Literature, poetry... It really doesn't matter in the real world, does it?

[LostPrincess13]

Does it?

[JBI]

I never realized poetry was not part of the real world.

That being said, it matters far more than one gives credit. Poetry, for instance, is the stuff nationhood is made of.

[Lokasenna]

Of course it matters.

[cacian]

I like to think what matter most is the mind behind it all but yes whatever reads right to you be it literature poetry then that is the essential.

[Paulclem]

If you line poetry up next to poverty, tragedy and war, well no, it doesn't seem to matter at the time. But these things require positive action to solve them. Where poetry may help is in the reflectve process after, such as in the war poets of WW1. They had a massive effect on attitudes before WW2. Poetry may help with personal reflection on personal tragedies and it might inspire a more selfless attitude to the poor as Blake did in Songs of Innocence and Experience. I reckon it is difficult to pin down why poetry might be important. After all you could say the same of music and art conpared to more immediate concerns, but the same eould apply.

[Shell Mcc]

If you line poetry up next to poverty, tragedy and war, well no, it doesn't seem to matter at the time. But these things require positive action to solve them. Where poetry may help is in the reflectve process after, such as in the war poets of WW1. They had a massive effect on attitudes before WW2. Poetry may help with personal reflection on personal tragedies and it might inspire a more selfless attitude to the poor as Blake did in Songs of Innocence and Experience. I reckon it is difficult to pin down why poetry might be important. After all you could say the same of music and art conpared to more immediate concerns, but the same eould apply.

Wow I couldn't have put it better myself.

Also why not enjoy entertainment for the pure pleasure of it. If life is to be enjoyed reading is one way to enjoy it. There doesn't have to be a social purpose behind it. Some people just read to forget to go to into an imaginary world. Others just do it to expose themselves to places they could not physically travel to or live a life they wouldn't choose in the real world

[MorpheusSandman]

When people say that poetry/literature/art doesn't matter, it's usually because they're only considering the entertainment value of such things against real world problems like poverty and war. However, as Paulclem said, it's underrated just how much the arts express and shape our attitudes about such things. Even art that argues for evil, like DW Griffith's Birth of a Nation, provides a medium by which people can come together and argue over something that leads to change. It's telling that after BoaN Griffith went on to direct Intolerance, expressing almost the opposite viewpoint. BoaN certainly had an effect on him. Art is also valuable in how it can get people thinking and talking about subjects they'd never really considered before, or how it can seemingly embody the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of other people besides the creator. I've spoken before about how when I saw the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion it finally gave me a means for making sense of the hell I'd gone through years before, as well as a means for getting through it and over it. That's what great art can do that has very real effects on the lives of individuals and, by accumulation, entire cultures.

[stlukesguild]

"All art is quite useless."- Oscar Wilde

"Nothing is more useful to man than those arts which have no
utility." -Ovid

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."- John Adams, 2nd U.S. President 1735-1826

"Artists are the people among us who realize creation didn't stop on the sixth day."- Joel Peter Witkin, painter

"Artists are just children who refuse to put down their crayons."- Al Hirschfeld

"The allotted function of Art is not, as is often assumed, to put across ideas, to propagate thoughts, to serve as an example. The aim of art is to prepare a person for death, to plough and harrow his soul, rendering it capable of turning to good." -Tarkovsky

"How important are the visual arts in our society? I feel strongly that the visual arts are of vast and incalculable importance. Of course I
could be prejudiced. I am a visual art."- Kermit the Frog

[Paulclem]

There's also the subtle effect any literature might have upon the development of a person's attitudes. Does poetry affect people? In some way it might help to forge opinion. Religious poems certainly do.

[miyako73]

I don't know with other countries. Revolutions in my country were intensified or inflamed by nationalistic songs and poems.

[Paulclem]

I don't know with other countries. Revolutions in my country were intensified or inflamed by nationalistic songs and poems.

The Red army in WW2 were boosted by literature, such as extracts from Tolstoy's War and Peace and poetry such as by Konstantin Simonov. Apparently the poem Wait For Me was very popular. (I'm not familiar with his stuff but have read of it and the effect he had).

http://www.simonov.co.uk/biography.htm

http://www.simonov.co.uk/waitforme.htm

[stlukesguild]

The arts have always been employed as propaganda. Americans fought World War II to Hollywood films and news reels, pin-ups...

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_rolf-armstrong-pinup-artist_10.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view&current=rolf-armstrong-pinup-artist_10.jpg)
soundtrack of big-band jazz

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_Betty_Grable_20th_Century_Fox.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view&current=Betty_Grable_20th_Century_Fox.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_Nose_art_015.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view&current=Nose_art_015.jpg)

... and a soundtrack of big-band jazz. This is the sort of utilitarianism that someone like Oscar Wilde was speaking against: the "use" of art to promote ideas or values other than those of the artist, be it that of the nation/state, the church, etc...

[miyako73]

I'm more interested in the use of poetry not as a propaganda but as a language or a narrative people fall back on to understand their collective emotion or, in the case of a revolution, what they are fighting for.

[Paulclem]

The arts have always been employed as propaganda. Americans fought World War II to Hollywood films and news reels, pin-ups...

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_rolf-armstrong-pinup-artist_10.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view&current=rolf-armstrong-pinup-artist_10.jpg)
soundtrack of big-band jazz

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_Betty_Grable_20th_Century_Fox.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view&current=Betty_Grable_20th_Century_Fox.jpg)

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_Nose_art_015.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view&current=Nose_art_015.jpg)

... and a soundtrack of big-band jazz. This is the sort of utilitarianism that someone like Oscar Wilde was speaking against: the "use" of art to promote ideas or values other than those of the artist, be it that of the nation/state, the church, etc...

It's a sentiment that I would go along with, but it gives some perspective to the question is poetry - or any art - important? It is because it can have a profound effect and can be so easily misused by politicians, governments etc.

[E.A Rumfield]

Nothing really "matters", but in this senseless world somehow you have to keep your head or hang yourself, it's all the same in the end. Your world is what you make of it, in my world the words of the Canadian poet Milton Acorn hold far more weight than the double talk of talking head politicians. It is important to express yourself creatively, otherwise you express yourself destructively as Henry Miller said more eloquently than I can.

A little side point, human beings are not the only creatures that express themselves. Off the top of my head animals that sing songs: dogs, birds (of course), whales/dolphins. I'm sure their are many more. Music is in the air, as is poetry. I read a book that said something of how poetry exists outside the page because poetry has it's roots in oral tradition and really poetry is the art of imitating speech. Whereas prose cannot exist outside the page. It has no connection to our world.

[miyako73]

"A little side point, human beings are not the only creatures that express themselves. Off the top of my head animals that sing songs: dogs, birds (of course), whales/dolphins. I'm sure their are many more. Music is in the air, as is poetry. I read a book that said something of how poetry exists outside the page because poetry has it's roots in oral tradition and really poetry is the art of imitating speech. Whereas prose cannot exist outside the page. It has no connection to our world."

This is interesting. The beat in Poetry not in prose mimics that of a heart or a pulse. It even flows like how we inhale and exhale. Maybe that's the reason why poetry stirs emotions more and is more effective.

[stlukesguild]

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."- John Adams, 2nd U.S. President 1735-1826

I agree with Adams in believing that the arts are something essential to being human. William Blake, John Ruskin, William Morris and many others...

I immediately think of William Faulkner's Nobel Prize acceptance speech...

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1949/faulkner-speech.html

...have all argued as to the moral value of art... and the value of art upon human morale. Morris, especially, recognized that art had a value upon human morale both to the creator and the viewer. He recognized, like Blake, the dangers of industrialization... that the industrial revolution had resulted in the elimination of the craftsman who created an object from start to finish... and could take pride in his achievement... and had reduced him to a mere to a mere interchangeable laborer... one of many working on an assembly-line, who at the end of the week had nothing to show for his time and effort but a paycheck. Morris also recognized that this same individual went home to live in a building no different from his neighbor's filled with mass-produced crap that was wholly utilitarian: functional... yet lacking any attention to the aesthetic. This, Morris suggested, was a large part of modern humanity's spiritual malaise... the sense that we were all nothing more than cogs in the machine... lacking anything unique to offer... easily replaced. Morris felt that working as a craftsman and filling one's dwelling-place with objects that one considered "beautiful" was both ennobling and humanizing.

The American Abstract Expressionist painter, Robert Motherwell, actually went before the US Congress and argued against Modernist architectural practices: tract-housing and stripping the land for housing developments and ugly strip malls... declaring that such were not merely ugly, but also demoralizing and dehumanizing. Of course the politicians just nodded politely at the "crazy artist" and went on supporting the construction of hideous strip malls, etc... Now I am not naive enough to wholly accept the notion that art is ennobling in the way that the Romantics thought. We all know that many of the high-ranking Nazis were aesthetes... as were the murderous feuding families of the Italian Renaissance such as the Borgias, Medici, Orsini, etc... We all know the line from The Third Man, surely...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cydkTy6GmFA

Still it is perhaps telling that the wealthier suburbs now often boast of commercial districts with a sincere attention to aesthetics... a human sense... an illusion of the lovely ideal old town square... which suggests that the value of art upon human morale is not wholly unrecognized. Unfortunately, for better or worse, Art still remains the past-time and an entitlement of the wealthy.

[Scheherazade]

Would like to hear the argument behind this statement but LostPrincess will not make an appearance for the next 3 months and we will never find out.

[qimissung]

Poetry matters. In addition to the other fine arguments here, I would like to add that, as humans we have the urge to create. And also, without art, in all it's varied forms, our very souls are impoverished.

"If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft,
And from thy slender store two loaves alone to thee are left,
Sell one, and with the dole
Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul."


Moslih Eddin Saadi

In order to survive fully, we must have beauty.

[AuntShecky]

Of course they matter. William Carlos Williams has an eloquent line affirming the necessity for poetry: "Men have died for lack of what is written there."
(Paraphrasing)


... and a soundtrack of big-band jazz. This is the sort of utilitarianism that someone like Oscar Wilde was speaking against: the "use" of art to promote ideas or values other than those of the artist, be it that of the nation/state, the church, etc...

Gosh, I couldn't disagree with this more. As an aficionado of Big Band Jazz,I would say that propaganda was the last thing on the minds of the Duke, the Count, Woody Herman, Artie Shaw, and Benny Goodman. Just because big band jazz flourished during the 1940s doesn't necessarily mean there was anything intrinsically jingoistic about it. Social justice did however play a part with Artie and Benny, as both made a conscientious gestures toward racial integration, as the former's band included Billie Holiday and the latter's, Lionel Hampton. Additionally, American jazz artists such as Goodman, Louis Armstrong and (later) Dave Brubeck were unofficial cultural ambassadors overseas. But to assert that an art form that encompasses both individual virtuosity (e.g. improvisation) and the collective effort of a band is in any way "utilitarian" is flat-out wrong, in my ever-increasingly humble opinion.


Unfortunately, for better or worse, Art still remains the past-time and an entitlement of the wealthy.

I say "for worse" because the last thing poor people need is more deprivation. Though seldom encouraged by the ruling class to do so, academics and social reformers have discovered that the arts and humanities can actually help people of the lower classes get "a leg up.":

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?58020-Escaping-quot-The-Surround-of-Force-quot-How-the-Arts-and-Humanities-Can-Defeat-Poverty

(Of course, this notion might seem as if it is steering art back to the dreadful realm of utilitarianism --I agree with your disdain for it, StLuke'sGuild -- but it is to be hoped that once people develop an appreciation for the arts, they will realize the principle of ars gratia artis -- or at least one would hope so!)

And finally, why will the original poster (LostPrincess) be in absentia for the next ninety days? And how do you know this?

[Alexander III]

Truth be told the real world for the individual is a rather finite affair. Truth be told even Napoleon didn't really matter.

[stlukesguild]

Gosh, I couldn't disagree with this more. As an aficianado of Big Band Jazz,I would say that propaganda was the last thing on the minds of the Duke, the Count, Woody Herman, Artie Shaw, and Benny Goodman.

The intentions of the artists aren't really at issue. I doubt that Jackson Pollock...

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_lm1024.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view&current=lm1024.jpg)

or Mark Rothko...

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/th_rothko_redorange_l.jpg (http://s1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg581/StlukesguildOhio/?action=view&current=rothko_redorange_l.jpg)

... were at all interested in promoting American Capitalist values vs the Cold-War Era Soviets... but the US State Department employed both Abstract Expressionist paintings and jazz as a means of suggesting the greater freedom of the American way of life. Jazz was employed in a similar manner during WWII. And there were indeed propagandist efforts made by many of the biggest names of the era:

"The White Cliffs of Dover" - Jimmy Dorsey
"Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" - Andrews Sisters
"Der Fuehrer's Face" - Spike Jones
"When The Lights Go On Again (All Over The World)" - Vaughn Monroe & His Orchestra
Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree (With Anyone Else But Me) - Andrews Sisters

Any number of performers participated in WWII USO shows. One of the most intriguing, was Marlene Dietrich who turned down highly lucrative offers from the Nazis to return to Germany. She was a regular performer for the USO... performing for Allied troops on the front lines in Algeria, Italy, England and France, and went into Germany with Generals James M. Gavin and George S. Patton. When asked why she had done this, in spite of the obvious danger of being within a few kilometres of German lines, she replied, "aus Anstand" — "out of decency". Dietrich was awarded the Medal of Freedom by the US in 1945. She said that this was her proudest accomplishment.[25] She was also awarded the Légion d'honneur by the French government as recognition for her wartime work.

Her song, Lili Marleen, was recorded in both German and English and became the favorite of British and German forces...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUsePoATbrU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLU8ybLaI2k

Perhaps the favorite of the Allies was Vera Lynn's We'll Meet Again (famously used in Dr. Strangelove)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9Tw16dNyJs

The Wikipedia thread on Music used as Propaganda in WWII notes that the Allies... especially the US and UK had an advantage in that the desires of most people and most musicians were in line with that of the leaders/government. This meant the American and British government could count on popular music reflecting much of the same war aims that the government wanted. The people of America wanted a quick final victory over the Axis without compromise. The Allies promoted popular music and jazz as the Democratic/Egalitarian music of the people vs the "eltist" music of the Nazis such as Wagner's beloved Wagner. In reality, the German population was just as enamored with jazz as the Americans, while many of the modern classical musicians and composers were clearly anti-Nazi and/or outlawed by the Nazis.

Social justice did however play a part with Artie and Benny, as both made a conscientious gestures toward racial integration, as the former's band included Billie Holiday and the latter's, Lionel Hampton. Additionally, American jazz artists such as Goodman, Louis Armstrong and (later) Dave Brubeck were unofficial cultural ambassadors overseas.

One has to wonder just how successful such efforts at promoting the superiority of the American culture were when one considers other musicians such as Sidney Beckett and Dexter Gordon who found it easier to live in Paris than in the US... simply because they were Black.

I say "for worse"...

That's open to debate. We have seen a shift in the arts from art dominated by the wealthy and educated to art dominated by the masses. Has music improved? I'll leave that up to you? Are Dan Brown, Twilight and Harry Potter a step up from James Joyce and T.S. Eliot?

Though seldom encouraged by the ruling class to do so, academics and social reformers have discovered that the arts and humanities can actually help people of the lower classes get "a leg up."... Of course, this notion might seem as if it is steering art back to the dreadful realm of utilitarianism --I agree with your disdain for it, StLuke'sGuild -- but it is to be hoped that once people develop an appreciation for the arts, they will realize the principle of ars gratia artis -- or at least one would hope so!

A noble ideal... but I am resigned to believe that a passion for the "fine arts" will always be reserved to a limited audience. This has evolved from an audience born into wealth and power and education to an audience whose passion for art is an elective affinity... a choice. But I have have absolutely no faith in Democratic or Egalitarian political systems when it comes to the appreciation and support of the arts. We all know that the arts are the first thing cut during times of economic woes.

[Paulclem]

A noble ideal... but I am resigned to believe that a passion for the "fine arts" will always be reserved to a limited audience. This has evolved from an audience born into wealth and power and education to an audience whose passion for art is an elective affinity... a choice. But I have have absolutely no faith in Democratic or Egalitarian political systems when it comes to the appreciation and support of the arts. We all know that the arts are the first thing cut during times of economic woes.

It is all about access, micro culture, exposure - lots of factors. In my own case, I really like Peter and the Wolf. I suspect that how I feel about that music, is how others feel about classical music in general. the fact is that I heard Peter and the Wolf at school through a teacher who wanted to share it with us, and who may have had some understanding of what effect it could have. I was 9. Otherwise i had little or no exposure to classical stuff, and so I have never developed any deep appreciation of it. It's the same with fine art, opera, ballet. The one thing i did have exposure to from an early age is literature. I was lucky coming from where I did, but my shortcomings in terms of being cultured are glaringly obvious.

I don't know what the answer would be - it's not something you can impose, as Shakespeare has been - without perhaps a number of other factors - parents, peers, family in general all sharing some kind of appreciation. The poorer end of society are not exposed, and so their children are not exposed. The whole idea becomes a defining characteristic, and people develop their own culture - just as Black Music was developed, and all the genres of modern music.

[stlukesguild]

I agree that artistic tastes are in a majority of instances defined by the artistic culture that we are immersed in. In many instances I see that in the musical tastes of members here. I suspect that the best education may achieve is to expose individuals to alternatives. But this exposure is up against immersion. If you are immersed in the popular music of the moment... all your peers play it, talk about it, love it... you hear it continually on the radio or TV... what are the chances that a passing exposure to Richard Strauss' Alpine Symphony or Bach's Well Tempered Clavier is going to change your world?

I'm reminded of that scene in The Confederacy of Dunces in which the main character, Ignatius is employed by a pants manufacturer. Visiting the factory he discerns a problem with morale and assumes that it must be due to the crude jazz music blaring forth from the loudspeakers. However, upon turning off the offending noise he finds that workers all become outraged demanding he turn the music back on. As someone obsessed with Renaissance music and Gregorian Chants, he cannot fathom how they could possibly love the cacophony of sounds coming out of the speakers... and can only presume they have been brainwashed in a Pavlovian manner into actually believing that they like it. To a great extent... this is true.

How many teens and twenty-somethings have we had here who became outraged when someone suggested Harry Potter... or A Catcher in the Rye... or any populist novel wasn't all that? I suspect that the number of us who are passionate about music or art or literature beyond the realm of that we were immersed in is quite limited... and I doubt it is the result of a mere exposure to artistic alternatives. There must be more involved... a conscious decision to dig deeper... a curiosity to seek out alternatives.

I know from my own experience that I had little exposure to anything but popular and country music as a child, and art was virtually non-existent. Years later, after visiting my in my apartment, my father asked my brother, "Who's he think he is. Does he think he's better than all of us with all those books?" as if the reason I had so many books (reading them not being a possibility) was simply to take on airs.

As an art teacher in an urban district I spend my days offering what exposure to the arts that I can (outside of that promoted by the mass-media and popular culture). But I am quite aware of how futile an endeavor this is in a majority of instances, which may account for much of my distrust of Democracy and Egalitarianism with regard to the arts. Popular culture... which some champion as the arts of the masses... is really the art of the mass-media, and has drowned out most alternative voices.

[jajdude]

Another quote: "Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world." (Percy B. Shelley)

A lot of our words and sayings come from literature, of course, and it has been used in song and put on the screen. There are many famous expressions and cliches, even if we don't know where they come from. Even those who scoff at the usefulness of it all have been shaped by it. They may say they have no time for poetry while singing a song they like. They may use or hear words and expressions that exist because some writer put them down at some point. Writing helps shape thought, and we all have been touched by it, directly or indirectly. The ability to understand others, and to express yourself well, is just as important now as ever.

[osho]

To say literature does not matter in the real world is likened to feelings, passions do not matter. Or to put more expressively there is no room for sentiments, sublimity in this world. The world has been mechanized, no doubt but not completely and there is still a little space for humanity, love, passion. We are not totally robotic, though we are graduating into that state. We still are not bereft of passion, of kindness, sincerity when we just confront a situation in which humans suffer the insufferable. Of course robotized life styles, automated workplaces, and the news we hear every morning about the countless children dying of starvation, malnutrition, of curable diseases and the like gives some indication that humans are getting more and more insensitive,but sill there is a ray of hope and indeed literature gives this hope.

[ralfyman]

OP is probably referring to the proliferation of commercial mass entertainment, such as television.

[mona amon]

As an art teacher in an urban district I spend my days offering what exposure to the arts that I can (outside of that promoted by the mass-media and popular culture). But I am quite aware of how futile an endeavor this is in a majority of instances, which may account for much of my distrust of Democracy and Egalitarianism with regard to the arts. Popular culture... which some champion as the arts of the masses... is really the art of the mass-media, and has drowned out most alternative voices.

StLukes, what do you mean by democracy and egalitarianism with regard to the arts? Who is going to (or trying to) bring this about? I can only think of free libraries, museums and art galleries and such, so everyone can have access (and actually the internet is a great democratizer in this way, at least for people who have access to a computer), but that is not what you meant, right?

[JCamilo]

There is more of course, Educational System for example works hard to make some art "accessible" to all, this include the fact the majority of population can read. And before the Internet, you had tv shows, encyclopedias and other collections taking artworks that would be restrict to museums to every house. Heck, even money had it, so everyone could know them.

[Paulclem]

I agree that artistic tastes are in a majority of instances defined by the artistic culture that we are immersed in. In many instances I see that in the musical tastes of members here. I suspect that the best education may achieve is to expose individuals to alternatives. But this exposure is up against immersion. If you are immersed in the popular music of the moment... all your peers play it, talk about it, love it... you hear it continually on the radio or TV... what are the chances that a passing exposure to Richard Strauss' Alpine Symphony or Bach's Well Tempered Clavier is going to change your world?

I'm reminded of that scene in The Confederacy of Dunces in which the main character, Ignatius is employed by a pants manufacturer. Visiting the factory he discerns a problem with morale and assumes that it must be due to the crude jazz music blaring forth from the loudspeakers. However, upon turning off the offending noise he finds that workers all become outraged demanding he turn the music back on. As someone obsessed with Renaissance music and Gregorian Chants, he cannot fathom how they could possibly love the cacophony of sounds coming out of the speakers... and can only presume they have been brainwashed in a Pavlovian manner into actually believing that they like it. To a great extent... this is true.

How many teens and twenty-somethings have we had here who became outraged when someone suggested Harry Potter... or A Catcher in the Rye... or any populist novel wasn't all that? I suspect that the number of us who are passionate about music or art or literature beyond the realm of that we were immersed in is quite limited... and I doubt it is the result of a mere exposure to artistic alternatives. There must be more involved... a conscious decision to dig deeper... a curiosity to seek out alternatives.

I know from my own experience that I had little exposure to anything but popular and country music as a child, and art was virtually non-existent. Years later, after visiting my in my apartment, my father asked my brother, "Who's he think he is. Does he think he's better than all of us with all those books?" as if the reason I had so many books (reading them not being a possibility) was simply to take on airs.

As an art teacher in an urban district I spend my days offering what exposure to the arts that I can (outside of that promoted by the mass-media and popular culture). But I am quite aware of how futile an endeavor this is in a majority of instances, which may account for much of my distrust of Democracy and Egalitarianism with regard to the arts. Popular culture... which some champion as the arts of the masses... is really the art of the mass-media, and has drowned out most alternative voices.

This is my experience - immersion in popular culture, the culture of my peers and my parents. I was very fortunate that I was able to develop in a literary way - as it was something unerstood as positive by my parents, whereas they had little or no knowledge of art, music, history, theatre etc etc.

I also agree that few will become interested in it because of the power of popular culture over people in their formative years. The opprtunity to develop in these areas is afforded to our upper classes, the attenders at private school etc because of their parents and family intially, and then their school and peers.

One way to improve this is through parents and grandparents. They do have an enormous influence on children - even if this is susumed by the children's later interests and the influence of peers. Of course, imposing "culture" through school wouldn't work, but an influential teaher may reach a few kids too. It's a bit sad that so few people are able to access a wider range of culture just because of where they were born.

[Emil Miller]

I was fortunate in that I grew up before TSHTF i.e. before the advent of ultra mass media, and in formative years had some good teachers who introduced their pupils to reading and music. At that time the radio, and specifically the BBC, was a fount of knowledge apart from being an entertainment medium. As a boy, I naturally gravitated to boy's books but they were usually written by established authors and I became a voracious reader, thanks to a public library system that enabled people to travel to libraries outside of one's immediate locality. Children have a natural curiosity and, as the media became increasingly dominant, I wondered at its power to mesmerise people into irrational behaviour: anyone who has read H G Wells, Aldous Huxley or George Orwell will recognise this fact. In my view, the mass media are the enemy of reason: which is the foundation stone of culture. There is no such thing as 'popular culture' which is a euphemism for manipulated mass behaviour. Of course, there are varying degrees of entertainment but much of it has little correlation to culture and exists to extract as much money as possible from the gullible.
So. in reply to the OP, the answer is yes it does matter in the real world, but only to those who are able to appreciate it.

[Paulclem]

Within the English GCSE are studies about media, and I think it is the perfect opportunity to introduce a critical view of mass media. I think opinions about important topics are manipulatd by the TV and newspapers - it is quite obvious in the very selective coverage of world affairs by the BBC - (and the BBC is supposed to be notable for its unbiased stance).

I feel that being able to critically read or listen to opinions is a skill that is sorely neglected, but is vital to prevent the kind of uninformed rabble rousing we occaisionally get.

[AuntShecky]

A little side point, human beings are not the only creatures that express themselves. Off the top of my head animals that sing songs: dogs, birds (of course), whales/dolphins.

Art is more than mere "self-expression," even if you believe that each single, individual animal indeed possesses what we think of as a unique "self." There’s an more important difference, though, Miyako. As far as research in the topic has gone, the creatures whom you cite do “sing,” but the so-called songs stem from innate instinct rather than from the creative efforts which distinguish the human ability to create art. In other words, with birds there is a highly limited repertoire involving mating calls, and perhaps distress signals, each warbling essentially the “same old song” varying not a note from generation to generation. I really doubt that your average “whippoorwill high on a hill” would ever come up with a “new note,” far less spontaneously break into a brand new, Puccini-style aria. I didn’t know that dogs could sing, the notorious recording of “Jingle Bells” notwithstanding. (Howling at the moon doesn’t count.) The songs of dolphins and whales are well known – there was an actual hit record album by the latter – but could they come up with new melodies and lyrics? I seriously doubt it.

And to reply to StLukesguild:

Jazz was employed in a similar manner during WWII. And there were indeed propagandist efforts made by many of the biggest names of the era:
"The White Cliffs of Dover" - Jimmy Dorsey
"Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" - Andrews Sisters
"Der Fuehrer's Face" - Spike Jones
"When The Lights Go On Again (All Over The World)" - Vaughn Monroe & His Orchestra
Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree (With Anyone Else But Me) - Andrews Sisters

Although these songs have topics specific to WWII topics, they might have been written out of the prevailing Zeitgeist of the moment rather than cranked out “to order” as propagandist tools. I say this because some of those songs outlasted their wartime popularity, resurfacing now and then to this day. The “Boogie Woogie” one was a mega-hit for Bette Midler, and as you later mentioned, one song from the era served as a theme to Dr. Strangelove[/I over the closing credits.

One has to wonder just how successful such efforts at promoting the superiority of the American culture were when one considers other musicians such as Sidney Beckett and Dexter Gordon who found it easier to live in Paris than in the US... simply because they were Black.

I agree with you on this one, StLukes, but I think the reason the jazz artists flocked to Paris wasn’t solely because of racial injustice, but rather economics. American jazz has always been more popular in Japan and in Europe (especially in The Netherlands)– I’m not sure why, except perhaps that young people in the United States haven’t been educated enough to appreciate America’s only native art form, the notorious Bart Simpson quote be damned.

Because jazz artists can more easily eke out a living in foreign markets might be one of the reasons Sidney (Bechet, not “Beckett”) and Dexter [I]et al. were expatriates. On the other hand, high-quality mini-series like Tremé might introduce jazz to American audiences, who , if every glimmering of taste hasn’t already been leached out of them, might come to appreciate it.


We have seen a shift in the arts from art dominated by the wealthy and educated to art dominated by the masses. Has music improved? I'll leave that up to you? Are Dan Brown, Twilight and Harry Potter a step up from James Joyce and T.S. Eliot?

Only because American kids don’t know any better, never having been taught how to distinguish the wheat from the chaff. They simply don’t know what they’re missing, since they’ve been brainwashed into swallowing the crap which the corporations force-feed them. They think they “like” this stuff because “everybody else” seems to like it.

Even worse – and it’ll be obvious to you that Dwight MacDonald’s theories have influenced me– is the “mid-cult” stuff – Downton Abbey, Broadway musical versions of “Les Mis,” the watered-down Disneyfication of Aida, and the like. One NYT critic attributed Dan Brown’s success to the fact that Brown suckers people into thinking that they’re smart, even though the stuff he shoves at them is pure drivel.

The problem is with our public education, and the crass manipulation of commercial markets, especially in the music business. Maybe “the masses” are deliberately steered away from the arts, and that’s just how the Powers that Be want it.


. . .but I am resigned to believe that a passion for the "fine arts" will always be reserved to a limited audience. This has evolved from an audience born into wealth and power and education to an audience whose passion for art is an elective affinity... a choice. But I have have absolutely no faith in Democratic or Egalitarian political systems when it comes to the appreciation and support of the arts. We all know that the arts are the first thing cut during times of economic woes.


Yeah, but government aid to the Arts was always nominal to begin with. But to your central thesis that economically disadvantaged people don't choose to appreciate the arts I must disagree.

I will wager that there is no one – no one – on the LitNet who has emerged from a lower socio-economic place than yours truly, and in many ways I am still firmly entrenched there, though obviously not by choice. Moreover, I am one LitNutter who proudly supports upward mobility, and a truly democratic, egalitarian political system. The arts are for everyone. They were never meant to be hoarded by the rich.

[stlukesguild]

But to your central thesis that economically disadvantaged people don't choose to appreciate the arts I must disagree.

My "thesis" is not that economically disadvantaged people choose not to seriously participate in the arts. In fact I have stated the exact opposite: Art remains an "elitist" endeavor... but it is no longer wealth and social class that determine whether one participates but rather an elective affinity... a personal choice. Undoubtedly the wealthy still benefit from a greater exposure to the arts and culture... and to the broad alternatives within these. The arts are not slashed from the budgets of the private schools and when the wealthier students go on to college they do not need to fear that a choice to major in French literature or music or philosophy or art will spell a life of penury. Out of the majority of all of the populace, however, I see but a small percentage that choose to become seriously involved in the arts beyond that promoted by the mass media.

I am all for an Egalitarian/Democratic approach to arts education... giving a fair share of exposure to the arts to everyone. On the other hand, I don't trust an Egalitarian/Democratic process with regard toward judging and choosing what art is of merit. This results in little more than a popularity contest... and we all are aware of the less than stellar results... and how these have been increasingly manipulated by the media.

[mona amon]

The problem is with our public education, and the crass manipulation of commercial markets, especially in the music business. Maybe “the masses” are deliberately steered away from the arts, and that’s just how the Powers that Be want it.- AuntShecky

Is it really all these that are at fault, or is it just the natural order of things that only a few people can appreciate the higher stuff? No amount of exposure to math in school ever made me capable of appreciating the beauties of higher mathematics, for instance, because I just do not have any natural talent for it. Similarly, one can expose the kids to any amount of good art and literature, but most of them are going to settle for something far less than Shakespeare or Dickens.

Having said that, I do realise the importance of a good education in art and culture, so that those who do have the ability to appreciate such things do not miss out, due to lack of exposure to the good stuff.

[JCamilo]

Of course, appreciation of art as something "elitist" has nothing to do with public education. Popular art is also elitist because it also select the best artists and also can appeal just to a selected few. And frankly, there is never such thing as social groups that didnt appreciate or produced art. Some many not have operas, but everyone had music. (Included birds, who do not sing the same music, indiviuals of same species do have different performances and even "songs").