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High Culture and Popular Culture

Mole

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What I'm questioning is why we place higher value on some forms of culture while dismissing others as inferior. I understand where you're coming from, because sometimes I feel the same way, but isn't that a kind of an elitist attitude? Everyone's experience is different. If people prefer sweet sparkly wine rather than the more mature and delicate good wines, is it fair to judge them? If they identify more with Beyonce's music rather than Mozart's, is it fair to judge them? Culture is culture; art is art. I like to believe there is no high or low, because the effect of art is entirely individual.

This is the conventional wisdom.

And it is the conventional wisdom of the business which sells low culture.

The low culture business does not care about our emotional, intellectual or social wellbeing, they are only concerned with making money by appealing to our lowest instincts.

And just as bad money drives out good, so low culture drives out high culture.

And just as quick money is addictive, so low culture is also addictive.

Low culture appeals to our vanity, while high culture appeals to our self respect.
 

Mole

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Why experience something through an egoistic medium like books when I can watched it through a shared communal tribal medium like film or tv? :)

Good question.

It's true the book does create us as literate individuals, or as you say, egos, while the electric media create us as an electronic tribe in the global village.

However the book has been around since 1440 and has developed a cannon of literature, while the electronic media have only been around since 1840 and have yet to develop their cannon.
 

Mole

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High Culture and Barbarism

High culture serves as a barrier to entry.

It certainly does.

High culture serves as a barrier to the illiterate, to those who prey on the vulnerable, to those ignorant of history, to revolutionaries, to those who want to tear down everything that is good, to those who reject evidence and reason, freedom and equality, to those who reject empathy and creativity, to those who reject the humanism of the Rennaisance.

High culture is a barrier to barbarism.
 

cafe

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I was lucky. I was introduced to high culture by someone who loved me, my father.

High culture has given me good taste. This has proved invaluable as it enables me to distinguish a good environment from a bad environment.

And I need this because I tend to be an idealist and so can easily go where angels fear to tread. But if my good taste tells me something is toxic, I tend to avoid it.

But most of all, high culture is valuable in itself. It may have positive spinoffs, like empathy, social perception, emotional intelligence, and good taste, but high culture appeals to the best in us, so high culture is worthwhile for its own sake.
I feel very fortunate that my family was able to give me halfway decent grammar and taught me to be polite. It was very well done for our social class, especially considering that my mother graduated high school by a correspondence course and I was illegitimate. My grandma (who had a little post-high school education) read me Bible stores and my grandpa (who had a sixth grade education) read me the Sunday comics. They loved me very much, but they could not give me what they did not have. So this is why I ask someone who has it to give, but you do not want to share anything but judgement as far as I can tell. And it makes me a little sad because I like you.
 

Mole

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I don't know enough to know why the Renaissance happened.

The Rennaisance happened because the Bible was written in Ancient Greek.

And just as the Ancient Greek Bible was preserved and translated in the Scriptoriums of the Monks, so the philosophical, medical, mathematical, and scientific writings of the Ancient Greeks were also preserved and translated by the Monks in their Scriptoriums.

And so the Rennaisance happened because we could read the translations of the Ancient Greek texts.

Rennaisance means rebirth. So the Rennaisance is the rebirth of Ancient Greek culture.
 
W

WALMART

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How [MENTION=15886]superunknown[/MENTION] somehow thinks Ni doms are the one's with sloppy thinking, when Ti users make these kinds of statements, well...

Hey, I didn't type them.

Ti types aren't inherently good at correct logic, it is more of a compulsive drive towards logic, even in regards to the irrationality of experience.
 

Julius_Van_Der_Beak

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Hey, I didn't type them.

Ti types aren't inherently good at correct logic, it is more of a compulsive drive towards logic, even in regards to the irrationality of experience.

Yeah.... I don't think that everything I do or say is logical, but I care about it being logical. Is that what you're getting at? I want to dig at things and uncover the truth of them. It doesn't mean I'm never full of shit, just that not being full of shit tends to be important to me. Of course, you can't always tell when you are full of shit.
 

Pseudo

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It certainly does.

High culture serves as a barrier to the illiterate, to those who prey on the vulnerable, to those ignorant of history, to revolutionaries, to those who want to tear down everything that is good, to those who reject evidence and reason, freedom and equality, to those who reject empathy and creativity, to those who reject the humanism of the Rennaisance.

High culture is a barrier to barbarism.

If find it hard to beilive that your high culture has resulted in empathy when you consider people with out your taste and experiences to be "barbarians".
 

21%

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This is the conventional wisdom.

And it is the conventional wisdom of the business which sells low culture.

The low culture business does not care about our emotional, intellectual or social wellbeing, they are only concerned with making money by appealing to our lowest instincts.

And just as bad money drives out good, so low culture drives out high culture.

And just as quick money is addictive, so low culture is also addictive.

Low culture appeals to our vanity, while high culture appeals to our self respect.
There is value in everything, dear Victor, if you know where to look. And I'll ask you to look upon the world with kindness, even when you feel hopeless. :)
 

Holy

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If find it hard to believe that your high culture has resulted in empathy when you consider people with out your taste and experiences to be "barbarians".

This made me smile.

Also, who are the ones who decide high culture? I thought beauty was in the eye of the beholder. I think presentation of ideas is just as important as the content. There is more than one path to enlightenment. What use would it be to embrace peace and shun so called 'barbaric' behavior if one has never experienced it themselves? I'm not saying going out and murdering people. I just mean embracing a baser side of one's own consciousness, at least at one point in their lives seems...a little more genuine to me than thinking that I have experienced the entire world just because I read or saw a movie about it.

That being said, I also understand the other side of the argument as well. I just worry that the ones who usually have easier access to 'high class' material, will always been seen in a perfect light while the ones who do not are just as easily cast into a bias that says that they will always have a negative impact on society. It's not as if the only things you can learn from 'high class' material are virtue. You could just as easily learn how to be an adversary.
 

Zarathustra

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Btw, just ftr, ITT the dominant postmodern cultural paradigm is attacked, and its proponents (aka the sheep) rush to defend it.
 

Holy

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Where is the value in little children who are molested, or raped, or turned into sex slaves?

Aren't you the same poster who insisted that bringing Hitler into the argument was pointless?
This argument is somehow different because...?
Anyway, people can grow from experiences whether they are positive or negative
Also, are you implying that those who embrace high culture have never once stepped outside the bounds of morality and law?

Btw, just ftr, ITT the dominant postmodern cultural paradigm is attacked, and its proponents (aka the sheep) rush to defend it.

You've been attacking people for responding emotionally and then you became the pot calling the kettle black.
A person who seems to pride themselves on being logical, but only seems to think in black and white terms...
It must be very comforting for you
 

Zarathustra

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Aren't you the same poster who insisted that bringing Hitler into the argument was pointless?

Hitler and the Nazis, yes.

This argument is somehow different because...?

Because it actually deals with what she claimed.

The OP did not claim that High Culture will make all people into empathetic pacifists, no matter what, including Hitler and the SS. It claimed that High Culture tends, on the whole, to increase empathy, social perception, and emotional intelligence.

Granted, I knew that, by extension, the implicit comparison of Low Culture to molestation, rape, and selling of children into sex slavery was excessive, but the comparison was not explicit, and, if I wanted to take one step down and further, into comparing (some) Low Culture to sexually exploiting and essentially pimping our (particularly female) children, then all of a sudden the implicit comparison does not sound so absurd. / Zarathustra

Anyway, people can grow from experiences whether they are positive or negative

Did anyone say anything different?

Still, that doesn't mean we should turn all our art into shit just so people can learn from how awful it is.

Also, are you implying that those who are embrace high culture have never once step outside the bounds of morality and law?

No.

And I never said anything close to that.

So if you're gunna come in here trying to claim hypocrisy on my part, why go and explicitly engage in it yourself?

You've been attacking people for responding emotionally...

Actually, that's not what I've been doing.

...and then you became the pot calling the kettle black.

Wrong again.

A person who seems to pride themselves on being logical, but only seems to think in black and white terms...
What a boring thought process you have

Clearly, you have no idea what the fuck you're talking about.

Try having a clue before you shoot off from the mouth.
 
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WALMART

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Yeah.... I don't think that everything I do or say is logical, but I care about it being logical. Is that what you're getting at? I want to dig at things and uncover the truth of them. It doesn't mean I'm never full of shit, just that not being full of shit tend to be important to me. Of course, you can't always tell when you are full of shit.

The last part is pretty important at what I was getting at. I do think Te types are the most fearful of being "correct", to the point of extending their beliefs onto others, "speaking for the pack" as Jung put it. Undoubtedly the trait would spill over to some degree on its introverted variant, but Ti is a lot more comfortable with subjective extensions of logic.

To comment on the OP, I think works we consider intellectual, or offer a form of guidance, are fervently explicit in their direction. Popular culture is more implicit, with scenarios that could be lost on those without sight. This could produce a substantive enough variance to turn up in study, perhaps. I relay a lot of literature as an extension of accumulated experience. Some wise words in the Dhammapada, "Mind precedes all mental states." Literature is undoubtedly a key mind-expanding utility, for better or worse.
 

DiscoBiscuit

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It certainly does.

High culture serves as a barrier to the illiterate, to those who prey on the vulnerable, to those ignorant of history, to revolutionaries, to those who want to tear down everything that is good, to those who reject evidence and reason, freedom and equality, to those who reject empathy and creativity, to those who reject the humanism of the Rennaisance.

High culture is a barrier to barbarism.

I would argue that it is a barrier to the untalented, and that as long as one can mask their more base instincts, it will accept those with all different kinds moral inclinations.
 

Holy

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Hitler and the Nazis, yes. Because it actually deals with what she claimed.
The OP did not claim that High Culture will make all people into empathetic pacifists, no matter what, including Hitler and the SS. It claimed that High Culture tends, on the whole, to increase empathy, social perception, and emotional intelligence.

I'll ask again, who are the ones who decide what 'high' and 'low' culture are?

Granted, I knew that, by extension, the implicit comparison of Low Culture to molestation, rape, and selling of children into sex slavery was excessive, but the comparison was not explicit, and, if I wanted to take one step down and further, into comparing (some) Low Culture to sexually exploiting and essentially pimping our (particularly female) children, then all of a sudden the implicit comparison does not sound so absurd.

Because clearly, that could only happen when those pesky lessers are involved.

This can be perpetuated by either side is what I'm saying.
Some people consider Vladimir Nobokov's novel Lolita to be a fine piece of literature.
Personally, I found it to be more than a little disturbing and pretty damn disgusting.

Still, that doesn't mean we should turn all our art into shit just so people can learn from how awful it is.
Again, my OP addressed this line of thinking. What is 'high' culture? Does 'low' culture equate to 'easily accessible'?
Does 'high' culture equate and appeal to laughably pretentious individuals? Something that is easy for a larger margin of people to relate to doesn't necessarily mean that it's bad.

No. And I never said anything close to that.
I would think...that a highly cultured member of society such as yourself would know the definition of 'implied'.

Actually, that's not what I've been doing.
Purporting elitism may be closer to what you've actually been doing.

Clearly, you have no idea what you're talking about.

Try having a clue before shooting off from the mouth.
'Something I won't even bother to think about must be wrong so you should shut up'.
What a big baby.

increases empathy, social perception, and emotional intelligence.
Clearly
 

DiscoBiscuit

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I'll ask again, who are the ones who decide what 'high' and 'low' culture are?

The opinion makers of the day of course. The NYT editorial board members for example.

Although, more than actually decide what High culture actually is, they mostly continue to agree that what it was in the past (i.e. "reading the classics, traveling to Europe, understanding politics etc...") it still is in the present.
 

Zarathustra

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I'll ask again, who are the ones who decide what 'high' and 'low' culture are?

First off, d***e, you never asked me this.

Second, try dealing with the actual points your interlocutor makes, especially when they've directly answered the question you've asked. All you've done is go off on a new tangent, pretending as if you had asked me something before, even though it has nothing to do with the previous question asked, and the answer given (hints of Ne user: probably INFP [INFx seemed rather obvious from the start]).

But, to answer your question: those who have the knowledge to do so.

Because clearly, that could only happen when those pesky lessers are involved.

Apparently you missed all those times where I said that I partake in both low and high culture readily.

Try opening your eyes before, once again, you shoot your mouth off.

This can be perpetuated by either side is what I'm saying.

If you compare our current dominant low culture with the canon of high culture, there is far more exploitation of children's sexuality going on in low culture than there is in the canon of high culture. There is a semi-interesting discussion to be had here, but you're so missing the proper degree of proportionality to each side that you've rendered such a discussion useless.

Some people consider Vladimir Nobokov's novel Lolita to be a fine piece of literature.
Personally, I found it to be more than a little disturbing and pretty damn disgusting.

That is one interesting piece where an interesting debate could be had.

But, considering that is one book, amongst hundreds or thousands that would properly be considered high culture, 99% of which would yield no such difficult a debate, it would be myopic to focus too intently on Lolita and thus completely miss the forest for one tree.

Again, my OP addressed this line of thinking.

meme.jpg


[emphasis yours]

I'm sorry, I don't recall responding to you, nor knowing or caring who you are.

What is 'high' culture?

A very worthwhile topic of discussion.

Perhaps you should just read the post above that already addressed this topic:
http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=64885&p=2153478&viewfull=1#post2153478

Does 'low' culture equate to 'easily accessible'?

No, probably not.

There is plenty of not-easily-accessible low culture.

Does 'high' culture equate and appeal to laughably pretentious individuals?

Regarding the former, I doubt culture "equates" to people.

And regarding the latter, I don't know, do you like high culture, "Mr. PURE Type"?

I would think...that a highly cultured member of society such as yourself would know the definition of 'implied'.

Well, I am not surprised that a lowly cultured member of society such as yourself would not know the definition of "projection".

Purporting elitism may be closer to what you've actually been doing.

Once again, projection.

And if you expect to get any kind of response from now on, do not selectively respond to what I write. Respond to every part of it. I understand that your entire posting style thus far has been an exercise in not reading, misreading, and reading into what was written what was not actually there, but maybe having to actually deal with each word written would help stop you from doing so.

(wishful thinking, I know, considering the extent of the problems displayed, but we may hope...)

'Something I won't even bother to think about must be wrong so you should shut up'.
What a big baby.

Actually, you have no idea what the fuck I have or have not thought about.

As it stands, you sound like another typical piece of Eurotrash who comes here thinking they know all about what they're talking about, when really they're just another prototypical postmodernist who doesn't have a clue.

Try being around here for more than a day or two, with 4 posts, before thinking you know who the fuck people are and what they're about.

If anyone's a baby around here, it's you.


Ouch.

You really got me there, bub.
 

Holy

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The opinion makers of the day of course. The NYT editorial board members for example.

Although, more than actually decide what High culture actually is, they mostly continue to agree that what it was in the past (i.e. "reading the classics, traveling to Europe, understanding politics etc...") it still is in the present.

Thanks. I wanted a clear cut example. It's not the idea of 'high' culture that I disagree with, but the implications. I think the principles of the people that perpetuate a culture a much more telling than the culture itself. Discernment and elitism are not the same thing.

As a side note, your icon is amazingly distracting.
 
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