The Recent History and Dynamics of Culture - Essay Example

?The Recent History and Dynamics of Culture The history of culture s back to the stone age. When humans began communicating, cultivating crops, creating rituals and cave paintings for the hunt, making sophisticated tools and teaching apprentices, burying the dead culture was formed. Certain changes in technology have made huge changes in culture. Spoken communication gave rise to stories, poetry and music in order to make remembering easier and communicating more entertaining. Written language changed the way we use our brains, and the printing press made knowledge available to all who could learn to read. This led to the rise of the middle classes, and to the development of the idea of a separation between the cultured and the masses. Public education was one result of technology and the rising middle class, as society needed to train its best and brightest in order to maintain productivity and growth. The Internet has now eliminated the need for physical books and made this knowledge available to literally anyone in the world with a connection. The common thread here is language, art and communication. Most parts of any culture fall under one of these categories. Law and government seem to be part of culture, but these are simply formal governance of the cultural values society. So culture is, essentially, everything involving more than one person in a society. This includes literature, music, art, value systems, behavioural norms, institutions, and the interpretation and dissemination of each of these. Food, a major part of culture, is both ritual and art. Music and visual arts are products, and also mirrors, of the culture. However, more than anything else, a society’s language and its texts represent its culture. There are as many definitions of culture as there are cultures to define. At the beginning of the 20th century, culture was considered as separate from the common man, elevated, learned perhaps, possibly spiritual and certainly traditional. This was because there had to be a dividing line between cultured people and everyone else. A knowledge of Latin was ,essential in 18th-20th century England. A knowledge of “the classics” in literature was ,universal among cultured people. American writing was not considered to be literature. (Most Canadians or Australians did not make the cut either.) British and Western Europeans were the sole providers of “literature”. Cultured people were “elite”, so anything readily accessible by the masses was not a part of culture. This meant that even though cultured texts, music and art were available to everyone, only the most cultured could truly understand them, if they even read them. It required a great deal of education to read Homer in the original language, or to appreciate Opera without subtitles, or ballet, or to read works of learned men and discuss the myriad values of each. Theoretically, culture includes modern discourses that bridge the various disciplines which include culture as part of their inquiries. Certain critical practices for cultural analysis are used to create that discourse concerning cultural activities, products, and institutions (Jere Paul Surber). It has expanded to this from the very narrow beginnings in Great Britain in the 18 century. Certain British universities instituted cultural studies in the 1950s. With this kind of base, cultural studies aims for a practical critique of concrete and measurable factors that effect economic and political power. In its beginnings, culture was the pursuit of improvement of person among the aristocracy by virtue of education and practice. One of the first developments of any culture is the appearance of its critics. Critics always try to define what they criticise in order to be able to define its value. This sets them up to be the experts and that attracts people who need to feed their egos. In the late nineteenth century, people like Matthew Arnold saw culture more as a product than an aspect of society. It was something to aspire to as it represented knowledge of the best that man had to offer in arts, music and letters (Bennett 2005). Arnold (1997-2013) suggests that “culture …(is) a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world” Arnold separated the classes to “Them and Us” seeing an irrevocable division based upon education and class. He not only saw himself as “Us” and the middle class as “Them”, but he insisted that the middle class also saw themselves as “Us” and the elite as “Them” (Garver). Arnold saw this cultural divide as practically insurmountable, though he thought that culture could distribute its benefits equally everywhere if it could be appreciated by the lower classes. It was not that he expected to see a classless society but that he expected that culture could shine equally on both levels (Arnold). Arnold saw culture as supported by God and also supporting religion, and this may have been part of the reason he hoped that culture would spread equally over all, including the “masses” in spite of those trying to indoctrinate the lower classes into service to the “machine”, which seems to be anything outside of culture, perhaps including politics. Frank Leavis was, perhaps, one of the first real critics of English literature. According to (Dean 1996), “No critic before Leavis had paid such close attention to words and their connections with ideas. ….He virtually invented (in conjunction with Leavis) the criticism of the novel and the subject of cultural studies “While Leavis never knew real acceptance during his lifetime, he and his writings influenced a whole cadre of critics, and the novel was elevated to the status of literature. Leavis followed the high culture critics that excluded popular novels and other lower class writing from the category of literature. Leavis was active at a time of massive change, and he should have been a respected critic, but he was intractable and unwilling to compromise. So while he virtually started a new way of criticism, he received little reward for it. He, himself, was not so far removed from Arnold, but his own ideas that separated the cultured from the masses were based more upon education than actual status. Arnold saw several separations in classes, considering working class actually below middle class, as he wrote of constables as being rough towards the working class due to the fear of falling back there themselves. This would suggest one or more dividing lines along employment lines with ordinary labour and service people nearly at the bottom, government administrators and educators somewhat higher and, perhaps, doctors, lawyers and such at the top of the middle class. However, Arnold still considers anyone who must work in order to survive financially as either class, defined by their level of “authority”. Arnold Culture was beginning to become a subject of broader interest about mid-twentieth century. Until then, if it was mentioned at all, it was discussed among those who believed themselves to be its guardians. UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) was created in Paris in 1946, making “culture” an international interest worth protecting. However, by this time culture was becoming understood more as the shared values of the people within a given society, rather than just the best that any of them produced. “Best” is such a subjective term, and it matters who is making the judgement. Until culture became a real area of objective scientific and academic study, it was thought of as something to be controlled and disseminated to deserving recipients. Technology, which both Arnold and Leavis feared for different reasons, would change all of that. Leavis worried about what he (and Arnold) called “the machine” the mass standardization of global culture. Arnold was thinking more politically and from his viewpoint of attained higher middle class, while Leavis was less concerned with class structure by lines of culture and position than he was by the economics of mass trade. The industrial revolution led in the mass media and marketing, and everything was marketed. The first half of the twentieth century saw a technological boom that simply accelerated as time passed and has not yet slowed. Mass media started with radio and movies. The advent of television brought mass advertising and culture became a commodity. Mass media and mass distribution created movements in the twentieth century that passed like waves through society on the wings of mass communication and the affluence that followed WWII. Hoggart came on the scene during this transformation and one of the things he noticed right away was the existence of two definitions and he suggests an alternative: a combination of both at once, all intertwined (Hoggart 1999). It should, perhaps, be taken a step further and be defined also as a shared value system and those works which represent those shared values. Williams's discussed the debate concerning culture’s relationship to society in Britain in Culture and Society (1958). He sorted culture into three categories, introducing the idea of mass culture. Williams and Thompson wrote a series of papers published by the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies on mass media and popular culture, but cultural studies was focused upon pop-culture criticism during the middle twentieth century (Berube 2009). A major problem of cultural studies today echoes the problems foreseen by Arnold: that is separating naturally formed culture and that which is artificially created. There are many groups which want, almost desperately, to change culture. Manufacturers, retailers and owners of brands want to see their creations as part of the culture, and they spend enormous amounts of money to accomplish this end. Governments want to raise the national status by infusing accepted culture into regular and adult education systems (Falasca 2011). All of these were part of Arnold’s “machine”. Laws were passed to force a certain amount of disclosure about the contents and use of mass advertised products to protect public safety. Television and movie advertising was regulated and extremely expensive. So companies paying the advertising bills want a visible return on that investment. It soon became apparent that advertising only accomplished two things: providing information about a product and popularizing a brand (Brown, 1991, p. 56). “Media literacy is a multiple literacy that includes informational literacy, computer literacy, film and video literacy, and cultural literacy (Scheibe, 2004; Valmont, 2003).” (Lacina 118+) Media advertising has been called hegemonous by a great number of critics of American culture (Williamson, 1989, p. 19). So the question arises of who controls culture. The media certainly has a strong effect on it. Governments also have been involved since the mid twentieth century. The teaching of arts and literature in contemporary society was part of Adult Education at Cambridge (Williams, 1990: 162). Williams, Hoggart and others were not just teaching about culture, but were contributing to the process of social change itself (Steele 1994). Bronfenbrenner created a diagram for his ideas on personal development that encompasses this idea that people both create and influence his the culture in which they live. The diagram has applications in a number of different areas, including sociology and cultural studies (Brendtro, L. 2006). As can be seen, Bronfenbrenner puts the school, family and religion outside the physical person, but within the mesosystem. However, both community and culture, community and global, are in the exosystem, still interacting with the person, but at some distance and further from education, family and local community. Interaction is continuous. The behaviour of people influences other people and, ultimately, their culture. Some have more influence upon the culture than others, and culture effects each person differently and at varying intensity. The overall culture is the sum-total of all of these factors, including what is defined as culture by elitists (Flores-Koulish 2010). The key to changing the social environment in which individuals are nurtured is to change these dynamics or to empower the individual (Wertsch, J., & Bronfenbrenner, U. 2005). Thurston and Vissandjee (2005) made a more complex diagram of Bronfenbrenner’s theory as it applies to entire countries or cultures, elaborating upon the various interactions that effect change. They ascribe considerably more power to the government and various institutions, including educational and social welfare organizations, to effect change in culture. The result of all this interaction, and especially of the actions of government and big business is the creation of a culture between the “High Culture” of Dwight McDonald and his “Folk Culture” (Riccio 1993). It was in the 1950’s that the change began to be noticed. IT was fostered by mass media, including advertising, and it sought to impose a culture upon the masses, which McDonald (p59) said was “manufactured wholesale” and which he termed “Popular Culture” (Riccio 1993). This popular culture is not aimed at improving the mind of the adherent, as many of the earlier critics state, but rather at improving the marketability of certain brands or enhancing the world status of the nation (Soar 2002). It was, “mass culture imposed from above” aimed at passive customers who either bought in or not, quite literally (McDonald p 60). Soon movies and television were selling culture with their own brands on it (Eisingerich, Rubera 2010). This has pushed many of the academic researchers and critics of cultural studies to the elitist camp, where the only good culture would be theirs (Levine 255). So governments, businesses who want to employ acculturated new hires and corporate marketing departments are actively contributing to mass popular culture. Governments create support programs for approved art forms and actively promote certain types of entertainment (Stop). Companies employ strategies to get the lifestyle of their target audience presented on television, and to insert their actual products with recognizable brands showing into television shows and movies (Wiles, Danielova 2009, Bressoud, Lehu et al. 2010). Education is even getting in on the act of imposing culture by adding cultural elements to courses, especially ESL courses, in order to better integrate new immigrants (Barrett, Impact 2012, Falasca 2011). So this is a form of imposed culture, as are all the others just discussed. Since so many criticise the value of imposed culture, perhaps we should not have studies of popular culture or serious cultural studies. The active participation in such studies imposes certain aspects of culture. One cannot study something without being influenced by it, nor can all the publications from serious research to popular books be left out of this equation. So is there any such thing as “real” high culture any more? Opera companies and symphony orchestras actively advertise and promote their products. They create educational programs in order to draw ne proponents. Government promotes “high arts” with active subsidies for performing art, museums, national and state galleries and publishing. The Internet brings yet another new influence via social media, podcasts, YouTube and hundreds of other types of site for consumption, publishing, sharing and socializing (Carrington, Marsh 2005, Dreon, Kerper et al. 2011, SMITH 2006). There is ample room for all interested parties to seek to impose culture on netizens ( regular Internet participants)(Wright, Sandlin 2009). It is probable that the Internet will feed popular culture more than any other type. However, there is no need for stress on this point, because the Internet also makes high art more accessible and actively promotes it with the very same tools. Therefore, people will have a choice and it will become the job of education to help people discriminate and find just what they want to adopt for their own (Fridell, Lovelace 2008). So high culture will survive as will folk culture, but they will overlap and actually become part of mainstream popular culture. It will be necessary to teach our youth to discriminate and to question what they see as being some kind of sales pitch, either selling ideas, products or attitudes. Popular culture has become a tool, but that does not lessen their value. Elitists will always exist and they will point out the dangers of radio and television, rock music and comic books (or graphic novels) and mp3 players. They can be left in peace in their ivory towers while the rest ofus share and enjoy the best this culture can produce. References Arnold, Matthew. "Culture and Anarchy." Great Literature Online. 1997-2013 http://arnold.classicauthors.net/culture/culture1.html (17 Dec, 2013). BARRETT, S.K. and  IMPACT, P. Redesigning Schools to Reach Every Student with Excellent Teachers: Change Management--Key Theories to Consider when Extending Reach. Public Impact. 2012. BENNETT, O., 2005. Beyond Machinery: The Cultural Policies of Matthew Arnold. History of Political Economy, 37(3), pp. 455-482. BERUBE, M., 2009. What's the Matter With Cultural Studies? Chronicle of Higher Education, 56(4), pp. B9-B11. Brendtro, L. (2006). The Vision of Urie Bronfenbrenner: Adults Who Are Crazy About Kids. Reclaiming Children & Youth, 15(3), 162-166. 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