchy)
Culture of 'the raw and uncultured masses'
- were once hidden but have now started to emerge.
> upper class control is threatened by the working class.
> upper class defends itself by claiming to be better than the working class - mocking them.
Leavism - F.R.Leavis & Q.D.Leavis.
- Mass civilisation & minority culture
- Fiction & the reading public
- Culture & environment
Believes there was a cultural peak, which declined throughout the 20th century.
> critics role is to defend it against the lesser forms.
> collapse of traditional authority
- come at time of mass democracy (anarchy)
popular - offers cheap emotional thrills as opposed to pure thrills from the high class.
Frankfurt school - critical theory
Snobbery with which people dismiss popular culture comes from Leavis & Arnold's theories.
> their views & reading of culture is as baised as the one they are trying to dismiss.
Institute of social research (1923-33)
Closed when Nazis came to power.
Relocated to New York 1933 - 47
Theodore Adorno
Max Horkheimer
Herbert Marcuse } Entering into one of the most developed cultures.
Leo Lowenthar
Walter Benjamin
Emergence of "the culture industry"
An idea of culture...but not this.
Fordism (1910 onwards)
Factories 'spewing' out cultural artifacts.
"all mass culture is identical"
Homogenity & Predictability
Spawned out for the masses
films & radio need no longer pretend to be art, it's business
idea of art & culture has been turned into business
Herbert Marcuse
Popular culture - affirmative culture > reduces capacity for thought
turn into 1-dimensional people.
Bound into the producers.
Militates against change
Code us into single train of thought.
> mass culture represented a threat to high class
> think it cements authority & creates obedience
'Dumming down' of culture industry.
De-politicising the working class.
Hollyoaks babes - teaches women it's OK to be like this, even when you're in education.
Che Guavara - symbol of 'cool' not revolution.
The x-factor
Big Brother
> both teach that it's the only way to succeed.
-Instead of being identified by what they produce, people are identified by what they consume.
Adorno - 'On popular music'
- Standardise } same beat // same instruments.
does the thinking for you...
reduces capacity for free thought.
- social 'cement'
- produces passivity ( rhythmic & emotional adjustments.)
' Slave to the beat'
Mindlessly dance to the rhythm of their own oppression
Joy Division - emotional adjustment
Counter revolutionary
Authentic culture
- real
- european
- multi-dimensional
- active consumption } Culture is lost forever under capitalism
- individual creation
- autonomous
- negation
Walter Benjamin
Mechanical reproduction allows us to view stuff from anywhere
> would have had to go to it.
> meet it on the galleries terms
Uniqueness is substituted by mass production.
Threatens to liquidate cultural tradition.
Aura
Mona lisa
> on mug
> on t-shirt
> on poster
} changes how it is viewed , allows us to challenge high culture.
Mystical quality withers away
Defining your own meaning from it.
Hebdidge (1979) 'Sub-culture : the Meaning of style'
- incorporation
- ideological form
- community form
claims that young people create cultures designed to challenge high culture.
creating new industry
- radical status is then lost . Especially when it is bought & sold.
Neutralised > incorporated.
- Emerges from anxieties about social and cultural exclusion.
- De-based form of ideal culture
- ideology masks cultural or class differences & neutralises interests of the few as those of all.
No comments:
Post a Comment