Is Our Culture Ready for the Trashcan?

[AuntShecky]

{Italicized lines edited 3/20/11. Another instance to show why we should never trust our own memory!}

There is an entry in Oxford's Familiar Quotations in in which some German baron supposedly intoned: "Whenever anyone mentions 'culture,' I immediately reach for my revolver."

Cf. My reply #25 --It was a line of dialogue in the first scene of a play by Hanns Johst.

It's quite true that criticism of a culture, especially one's own, can lead to all manner of antagonism, if not overt violence. Even the middle class, resting comfortably in its inherent complacency, will bristle at the slightest disparaging remark about its precious lawn ornaments.

Yet even to a die-hard Bohemian such as yours fooly (one whose fervor as an individualist anarchist would flourish if she could get out of the house once in a while) there has been a discernible shift in the Zeitgeist. Please read this
very short article to see what I mean.

Aside from the unfortunate incident concerning the gifted actress at the Oscar ceremony which by now is, alas, "old news," tell me what you think of Stanley Crouch's article specifically and more importantly, if you think we are entering an Age of Vulgarity. On the other hand, maybe you think yours fooly is a watered-down, latter-day crank like Cicero. O tempora! O mores!

In any event, let's hear your thoughts!

[SleepyWitch]

Don't have time to read that article at the moment. But I'm wondering weather our culture is stagnating these days. In fashion, music etc. there seems to be more recycling than there used to be in previous decades, with various retrostyles coexisting. Nothing much new seems to be created these days.

[Emil Miller]

Some 19th century German baron --whose name escapes me has, as far as I know, one solitary claim to fame and that is an entry in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations in which he supposedly intoned: "Whenever anyone mentions 'culture,' I immediately reach for my revolver."

It's quite true that criticism of a culture, especially one's own, can lead to all manner of antagonism, if not overt violence. Even the middle class, resting comfortably in its inherent complacency, will bristle at the slightest disparaging remark about its precious lawn ornaments.

Yet even to a die-hard Bohemian such as yours fooly (one whose fervor as an individualist anarchist would flourish if she could get out of the house once in a while) there has been a discernible shift in the Zeitgeist. Please read this
very short article to see what I mean.

Aside from the unfortunate incident concerning the gifted actress at the Oscar ceremony which by now is, alas, "old news," tell me what you think of Stanley Crouch's article specifically and more importantly, if you think we are entering an Age of Vulgarity. On the other hand, maybe you think yours fooly is a watered-down, latter-day crank like Cicero. O tempora! O mores!

In any event, let's hear your thoughts!

I could have written it myself but not on the evidence of some actress showing off, because we are not entering an Age of Vulgarity, we've, been there for at least 40 years. And before anyone starts quoting bawdy passages from Shakespeare, Boccaccio or Chaucer etc. etc. etc., from my own experience I can say that there are things being done today that would not only have been frowned upon but would not have been allowed in my lifetime. I have posted some things on this forum that I would not have posted years ago, so there's one small indication of a shift in the Zeitgeist.

The following extract from Stanley Crouch's article is all that needs to be said, the text from Corinthians being particularly pertinent, but there's too much money to be made out of keeping people childish so I doubt that it will change.

What the Middle East and China presently have going for them is a respect for wisdom and high regard for it any time that accumulated power reveals its depth. As for ourselves, we can renew the living culture of our democracy if we remember 1 Corinthians 13:11: "When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

I was talking to a Chinese friend of mine recently about the decline of the West. She has been a frequent visitor to the USA in a business capacity and her verdict was that there are a lot of clever people in the USA but they are noticeably short on wisdom. And just to show that a lack of manners isn't purely an American trait, another Chinese who lives in London told me she couldn't understand why many English people are so small-minded and coarse.

So in answer to your question: Is Our Culture Ready for the Trashcan?
The answer is no....it's already there.

[Paulclem]

I'm always upbeat about people, because think, whether someone is classy or coarse- they always have the capacity to change. The most vulgar 20 year old could well become the most cultured 40 year old. We forget that we are talking about ever evolving things.

The other thing about culture is that many many more people can take part in, and contribute to it than ever before. In Brian's 40 years it has gone from a protectorate of the upper classes to something we can all add to. I like this, though I have to also accept that you get lots of vulgarity and coarseness along with it.

With the actress in the article - we have talent and an ill advised speech. Come next year, if her good performances continue, the talent will be remembered, but not the speech. Trash is uninteresting in the end, and most people do realise this over time.

[deryk]

The last time I took my parents out to dinner, they yelled at me for listening to music composed in the classical period. I'm not sure how broad this demographic is, but from personal experience, I would be more apt to argue that western humans are on their way out as a species that is cognizant of themselves.

[sixsmith]

Mr Crouch is probably correct when he claims that the 'masses always preferred the loud and the obvious to the subtle and the intricate.' Today we have more masses, and, in part due to democratic capitalism, more of the loud and obvious. There is, however, no shortage of subtle and intricate works of art, just as there is no shortage of subtle and intricate people. One simply has to know where to look. It only speaks to Mr Crouch’s naivety that he expected to find either at the Academy Awards. Indeed, one could suggest that this puritanical puff piece is in fact the greater indictment of modern culture.

More generally, I take issue with the idea, implicit in the article, that there is a bright line dividing culture and vulgarity. It seems to me that the serious mind cannot accept the notion that a lack of decorum and/or taste (in the sense in which it appears to be being used here) diminishes or precludes aesthetic merit. One wonders whether Mr Crouch regards DH Lawrence and Philip Roth with the same disapproval as he does Ms Leo.

[Lokasenna]

I'm certainly minded to think that Western culture is in decline, though it is problematic.

First off, how do we define 'culture'? That of the high, artistic sort - Shakespeare, Bach and so forth - or in an anthropological sense to denote the prevailing trends of modern, populist living?

In the thread on snobbishness, I made a point of saying that that which is popular is not necessarily (indeed, not usually) good. Vulgarity and obscenity pander to the lowest form of idiocy, but are thus most widely accessible - there is no effort involved in the consumption. For every evening I, or someone like me, passes curled upon the sofa with a volume of poetry and a CD of Beethoven piano sonatas, hundreds of others gyrate in noisy, cramped, foul-smelling sty-like nightclubs, where the imbibation of alcohol is the sole goal of recreation, and the exposure of breats or buttocks the highest form of entertainment.

I don't want to get into specifics, and thus potentially risk the wrath of Serious Cat by getting into contemporary politics, but I honestly believe that the rise of junk culture is the result of profoundly wrong attempts at social engineering. Social mobility has ground to a halt because, these days, we place no value judgement on a cultural hierarchy. It doesn't matter if a child in a deprived area can read, because he has other, equally valid, methods of expression. It doesn't matter if he isn't exposed to, say, Beethoven's 9th symphony, because it has the same validity as the rap music (with its frequent messages of physical and sexual obscenity) that his local area produces.

For the last few decades, the intellectual movement among the intelligensia has been to promote a wholesale message of nonjudgementalism. An unfortunate side-effect of this has been to render the making of any judgement a negative act. So if, as happened recently, I voice the opinion (dare I say the word 'fact'?) that Shubert was a better song-writer than John Lennon, I am immediately branded an elitist and a snob. The debate that entailed was not based around evidence as to who was the better song-writer (a debate I would have enjoyed), but whether it was legitimate for me to make a value judgement on artistic quality.

My parents, both in their sixties now, came from very poor, working class backgrounds. Neither was particularly well educated, but in their youth they each formed a passion for a distinctly non-working class pursuit: my mother developed a life-long enjoyment of opera and classical music, and my father developed a passion for reading high-brow literature. Back then, these actions were encouraged to the best of their families' abilities. Nowadays, such a passion is demonstrably taken as tantamount to class betrayal - if all culture is of equal value, then why are you pursuing a different cultural meme? You become the soically alien within your own community.

So, I will continue to be an 'elitist' and a 'snob' if I have to. I reserve the right, as a free-thinking and reasonably intelligent human being, to make a judgement on what is culturally acceptable. I am proud to do so, and I only wish that more people would do the same.

[YesNo]

For the last few decades, the intellectual movement among the intelligensia has been to promote a wholesale message of nonjudgementalism. An unfortunate side-effect of this has been to render the making of any judgement a negative act. So if, as happened recently, I voice the opinion (dare I say the word 'fact'?) that Shubert was a better song-writer than John Lennon, I am immediately branded an elitist and a snob. The debate that entailed was not based around evidence as to who was the better song-writer (a debate I would have enjoyed), but whether it was legitimate for me to make a value judgement on artistic quality.

I think what the "intelligentsia" are saying is that you are welcome to make whatever artistic value judgments you like. There is no way to avoid making these judgments, and you can argue that you like Schubert better than Lennon. However, like in physics, there is no artistic value frame of reference that is privileged. What you state is not absolute truth that others are required to synchronize their lives to.

When you hear people calling you a "snob", they are basically trying to tell you something like the following: "Fine. You like Schubert. I like Lennon. We don't agree. So what? Don't belittle me. Don't turn me into your student. I am my own person. I will follow my own path. You wouldn't want to be my student, would you? So don't try to make me yours."

It is basic self-defense.

Regarding the original question, I didn't like Stanley Crouch's article about Melissa Leo. My value judgment.

[LitNetIsGreat]

I want to ask what has society become when we have the need for notices such as this?

Please do not verbally or physically abuse our staff. Our staff are here to help you and have the right to work without fear of assault.

Jesus. What sort of society needs notices like that? One that I don't want to be a part of if I had any choice.

The other day I overheard a teaching assisstant discussing a target for a student involving the same thing - a "target" to try not to verbally abuse teachers. The whole thing is sick.

Last Wednesday I covered a Y9 class. I handed out about 7 pens of my own (because most students can't be bothered to bring their own equipment) and within 5 minutes they were all smashed up. One lad had stuck his in the ceiling, I didn't get a pen back. A typical thing.

So yes, I agree with Brian, we are already well and truly here.

[MarkBastable]

It's not even logically supportable that culture is becoming more vulgar. If what American journalists refer to so coyly as 'the f-bomb' is now more broadly acceptable, it's because it's accepted at all sorts of levels, not just the lowest. That doesn't mean the top levels are heading downwards - it means the word is heading up.

The word f*** - which, rather irritatingly, I can't even type here - is heard after the watershed on the BBC practically every night. If an institution as venerable, influential and intrinsically conservative as the BBC no longer thinks it's a big deal, then we probably have to accept that it's...er.. not a big deal. It's no longer a taboo.

But of course it has been replaced by other taboos. The language of sex might be a normal part of grown-up language now, but the language of, for instance, racism, isn't. This just reflects a shift in our preoccupations - it doesn't tell us anything at all about a general demise of western culture.

I think that those who wail that the world is going to the dogs actually mean that the world doesn't act in the way they were told as children that it should. That's just a function of growing old, and everyone encounters it. If the world really were getting measurably worse every twenty years, as each generation since Socrates has insisted, then by now we would be so deep in the mire that we wouldn't even be able to recognise Ancient Greece as a civilisation in any terms we understand.

But obviously we can. The very fact that art transcends the centuries shows that everything stays much the same. Let's calm down, get over it and focus our angst on something that really might bring our civilisation to its knees - like, I dunno, the inevitable extinction of the possessive apostrophe.

[Lokasenna]

I think what the "intelligentsia" are saying is that you are welcome to make whatever artistic value judgments you like. There is no way to avoid making these judgments, and you can argue that you like Schubert better than Lennon. However, like in physics, there is no artistic value frame of reference that is privileged. What you state is not absolute truth that others are required to synchronize their lives to.

When you hear people calling you a "snob", they are basically trying to tell you something like the following: "Fine. You like Schubert. I like Lennon. We don't agree. So what? Don't belittle me. Don't turn me into your student. I am my own person. I will follow my own path. You wouldn't want to be my student, would you? So don't try to make me yours."

It is basic self-defense.

Regarding the original question, I didn't like Stanley Crouch's article about Melissa Leo. My value judgment.

I'm not in any sense trying to convert people to my way of thinking. If somebody, using the same argument, wants to assert that Lennon is better than Schubert, then that is their opinion and they are entitled to say it. However, following on from the assertion of two opposing statements, there should be the opportunity for a constructive debate (even if it ultimately leads to an agreement to disagree). In this case, the argument doesn't take the form of offering evidence or thoughts for which man is the better artist, but rather a condemnation (as a 'snob') for daring to make a value-judgment. It is not a debate, but rather the limitation of debate.

You say that everybody is entitled to their own artistic opinions - I agree entirely! The point is that, at the moment, as far as I can see, it is taboo to suggest that there is any sense of cultural hierarchy (musical sophistication notwithstanding), or to deviate from the 'party-line' of your background. Whether these are true or not is a moot point - the important thing is that we should be allowed to question them!

The labels of being 'elitist' and a 'snob' are to some extent time sensitive - I dare say that, in future decades, to admit to liking Lennon will probably provoke a similar response (assuming the current trend of non-judgmentalism continues).

All I'm demanding is the right to make a value-judgment. But, it is no surprise to me that, in an age when all artistic expression is taken as equal, the art that floats to the top is most salacious, most populist, and, often as a result, most horrible.

[MarkBastable]

Lok's right, you know. It's not snobbish to say this thing is better than that thing. It's not even snobbish to say that this thing is better than that thing as judged against some objective criteria about which we might want to have a whole other argument.

What's snobbish is to think that anyone with a different opinion is too dumb or ill-educated or out-of-touch to understand that you're right.

Lok hasn't done that.

[Taliesin]

The quote Aunt mentioned doesn't come from a German baron but from a play by Hann Johst, a Nazi playwright in the year 1933 (though often misattributed to Göring) and the exact phrasing is "Wenn ich Kultur höre ...entsichere ich meinen Browning!" - "When I hear the word "culture", I release the safety catch of my Browning"


I'm with MarkBastable in this. If our culture (btw, this question assumes that all the forumites share the same culture- I wouldn't be so certain) has gone to the trashcan, then it has probably been there all the time. The continous wailing about the decline of culture looks a bit like the countless end-of-the-world-prophecies - well, it didn't happen the last three hundred times, but this time it will! At some point you just become skeptical.

Just for provocation, I'll claim the exact opposite: I claim that the Western culture is rising because due to economical and demographical reasons there are now more people than ever who are talented, intelligent, can afford a good education and are less stifled by economical hardships and therefore can produce and enjoy more great cultural works.

Also, (obligatory) xkcd reference.

More harm has been done by people panicked over societal decline than societal decline ever did.

[OrphanPip]

I was just at the opera yesterday, packed house full of people from all different walks of life. If you think cultural venues were like that 100 years ago you're delusional.

All we got here is beginning with an unverifiable premise, that being the vaguely defined decline of Western culture, and then throwing all your individual biases at it in an attempt to explain the decline. If you're lucky something may stick.

Edit: Also, that article is nonsense, Leo let slip the word accidentally; this guy is making it out to be a master marketing campaign. Ridiculous, because no one in this thread would care or even distinctly remember the incident if the article wasn't posted, because the use of **** is so God damn mundane these days.

[Emil Miller]

Just for provocation, I'll claim the exact opposite: I claim that the Western culture is rising because due to economical and demographical reasons there are now more people than ever who are talented, intelligent, can afford a good education and are less stifled by economical hardships and therefore can produce and enjoy more great cultural works.

Also, (obligatory) xkcd reference.

That might be true according to your perception but it doesn't stack up against my experience or what Neely and Lokasenna have posted.
In the UK people are finding it increasingly difficult to finance a good education because they are stifled by economic hardship. As for producing more great cultural works, I don't see any in the trash culture which Lokasenna accurately describes and which I am in total agreement with. As he has pointed out, for every one person who does enjoy culture in the artistic sense of the word, there are hundreds who don't; many of whom are intellectually incapable of doing so. Opera houses, concert halls etc. may be full but their total audiences are minuscule in comparison to the population at large who never use them because they would much rather stay at home and watch such great cultural achievements as Desperate Housewives or trashy soap operas.