Pop versus High Culture

[Hartwin Alfred Gebhardt]

Craig sez:

>               . Think of the Proles in
> Orwell's _1984_, or their immediate literary ancestors, the Yahoos
> in Swift's _Gulliver's Travels_. Debased, yeah. Dedicated to trivia,
> sure. Embodying everything that's worst in their culture, obviously. But
> still, when all's said and done, there's hope and vitality in them. 
> That's what Swift and Orwell recognise and celebrate. Pynchon does 
> too.  

I was saying that the proles' (or preterite) culture was less and less 
vital, alive, a refuge from Their stamped and approved and dead 
culture, since the preterite are now themselves, with the help of the 
tube, configured, 'made over' in Their image, and so is most of the 
garbage they churn out in response to their, ahh, situation. So what 
appears as cultural democracy in action, a long-awaited conflation of the 
high/low devide, takes on much more sinister implications. The gun 
behind the moving image is now hidden, and thus more effective. Maybe 
the Lotion thing can be explained in these terms (TRP celebrating a 
band which might not be very good, but which is at least some kind of 
'genuine article', music not totally predetermined by its market niche - and 
thus somewhat of a rarity).

hg
hag at iafrica.com