Mill and Scruton cannot be dismissed as academic snobs, as there is a great deal of research on the positive effects of high culture and what is often called „cultural capital“ on academic achievement, which is even recognized, albeit critically, by Marxist sociologists. As a teacher, I was interested in the last part of this statement because one of the goals of schools should be the promotion of „educated people.“ It is important to Scruton that the absence of „high culture be replaced by a culture of fakes.“ This „culture of fake“ is made up of many things, including false ideologies, opinions, and expertise, but unfortunately, for me, Scruton didn`t really identify what a „low culture“ might be. Much of high culture consists of an appreciation of what is sometimes called „great art.“ This term is somewhat broader than Arnold`s definition and includes, in addition to literature, music, visual arts (especially painting) and traditional forms of performing arts (including some cinemas). The decorative arts would not generally be considered high art. [11] The development of the concept of high culture was first broadly defined pedagogically as the critical study and knowledge of the Greco-Roman arts and humanities, which constituted a large part of the basis of European cultures and societies. However, aristocratic patronage during most modern times has also been crucial in supporting and creating new works of high culture in the fields of art, music and literature. The astonishing development that followed of modern European languages and cultures meant that the modern definition of „high culture“ includes not only Greek and Latin texts, but a much broader canon of selected literary, philosophical, historical, and scientific books in ancient and modern languages. Of comparable importance are works of art and musical works considered to be of the highest excellence and widest influence (e.g. the Parthenon, Michelangelo`s painting and sculpture, the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, etc.). Together, these texts and works of art form the exemplary artifacts of the high culture of the Western world. In terms of teaching, learning and curriculum, my dilemma is relatively simple, but not trivial; Should I make an effort to reference high culture in my classes so that students can enjoy cultural life at its best, or to engage students and make learning enjoyable, should I litter my classes with references that could be perceived as low-level culture, which is probably best defined as „pop culture“ in the context of young people? In Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), T. S.
Eliot stated that high culture and popular culture are necessary and complementary parts of a society`s culture. In The Uses of Literacy (1957), Richard Hoggart presents the sociological experience of working-class men and women in acquiring the cultural competence at university that facilitates upward social mobility. In the United States, Harold Bloom and F. R. Leavis defined high culture via the Western canon of literature. Media theorist Steven Johnson writes that, unlike popular culture, „the classics – and soon the classics – are in their own descriptions and explanations of the cultural systems that produced them.“ He says that „a crucial way mass culture differs from high art“ is that the individual works of mass culture are less interesting than the broader cultural trends that produced them. [6] In European history, high culture was understood as a cultural concept common to the humanities until the mid-19th century, when Matthew Arnold introduced the term high culture in the book Culture and Anarchy (1869). The preface defines culture as „the selfless pursuit of the perfection of man“ pursued, realized, and realized through the effort to „know what has been said and thought best in the world.“ [4] Such a literary definition of high culture includes philosophy. Moreover, the philosophy of aesthetics proposed in high culture is a force for moral and political good. The term „high culture“ is critically opposed to the terms „popular culture“ and „mass culture“. [5] Despite these generous masses of high culture, I would not reject the effectiveness of pop culture, or rather inferior culture, in the development of „educated people.“ There may be creeping elitism among some policymakers concerned with education, but it`s worth remembering that a „common frame of reference“ often focuses on what`s popular, and accessing it, or even celebrating, is a great way to engage learners in the first place.
Andrew Jones is Head of Religious Studies and Sociology at a community school in Hertfordshire and an experienced GCSE examiner. I think the infusion of pop culture into religious education brought the topic to life and made it more relevant. For example, my classes included music by Alicia Keyes (Karma), a medical ethics unit included readings and excerpts from My Sister`s Keeper and Weird Al`s I Think I`m a Clone Now (genetic engineering), and lessons on wealth and poverty included games based on Supermarket Sweep to assess how selfless students really are. if they have the opportunity to grasp what they want. In Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (1979), sociologist Pierre Bourdieu proposed that aesthetic taste (cultural judgment) derives largely from social class. Social class determines the definitions of high art, for example in social etiquette, gastronomy, oenology, military service. In such activities of aesthetic judgment, the person of the ruling class uses social codes unknown to people of the middle and lower classes to exercise and exercise activities of taste. [ref. needed] Moreover, this distinction is central to the religious education of the AS, which I taught on the moral philosophy of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.
For Jeremy Bentham, the engaging and fun approach to teaching could be to relate to pop culture and thus make learning more enjoyable. Bentham`s basic idea is that pleasure is good in itself, and that more fun is the right thing to do. In contrast, Mill argues that higher-order pleasures are superior. This is based on his constant view that the delayed gratification of pleasure benefits the individual in the long run, as he will develop an appreciation for the good things in life like poetry and classical music; what Scruton calls „high culture.“ From the idea of the „free“ man, who has enough leisure to pursue such intellectual and aesthetic refinement, arose the classical distinction between the „free“ arts, which are intellectual and are made for themselves, and the „submissive“ or „mechanical“ arts, which were associated with manual labor and were made to earn a living. [9] This implied a link between high culture and the upper classes, whose inherited wealth provided such time for intellectual culture. The quiet gentleman, who was not burdened by the need to earn a living, was free to engage in activities proper to such a „free man“[10] – those that included true excellence and nobility as opposed to mere profit. Stolley, Kathy S. 2005. Grundlagen der Soziologie. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
A few years ago, I would love to walk around places like Tate Modern, Tate Britain, National Portrait Gallery, Brighton Pavilion Museum & Art Gallery and even a Salvador Dali Gallery in Montmar, Paris. It could be an interest in great art or high culture. Now my uncle loved to visit the opera house; Well, from my point of view of listening to people, Warble Away in Latin was not my idea of a good night`s sleep. The association of Christianity with pop culture may be more fruitful, especially since Christianity is evident in hip-hop (Kanye West`s Jesus Walks, for example), novels like The Da Vinci Code, and a host of celebrities. In Western traditions and some East Asian traditions, art that demonstrates the artist`s imagination is accorded the status of great art. In the West, this tradition began in ancient Greece, was reinforced in the Renaissance, and was reinforced by Romanticism, which eliminated the hierarchy of genres within the visual arts established in the Renaissance. In China, there was a distinction between the literary painting of learned officials and the works of ordinary artists working in very different styles, or decorative arts such as Chinese porcelain, made by unknown craftsmen working in large factories.