"Cultural" elite?

[fpb]

I recently read an interesting but, to me, oddly extreme article by Frank Furedi: http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CAF37.htm, in which he seemed to me to make rather too much of a number of hysterical reactions against "religion" - that is, of course,

Comments

[bufo_viridis]

The main problem here is the extreme broadness of the definition of "culture". I can't give the quote, but at two anthropologists counted something like 150 definitions, which could be grouped into several categories.
More important here is the differentiation between "cultural (I)" meaning educated, polished, refined, cultivated, well-mannered etc., in short between evaluative sense of the word. And "cultural (II)" which means belonging to the realm of culture, which we have to describe, but let's for a moment assume it's all this verbalised and non-verbalised knowledge which serves as our social environment and at the same time is our tool in dealing with the world (descriptive sense of the word).

Anyway, why the PC (Politically Correct, isn't it?) can be called cultural elite? Mainly because they make it. In both meanings in fact. That the shape of their production may not be to our taste, it is something different.

Our culture, our heritage, is made of works of art or of the intellect, which are beautiful and noble enough to be

[fpb]

As far as Rushdie goes, I doubt it. I think his relationship to the culture of his youth is that of an uprooted intellectual, and that, at any rate, the more he delves himself into it, the more he shows interest in heterodox and popular traditions that good Muslims would do anything to reform out of existence. It is not of Islam that the poet said:

For it is only Christian men
That guard even heathen things.

[bufo_viridis]

Frankly, I haven't read Rushdie, it was just a name of a person from a different cultural circle, who attacked the core values - but by the attack related to them.
Probably there would be better examples, but I don't know them.

Continued...

[bufo_viridis]

So let's back to the people we are talking about (I assume, since you don't write it, that the "cultural elites" in question are the writers, journalists, artists, political commentators, critiques etc., generally the people connected with creating "arts" or "sciences", including popular culture; intellectuals and intelligentsia, so to speak. Rather not people with more concrete professions like lawyers, although they shape our culture (II) even more

Re: Continued...

[fpb]

The greatest artists I know of currently working have been Orthodox Jewish, Catholic, Orthodox, Southern Baptist (Johnny Cash), Communist (unfortunately, even now I know of at least one genuine Communist in Italy who is a giant in his field) and atheists, including the strange atheistic Calvinism of William Golding. That is, any view of the world that can be honestly held and honestly defended by an intelligent man can produce great music, poetry, prose, or art. I still think there is a massive predominance of Christians among the truly successful artists - Bob Dylan, for instance, is a convert to Christianity, and, I believe, Catholicism. The "cultural elites" ignore, in my view, not only the the prevalence of Christianity in our collective past, but also in our present. As for Buddhism, I cannot right now think of one European or American Buddhist who has genuinely achieved in any artistic field. In my view that is due to the fact that Buddhism, in the West, has the characteristic of a self-indulgent fad, a justification for

Re: Continued...

[bufo_viridis]

Right, my point goes more along what patchworkmind wrote below

[patchworkmind]

The word "culture" has been hijacked. It was a while back, as were "tolerance" and "diversity" and "tradition".

Culture is something "nice" people, the "forward-thinking" have.

Tradition is a nasty thing close-minded and *gasp!* religious and/or racist people cling to, since they can't think for themselves and hate the new and/or different.

Tolerance is something anyone who isn't PC must show for the new, while the PC are not required to have it for tradition or those who believe in or simply respect it.

Diversity no longer means varied at any or every level. It now means varied in outward appearance but homogenous inside, different-looking but like-thinking.

...

The cultural elite of which you lament aren't the elite. They are the effete, and unfortunately they are gaining ground.

[goreism]

Ever read Eagleton's Introduction to Literary Theory? He has some amusing things to say about "literature," a lot of which could be applied mutatis mutandis to culture.

Göring is rumored to have said something relevant about culture, too.