The View That the Masses Display - Essay Example

THE VIEW THAT THE “MASSES” DISPLAY al Affiliation Question The View That the “Masses” Display Introduction The view that masses display explores the theory of mass culture, as well as, the passive acceptance of it by the masses about the quote by MacDonald. The masses display a culture that lacks authenticity and seriousness because they have become passive recipients of mass culture. The paper explores the development of mass culture and the reason as to why MacDonald thought that the society sought satisfaction from trivial and comfortable cultural products. Music and film are the most cited examples of cultural products because they are the most consumed. Nonetheless, they seem to support the dominant and superficial mass culture as opposed to attempting to restore people’s culture. MacDonald’s thought further reveals the reasons as to why mass culture is widely accepted. Theory of Mass The theory of mass culture provides a suitable explanation for the lament in the statement presented. According to mass theory, mass culture is influenced by popular culture. Popular culture is not chosen or created by the masses but rather imposed on them by the ruling class due to their control of the economy. Mass culture started in the 1920s and the 1930s, and is characterized by urbanization and industrialization (Strinati, 2014, p. 13). The development and domination of these two factors resulted in the demise of folk culture. It created an environment that did not support the existence of folk culture because people did not share common interests concerning work and moral standards. Folk culture was replaced by mass culture, which is flawed in many different ways. It is designed with a focus on profit- making and passive consumption. Mass culture theory proposes that industrialization and urbanization resulted in the atomization of the society where people are not obligated by morally coherent relationships or meaningful interactions. Their relationships are similar to those of atoms in a chemical or physical compound. The demise of folk culture left no room for communal, intimate, and properly integrated relationships and interactions. The individual exists as an atom whose relationship to others is mainly contractual, sporadic and distant (Strinati, 2014). The result is a mass society that lacks the proper sense of morality, psychological identity, and social conduct. Psychological identity provides the individual with pride, self-esteem and a sense of belonging. All these aspects are important in decision-making, consumption, and understanding the world. Unfortunately, they started to erode with the increase of urbanization. Similarly, democracy and education are often blamed for the formation of mass culture (Strinati, 2014, p. 14). Democracy ensures that the idea and opinion of each individual is important. The significance and favour of democracy leads to the devaluation of folk culture. Meanwhile, education breaks down the hierarchy of the folk culture by increasing the masses ability to read, write, demand, understand, discriminate, and know. Urbanization and industrialization also reduces the number of communities available for individuals to regain their culture; and hence, their identity (Baron, 2012, p. 75). As a result, the society is filled with people that are easily manipulated by the ruling class through the media. Mass culture is a surrogate culture, which is availed to them by the mass media. The society members gladly embrace the practices provided by the surrogate culture. They indulge in a culture whose focus is marketing and sales for profit making. Their alienation and anomic existence forces them to become caught up in social relationships that are financial and contractual. With every passing generation, folk culture erodes and people are unable to reverse the situation. The ruling class has created an economy-based culture and imposed it on the passive mass. The only decision made by the mass is at the level of the consumer where he or she decides whether to buy a product or not. Otherwise, the atomized individual spends the rest of his time in matters concerning personal financial advancement. The individual seeks employment, which is availed by the ruling class and spends his day making profits for them (Baron, 2012). In so doing, he hopes to achieve financial stability, which allows him to purchase the products that he desires. The society endlessly revolves around a redundant mass culture that does not repay him with human value. The theory of mass culture not only explains the erosion of folklore culture, but also, the process through which the masses become narcotized by the mass media and become individuals that value culture based on the quality and quantity of products consumed. Mass culture is so large-scale that while different people have different folk culture, and are controlled by different media, they result to adapting mass culture and consumerism. For instance, while mass production started in the U.S, China, India, Japan, and other developed country adapted the economic model (Philip, Denis & Gottschalk, 2013). The Chinese, Indians, and other Asians have different folk culture. However, most of them have adapted mass consumerism. They also exist in an atomized society where people are more interested in financial relationships. The standards of the masses remain low despite the increased access to education (Strinati, 2014, p. 16). This is because mass culture is a poor quality replica of the culture applied by the ruling class. Industrialization and urbanization ensured that the masses consumed products enjoyed by the ruling class. While the products are similar, they differ in quality. The availability of the products duped the masses into adapting the culture offered by the ruling class. However, the culture adapted by the masses had a lower standard because the masses are satisfied the most average product. Subsequently, they follow a substandard mass culture because they do not have a well-defined definition for morality or quality of life. Every generation in the society becomes a lonely crowd where every person is a solitary atom and the masses have lost their human quality and identity. Consequently, mass culture becomes superficial, formulaic repetitive and standardized (Strinati, 2014, p. 19). The members of society avoid the serious, authentic, intellectual, and time honored values in a bid to celebrate sentimental, trivial, immediate and false pleasures. The institution of marriage provides a good illustration of the superficial nature of mass culture. For instance, the portrayal of romantic relationships in media (which are gobbled up by the masses through mass culture) bases their seriousness on trivialities (Philip, Denis & Gottschalk, 2013, p. 55). Society often measures the love of a man to a woman on the gifts he gets her and their price, the engagement ring he gives her and other such trivial and materialistic comforts (Philip, Denis & Gottschalk, 2013, p. 56). They avoid scrutinizing the serious details like love, commitment, or compatibility. In the same manner, marriage, especially in the forms of media is determined by whether a partner remembers or forgets an anniversary. Films and novels that consist of romantic fantasies are consumed more by the masses. Film companies make such films in mass in order to make profits (Philip, Denis & Gottschalk, 2013, p. 91). They reinforce the flawed mass culture without considering the main purpose of art that is to reflect society and preserve its culture. Mass culture has become so prevalent and permanent that no one realizes that it is flawed. The society does not realize that the culture does not facilitate intellectual development. It glosses over the problems in order to simplify real world issues. The culture encourages consumerism in order for the ruling class to make profits. Art cannot be expressed in the forms of folk culture because they lack a profitable market (Baron, 2012, p. 68). Record companies spend money on the type of music that makes more money while ignoring unpopular forms of music or those that seem out-dated. Similarly, record companies spend more money marketing a popular artist why ignoring the upcoming artists or the artists whose popularity has reduced. The individuals that notice the passivity of the culture are silenced (Baron, 2012, p. 84). For instance, while a musician might be a great artist, the value of his music is reduced to its ability to be sold or consumed by the masses. Plato considered music to be the “most important of all art form” (Edmondson, 2013, p. 129).Although musical education was encouraged in most Greek cities; its rules were strictly regulated because it was considered a powerful influence on the people’s mood and spirit. Today music is an integral part of everyday life. However, the artist has lost major control of it while the corporation has gained a powerful grip on it preventing it from attaining its true cultural purpose (Edmondson, 2013, p. 129). The unsettling and unpredictable joy, wit, tragedy, change, originality, and beauty of real life vary from time to time. The ruling class controls the political economy but remains unable to control the ideas of the working class or the subject class (Moore &Nierop, 121). Consequently, the working class has a significant amount of control over the country’s direction although the ruling class controls the economy. The ideas of the two classes differ at different times due to the fault lines of class, race, gender, age and sexual behavior or orientation. The differences facilitate a substantial amount of instability in society. In many ways, music affects the stability of the society. According to Confucius (551 BC), great music possesses the ability to restore order through its harmony to the physical world. Nonetheless, music, like many forms of art, is a rebellion against the ruling classes that consists of one of the factors that lead to moral panics in society. Rock ‘n’ roll and Jazz are some of the types of music that have inspired moral panics especially among the ruling class. The Americanization of society started off during the 1920’s which was characterized by the age of consumerism (Strinati, 2014, p. 28). During this period, mass media developed and advertising increased. Most corporations focused on mass production and advertising, while the consumers consumed large amounts of products. The economic growth was followed by a recession in the 1930s (Peter, 2014, p. 11). The working class and the poor suffered while the ruling class failed to come to their rescue. They thwarted any government efforts to ensure they contributed to the eradication of poverty at the time. The recession was followed by economic success, which went hand in hand with the Second World War. These are examples of the real life instabilities that have rocked human life over the 20th century (Moore & Nierop, 2006, p.91). The inconsistencies of joy, change, originality, wit and joy of life have led to the narcotized acceptance off mass culture in the world. A narcotized effect on the masses can be illustrated through the widespread concept of Nazism in Germany (Storey, 2006, p.58). The country suffered economic, social, and political losses during and after the First World War. The Nazi party provided solutions to the problems that the people were facing. Tearing up the Versailles treaty would not only solve their economic crisis but also reduce the humiliation they suffered after losing the world war. Subsequently, many Germans approved of the Nazi party and its doctrines to an extent of starting another world war during which they murdered millions of people, especially Jews (Storey, 2006). The inadequacy in the beauty of life results in people accepting mass culture and its commodities as observed in the number of followers that Hitler had. The absence of a proper culture results in the masses accepting mass culture without any hesitations. Mass culture provides the mass with an emotional and psychological release for their problems. Some artists make songs that reflect the emotions of an individual after heartbreak, others sing of beauty while others sing about sex and money. Music about such things is personal and there is a wide market for it because the consumer is a passive recipient (Storey, 2006, p. 63). However, hardly anyone addresses the themes of drug and alcohol abuse or corruption. The masses avoid these serious matters because they do not have straightforward solutions. Karl Marx indicated that religion was the masses’ opium (Tentler, 2007, p. 71). He explained that the masses engaged religion as an escape of their oppression by the ruling class. While opium and narcotics have a difference in their influence on people, the fact that people also attempted to find an escape from their miserable lives in the 19th century shows the masses need to escape its reality. This furthers the premise of narcotized acceptance of mass media and its commodities. Individuals in the 19th century might not have had as much access to material wealth, music, film, and entertainment as people in the 20th and 21st century. Consequently, they consumed religion that accorded them the comfort they required. Secularization provided another exit for the masses, which is a process that decreases or erodes the influence of religion over the masses social life. While religion focuses on humility and other intangible factors that will be heftily rewarded in heaven, secularization deals with matters that directly affect the working class in the current world and in their current situations (Fedorak, 2009, p. 49). The masses consumption of popular music is an example of the trivial and comfortable cultural products availed to the consumer by mass culture. During the end of the 20thcentury, hip- hop music influences the masses and led to the development of a hip-hop subculture among the African- Americans in the U.S (Edmondson, 2013, p. 37). Much like the case of the rockers versus the moderns, the media played a large role in defining hip-hop culture. Hip- hop and rap mainly consisted of lyrics that described violence and sometimes encouraged the youth in American ghettos to fight for their lives and their rights (Keyes, 2004, p. 83). At the time, most African- Americans lived in the ghetto projects that were marred by poverty, violence, and drugs. Any act of violence perpetrated by African- American youths was attributed to their association with hip- hop music and rappers like Tupac Shakur (Keyes, 2004, p. 45). The masses consume products that it feels resonates with its situation. Confucius believed that music could reveal character through six emotions, which included sorrow, satisfaction, anger, piety, love, and joy. Hip-hop music and the rockers expressed rebellion through the anger in their music, which was misconceived by the ruling and middle classes. However, a large part of the masses consumed the product based on its ability to express their worries, anger, and misfortune. However, the sub- culture slowly subsided due to the violence among the musicians and its portrayal in the media. Conclusion The masses consumption of the trivial and comfortable cultural products is a result of its passive consumption of mass culture. Mass culture is mainly concerned with the political and economic culture of the state. While the ruling class does not have ultimate control over the consumer, it has managed to develop a culture that serves its interest. The masses are disintegrated to individual atoms that reduce the chances of creating an alliance to question or change the culture. They demand cultural products that ease their crowd loneliness compensate their lack of social and individual identity. The generational succession of mass culture makes it even more challenging to overcome it and restore a meaningful and interactive culture. Reference List Tentler, L., W., 2007. The Church Confronts Modernity: Catholicism Since 1950 in the United States, Ireland, and Quebec, CUA Press. Strinati, D., 2014, An Introduction to Studying Popular,Culture,NY, Routledge. Fedorak, S., 2009, Pop culture: the culture of everyday life. Toronto, University of Toronto Press. Storey, J., 2006, Cultural theory and popular culture: a reader, Harlow [u.a.], Pearson/Prentice Hall. Edmondson, J., 2013, Music in American life: an encyclopedia of the songs, styles, stars and stories that shaped our culture, Santa Barbara, California : Greenwood. Keyes, C. L., 2004, Rap music and street consciousness, Urbana, IL [u.a.], Univ. of Illinois Press. Moore, B., &Nierop, H. F. K. V., 2006, Twentieth-century mass society in Britain and the Netherlands, Oxford, Berg. Baron, L., 2012, Social Theory in Popular Culture, Palgrave Macmillan. Peter, G., 2014, Mass Culture and Everyday Life, London: Routledge. Philip, V., Denis, W., & Gottschalk, S, 2013, The Senses in Self, Society, and Culture: A Sociology of the SensesContemporary Sociological Perspectives, London: Routledge. Read More