To repeat, I've already discussed _Empire_, along with many others, when the book came out, here and on PEN-l. If you are interested in our opinions, the posts are in the archives.
At 7:48 PM +1100 1/11/03, Catherine Driscoll wrote:
>It was a general term "popular culture" and, frankly, I thought I
>was giving reasons for its significance.
Popular culture should be seriously analyzed and, when appropriate, left-wing strains of it should be defended, developed, propagated, etc. -- _when and where popular culture -- culture of, by, and for the popular masses such as artisans, workers, peasants, etc. -- actually exists_. Our contemporary cultural studies, however, often use the term "popular culture" to refer to any old mass marketed commodities, in effect becoming sophisticated adjuncts for public relations departments of corporations. I don't see any point in adding to the latter, except maybe as a job or a hobby.
At 7:48 PM +1100 1/11/03, Catherine Driscoll wrote:
> > In American English, the word "popular" has come to become in effect
>> synonymous with "best-selling," "fancied by a large number of
>> people": e.g. "She was popular in high school" (to whatever class she
>> or the high school in which she was popular belonged).
>
>There are several meanings for the word popular, and have been for a very long
>time. Are Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall sufficiently Marxist for me to be
>able to refer you to them for discussion of the relations between definitions
>of "popular"?
I'm interested in returning the now sadly obsolete meanings of the term "popular" in English to "popular culture." "Popular was originally a legal and political term, from _popularis_, L -- belonging to the people. An action popular, from C15, was a legal suit which it was open to anyone to begin. Popular estate and popular government, from C16, referred to a political system constituted or carried on by the whole people, but there was also the sense (cf. COMMON) of 'low' or 'base' (Raymond Williams, _Keywords_, <http://pubpages.unh.edu/~dml3/880williams.htm>). Culture made in the interest or -- better yet -- _process_ of exercise of popular sovereignty and popular democracy would be worthwhile.
At 7:48 PM +1100 1/11/03, Catherine Driscoll wrote:
> > In Spanish, the word "popular" still means "of, by, and for peasants,
>> artisans, workers, etc.": e.g., "Asamblea Popular Revolucionaria de
>> Venezuela" (Cf. <http://www.aporrea.org/>), "a Rebelión Popular
>> Argentina de Diciembre de 2001," etc.
>
>And, how is this significant, relevant, etc and so on and so forth?
Where there are no or few instances of popular rebellions, there is no genuine popular culture, and cultural studies scholars and PR professionals get to conflate "popular" with "mass marketed." There is popular culture in Venezuela and Argentina; there is little to no popular culture in the United States. This real-world difference gets reflected in difference in the usage of the cognomen "popular" between Spanish and English. -- Yoshie
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