Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>Stated diffefrently, the problem is not that "low
>culture" is more widely spread than the "high culture"
>- as this has probably always been the case. The
>problem is that under the "tyranny of the market" the
>"low culture" becomes the standard bearer, the role
>that used to be performed by the "high culture."
>
Well, yes and no. The point is that the relationship between low and
high culture is not simply one of taste but of historical evolution (and
devolution). We can say for example that with Homer and the age of the
epic, high culture and low culture are one. In a later stage,
exemplified by Bach, high art is the transformation of popular song and
dance by an artist who has the leisure to explore the logic and formal
possibilities of those simple forms. In our time high art and low art
are completely divorced ...to the detriment of both.
In other words, it makes no sense to me to say that high culture is better than low culture, because they are not really separate things. (You cannot really have high art without low art). We could look at the progression of blues to jazz to Porgy and Bess, and it would make no sense to say that one is better than the other. They have completely different aims. It is the achievement of the "high" artist to create a high art by reflecting upon the simple forms that constitute it, but that doesn't make the simple forms worse. Indian classical music is an excellent example -- it is an entirely improvizational form, completely dependent on the simple themes upon which it builds, themes that can seed larger compositions because they still have some social resonance.
This is completely different form Bollywood music, good and entertaining as that music can be.
It is no accident that having lost low art, we no longer have any meaningful high art.
Joanna
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