eric dorkin wrote:
>
> yes..the knowledge that you are better than your
> neighbor because you can appreciate High
> Culture.....sort of like the scene in Husband & Wives
> where Max Von Sydow's character refuses to sell his
> art to the musician just because it matched the star's
> sofa.
>
There may be such a thing as "higher" culture -- but no attempt to establish such theoretically has ever held water. All attempts, for example, to work out a systematic theory of literature have had to forswear judgment as part of the system. (They don't work anyhow, but they collapse at once if they try to include an evaluative premise of any sort.) That doesn't establish that it _isn't_ "worthwhile" preserving certain texts, for example, but an argument for preserving the _Cantos_ or _Lear_ but letting Eddie Guest's texts disappear can't be grounded on the (alleged) "superiority" of the former.
Carrol