Impress Your Friends with Commodified Culture

The last ten pages or so of Guilbaut’s second chapter were the most exciting part of this reading for me. I mean, the idea of people going out and consuming from among this glut of post-WPA American art in order to decorate their postwar Levittown homes is a striking image. But after I set the book down on my kitchen table, I asked myself, “Wait, was that a good thing?” What I’m concerned about here is democratization of culture on one hand and commodification of culture on the other hand. When I read through Guilbaut’s discussion of people enjoying art who had never been able to enjoy art before, I was happy, but then, the fact that what made that new trend possible was the consumer marketplace and the new commodity character of art doesn’t make me so happy. It’s kind of like we’ve joked about with Oprah’s book club. People reading Faulkner = good. People reading Faulkner because it’s the hot new project promoted by a media titaness = not that good.

So here’s the question: is the fact that more people can enjoy culture worth the fact that culture has been made into a commodity? Guilbaut expresses neither joy nor disgust, so let’s take this up ourselves.

I first started thinking about this issue with Rubin and her discussion of the Book-of-the-Month Club. Like we talked about, the marketing gimmicks that Rubin describes are staggeringly distasteful: many of their advertising messages seem to be saying that consuming books will help you to impress people and achieve upward mobility. Rubin mentions an ad from the Literary Guild that suggests you impress visitors to your house by putting “The Guild Book on Your Table,” and she notes that the ad included “no suggestion that the book would also be “in Your Mind” (105). This is not only cultural snobbery and pretention at its worst, but it has made books commodities—means for an end—instead of real cultural objects. Isn’t that terrible? Or, should we just be happy that more people were buying books during this time?

While Rubin is pretty clear in expressing her distaste for the idea of books being used to impress your friends, Guilbaut doesn’t say boo about people’s buying commodity art. He explains the background: WPA ended, WWII ended, there was an economic boom, and then there was an art boom. In the midst of the art boom, the marketing for art changed and the clientele for art expanded. According to Guilbaut, “these changes helped to desanctify the art object by displaying it as an ordinary consumer good” (92). Here’s where my conflicting emotions begin: desanctifying the stuffy, snobby art world sounds great, but treating art as an ordinary consumer good sounds unfortunate. Later Guilbaut says that “Art became a commodity and the gallery a supermarket” (92). Again, this sounds unfortunate, and unless he’s using the subtlety that the French are famous for, I couldn’t see any critical commend from Guilbaut regarding this development.

Pretty soon we’ve got art sales happening at Macy’s and Gimbel’s, and as a result “art became a part of everyday life, a part of the environment, a decoration in middle-class homes” (96). Guilbaut reports these developments without saying whether or not that’s a good thing. Some person named Eurenia Lea Whitridge is our sole voice of dissent here, and Guilbaut tells us that she was worried that the commodification of art might result in the loss of “traditional masterpiece and traditional values without which hierarchy is impossible” (92). Now, I like that Whitridge doesn’t like commodification of art, but I’m also turned off by her snobbiness and heirarchy love.

So here’s the question: how do we disapprove of the commodification of culture without being accused of being stuffy, snobby, or conservative? I love the idea of more people enjoying culture than ever before, but I’m not sure it’s worth it if that comes about only because suddenly a cultural object has the same position as a stick of deodorant.

1. I agree that there are many similarities between what Klein describes and the current situation. Is "Three Cups of Tea" "The Ugly American" of today? Yet, I think there was something valuable in the middlebrow response of the 1950s. Isn't the open hand better than the closed fist? I think these people genuinely wanted to relate to Asia in a better way than the colonial powers did. Of course, their initial efforts were maladroit and they had mixed motives because they were confronted by
an existential threat from the Soviet Union, but I do not see an alternative to trying to establish mutual understanding.

2. I agree that Klein's book is conceptually rich. I was therefore disappointed that in spite of this
sophistication she seemed at times to revert to reductionist interpretations. It is true that these middlebrow individuals wanted to preserve free markets for the United States, but I do not think that was their only motivation. Klein's nadir comes when she implies that Tom Dooley was largely motivated by his homosexuality.

3. I agree that Klein really makes the cultural elites look selfish. In the interest of preserving their social position did they really not care about the United States trying to establish healthier relationships with the rest of the world? I cannot imagine that New York intellectuals were opposed to the Popular Front or that they thought that Broadway musicals represented Popular Front culture.

Ethnocentric Cartography

I found Christina Klein’s use of maps in Cold War Orientalism to illustrate America’s (and in the case of The King and I, Britain’s) changing views on the political landscape. The first maps she showed were the two in the musical The King and I – Siam’s map of itself and Burma and the traditional Mercator projection. Klein describes this early scene and explains how the comparison of these maps quickly illustrates for the audience these two different cultures’ views of themselves and the world. While I have only ever used the Mercator map, viewing it in relation to Siam’s map made me immediately questions our own ethno-centric assumptions in mapmaking. Despite the character Anna’s observation of England’s size on the map in relation to Siam’s, Klein is quick to point out that the Mercator map is entirely Euro-centric, depicting Europe (and Britain especially) as the center of the world.

The next map that Klein illustrates is the “Worldwide – The Feeling About Us” map that was printed in Newsweek. The entirely U.S.-centric map features areas of the world where there is a United States military presence and illustrates in text bubbles quick statistics regarding that particular area’s feelings towards the United States. Meant to illustrate “the spread of anti-American attitudes around the world” (19), this map simultaneously illustrates American dominance worldwide. The left side of the map pictures Europe and mostly positive text bubbles such as “relations basically good” (France), “minimum personal friction” (Morocco), “Personal contacts friendly” (Britain), “Conditions improved” (Iceland), and, most importantly, “Cooperation now ‘best ever’” (West Germany). The right side of the map features the Middle East and Asia, and its bubbles are mostly negative: “Local frictions persist” (South Korea), “Collaboration endangered” (Formosa), “Relations better, though…” (The Middle East), “Relations worsening” (Okinawa), “Basically strong friendship, but…” (The Philippines), and “Irritations growing” (Japan). The incredibly positive views in Europe, specifically West Germany, show America’s presumed success at Globalization in Europe post-World War II. However, the overwhelmingly negative attitudes expressed on the Asiatic side of the map clearly show the “cartographer’s” opinion at its eventual failure in Asia. Klein surmises that this illustration truly conveys America’s own anxieties about the reputation of America abroad. I agree with her assumption, especially since the research behind the map’s creation must be called into question. How were these sentiments measured? What was the procedure by which these conclusions were reached? By showing such bare-bones and unscientific statistics, one must conclude that the goal of the map is not merely to reflect the world’s feelings about America but America’s feelings about itself.

I found Klein’s next two maps fascinating. The “World Struggle” map on page 35 showed an incredibly bipolar world, depicting the one-on-one conflict between America and Russia to the exclusion of everything else. As Klein notes, South America and Africa aren’t even fully displayed on the map. The “Collective Defense” map on page 45 is meant to depict global integration by creating a more balanced map with less emphasis placed on U.S.-Soviet struggles. However, by placing the United States in the direct center of the map and splitting the Soviet Union up so that it surrounds the Americas on both sides, this map does not show global integration but once again American centricity and dominance.

In the introduction to the text I was struck by Klein's mention of Kerouac's The Dharma Bums and the Beat's general fascination with Zen Buddhism. In the the introduction Klein locates the Beats within the moment when American cultural producers turned their gaze eastward. However, I think that one can locate The Dharma Bums within the sentimentalism that was so prevalent in middlebrow depictions of Asia.

It seems that one of the charges most frequently leveled against Kerouac is that his work is overly sentimental. The Dharma Bums is no exception to this charge. While discussions of sentimentality generally focus on other aspects of Kerouac's works, it seems that Klein's conception of this middlebrow sentimentality is indeed applicable to Kerouac's depiction of Zen Buddhism and the a Zen way of life. Regardless of Kerouac's status in 2010, as a writer in the late 1950s his novels were middlebrow literature. On the Road was a bestseller and Kerouac would later appear on television programs such as the Steve Allen show. One year later, in 1958, when The Dharma Bums was published, I doubt much had occurred to change Kerouac's status within the middlebrow. In the novel Kerouac romanticizes Zen to the point of almost parody. As such, it serves to demonstrate this notion of sentimentality.

Conversely, I think that Kerouac's fellow Beats Gary Snyder and Allen Ginsberg approach Zen from a different position. While both poets triumphed the philosophy and way of life neither romanticized it in the way Kerouac did. The argument could be made that Ginsberg's approach was romanticized to a certain degree, yet his interest comes off as more authentic.

The same can be said of Alan Watts' article “Beat Zen, Square Zen, and Zen”. Watts's article is not so much a meditation on zen, but rather an attempt to break up the mythology surrounding it. Watts attempts to disentangle Zen from its association with the Beats. Furthermore, he attempts to point out how America was getting it wrong in attempting to adopt Zen principles. In this respect, Watts was attempting to dismiss the sentimentality that surrounded Zen and it's adoption into American culture.

Klein Post

I actually like this book so far … I like that Klein seems pretty neutral, expository, analytic rather than critical (it makes the book more useful). I like the way she delineates the sections conceptually (unlike Williams’ choppy and uninformative headings). This book also feels more LCS than The Making. Klein gives the history and analyzes cultural artifacts in their contemporary context; she also uses literature, discourse as primary sources of evidence. The only complaint I have so far is that it was hard to “zoom out” and see the entire trajectory of American attitudes towards Asia, how they changed in the ‘60s and ‘70s. This is probably because the book is structured conceptually rather than chronologically. And since I generally like the way that the book is set up, I am not quite sure what I would do to fix this problem.

One historical claim that I found a bit puzzling: “the New York intellectuals sought to protect the realm of culture from corruption by insisting on a clear separation between art and politics” (66). I would have liked some more details. It leaves me feeling like the highbrows were kind of apolitical, which – in my experience – I know to be untrue, but I guess I could see this being true in a modernist context. Also do we think Klein’s claim is still true? (I.e. do highbrow intellectuals really want apolitical art and literature?) My feeling is no, but I would like to hear what other people think. I think that institutions/places of higher education are so politically charged themselves that it would be quite hard to answer yes, but …

I also wanted to know more about why the American public willingly adopted the Cold War foreign policies put forth by the government. I think Klein kind of glosses over all this towards the end of the first chapter, but she just puts forth this series of questions without ever actually answering any of them satisfactorily. I thought she needed some more theory here, to explain why certain people would be motivated to accept such things (maybe some psychoanalytic theory, maybe even some sociological theory). She also could have looked what middlebrow people were writing/saying in response to the propaganda in magazines like Reader’s Digest. I think she is talking about what the middlebrows were saying they should do, rather than what they were (probably) really doing. For example, what were the participation levels in organizations like the People-to-people program? I am not convinced that their motivations for joining such organizations were as positive as Klein renders them.

On the Fence with Klein's Text: Does Sentimentality have any Redeeming Qualities?

Usually I would be the last person to complain about this…but in my opinion, Klein’s text is definitely under-theorized in regards to her analysis (or perhaps lack of analysis I should argue) on the construction of sentimental feeling by Washington and its sociological and cultural ramifications on the portrayal of people from Asia. Incorporating theory is absolutely crucial when you are dealing with social and cultural constructs, such as Orientalism. Unlike Klein, I do not believe that the sentimental construction of feeling can ever be seen as innocuous. On the contrary, if you study the dynamics of this construct, you would find that it was built on certain ideologies and preconceptions that promote racism, prejudice, and cultural hegemony.

Although there are several chapters to go, and Klein might be waiting until the very end to discuss this issue, I am still waiting for Klein to answer what I think is a very important question: What underlies this sentimental construction of feeling? The author spends way too much time in my opinion trying to redeem the sentimental construction of feeling and combating Said’s take on Orientalism. Klein states in her preface, “The pervasive sentimentalism of middlebrow depictions of Asia in the postwar period complicates their relation to Said’s model of Orientalism. Their sentimental insistence on bridging differences, in combination with their liberal disavowals of racial hierarchy, suggests a need to extend the definition of Orientalism beyond the confines that Said first established it” (15). Klein’s belief in the positivity of sentimentalism runs throughout the first two chapters, and she constantly talks about how great middlebrow culture was in addressing things such as internationalism, community, and interdependence. This, however, is not the full story of middlebrow culture and only scraps the surface. It would have been beneficial for Klein to go deeper to examine the ugliness of sentimentalism in her analysis.

What I know is at the very foundation of the sentimental construct of feeling makes me feel uncomfortable with the author’s attempt to show what it seems as positive outcomes of this construct in middlebrow culture. African-American writer James Baldwin wrote an excellent essay critiquing sentimental novels such as Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Baldwin argues that in texts such as these, the underlying premise is that blacks are backwards, primitive, and weak and need whites to be “redeemed”. Furthermore, only until the black individual is “cleansed” of their primitiveness, will whites no longer see them as being merely sub-human creatures. I want to argue that the sentimental construct of feeling created by Washington and perpetuated by middlebrow culture portrayed Asians in a similar light, as being a people who needed to be pitied because of their backwardness. This sort of pity did not allow Asians to be on an equal footing in their relationship with the United States and leads me to question Klein’s argument that middlebrow culture was able to promote a genuine feeling of commonality.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Re-envisioning the Post-War Exchange of Culture

I was interested in Klein’s reflection that much of American Cold War diplomacy, cultural objects, and attitudes about Asia relied on the notion of a “Sentimental Education” primarily from American producers and the government towards the American people.

In these products of state agenda, movies, and map making comes the cultural exchange between the “us and them” that is meant to produce understanding through feeling. This mode reminded me of many of the director Clint Eastwood’s recent projects (Flags of Our Fathers/ Iwo Jima, Gran Torino, and Invictus.) Eastwood would have been in his 20s during the 1950s and many of his films reflect a need to come to terms with the American military relationship to the East. This dilemma is presented always as two conflicting peoples and cultures coming together in a cultural and emotional transaction. The intellectual or the factual realities are often cast aside in order to explore the emotional similarities of disparate people. A Klein presents it as “the pleasure of turning strangers into friends,” so too does Eastwood attempt to evolve the racist character of Walt Kowalski in Gran Torino with his interactions with his Hmong neighbors (in his case he sees all Asian peoples as one and thus refers to them as the people he fought in the Korean war). Yet as the film progresses and Walt and the Neighbors exchange cultural objects and values (Walt teaches the youngest son in the family, Thao Vang Lor, the American values of manliness and work ethic while the Lors teach Walt about community, family, and spirituality). At one point Walt claims, “I have more in common with them (insert one of many of Walt’s racist terms) then I do my own family.” Thus post cold war animosity of one group (the staunch War veteran) to another (but quite dissimilar group) is resolved through exchange and integration between the two groups.

Similarly, Eastwood’s joint project films Flags of Our Fathers and the later released Iwo Jima attempt a visual mediation (of the present looking back to resolve the past). While the two films each feature only short scenes of personal interaction between the Japanese and the American soldiers, the films are meant to compliment each other by producing an image of men in war as similar more disparate. Eastwood’s attempt to make human and personal the military and cultural other as his protagonist might see it, seems to fit in with these cold war projects despite that Eastwood’s projects exist in the now and not in the post-war era. Perhaps Eastwood’s exposure to these sorts of messages and his political involvement in the Republican party is still concerned with this very American activity of “democratic exchange” through “structures of feeling.” As Klein notes on this cold war global imaginary imagery, “It constructed a world in which differences could be bridged and transcended” (44). As in Eastwood’s recent film, Invictus, the complications of apartheid are put to the test of Rugby where Freeman’s Nelson Mandela and Damon’s Francois Pienaar come to know each other through cultural exchanges of feeling (Damon visits Mandela’s prison cell, reads Henley poetry) and Mandela learns about and supports the Springbok Rugby Uniform and team. While some fears are expressed, the political and social demonstrations and national upheaval are not revealed in the film. The emphasis is once again that difference can be overcome by sentimental connections.

(can't think of a title...)

While reading Cold War Orientalism, I couldn’t help but think of today’s political climate and the “re-Orientalism” taking place, not only with the Middle East, but between China and the US as well. After President Obama’s trip to China last year, for example, he said in a speech: “The United States respects the progress that China has made by lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. Just as we respect China’s ancient and remarkable culture, its remarkable achievements, we also strongly believe that the religion and culture of all peoples must be respected and protected, and that all people should be free to speak their minds. And that includes ethnic and religious minorities in China, as surely as it includes minorities within the United States.” The entire speech had the dynamic of “our culture is ‘good’ and ‘free’” while tacitly saying China’s is ‘bad’ in the sense that the people are ‘not free’. In this excerpt and other parts of the speech, the eloquently veiled anxiety over China’s success in bringing people out of poverty and growing their economy was quickly followed by a cultural distinction of difference. That is, the rhetoric of this speech incorporates so many tropes of what we consider an “Orientalist” text: the “us/U.S. versus them” rhetoric, the term “ancient culture” which used to be used in Orientalist texts to comment on cultures lacking technological advancement, but has now been reformatted to discuss the backwards ideology of the Chinese people. Klein’s discussion of the Truman Doctrine speech, particularly her quote: “In it the president cast the postwar situation as a worldwide struggle between ‘free peoples’ who believed in ‘individual liberty’ and ‘totalitarian regimes’ that ruled through ‘terror and oppression’” reminded me of Obama’s speech, and made me think about how little progress we seemed to have made (especially now, when our country can fight with China over a visit with the Dalai Lama.)

The thing I was most intrigued by was Klein’s discussion of “global imaginaries” because it highlighted the fact that the Cold War completely revolutionized the way in which we define and discuss war: in terms of ideology. We do not have Crimean Wars, WWIs, or WWIIs, we have “War on Terror.” The entire process of warfare now has an imaginary or aesthetic quality to it. Terrorism is a perfect example of this. 9/11, for example, is particularly poignant because of the narrative that we ascribe to it—the fact that American planes were used against the American people, that American flight-training programs may have trained the people who later attacked us, the significance of 9-1-1, the idea that the two tallest buildings in the US fell and that they represented American commerce, trade, and progress, etc. We now battle with beliefs.

Under,Theory, Attack

For a book named after a theoretical concept, Cold War Orientalism seems undertheorized. Don't get me wrong, Klein has read her theory--she acknowledges Edward W. Said a few times throughout this book--but she doesn't seem particularly interested in "doing" theory. I looked in the index and she brings up Said a whopping three times in her 300 page monograph. Before I get strung up by the rest of the class, I'm also not saying that this book is not smart, or under researched. It's amazing to see a study of such breadth and diversity in such a relatively short book: ranging from Pete Seeger, to Rogers and Hammerstein, to Henry Luce in this study is a testament to Klein's intellectual energy. All I am saying is that this book is a "studies" book much more than it is a theory book. Hell, this book is more of a history book than it is a theory book. And it some ways it is refreshing to read this as a kind of corrective to the High theory, pomo work on globalization such as Homi Bhahba and Spivak, but I can't shake the feeling that this book is not coming clean about the whole story. I am taken by her account of how the American culture industry warmed up the Cold War, but considering that her subject matter is first political--in the broadest and most specific senses-- and focused on the creation of subjectivities, I think she would benefit with a more thorough engagement with (and/or against) theory.

The construction of her archive, on the other hand, is fascinating, and definitely my favorite part of the book. While I could care less about musicals,--though I do live on South Pacific Street, which in its own right reinforces her points about the centrality of the Orientialist imaginary in middle-brow American culture--the way she weaves her cultural texts together with Life articles and State Department memos paints culture as a holistic system which, ironically, testifies to theoretical rigor of her analysis, despite her lack of explicit engagement with the ur-texts of the genre. Klein writes from an English department as a generation weaned on theory. And even if we are quick to dismiss theory's contemporary relevance or legibility, I think forgetting our instiutional history would deprive us of razor sharp analyses like Klein's. Even if theory should no longer be our prime focus, if we stop reading it, we will be losing the ability to do excellent "studies" work.

I've always been struck by how Williams is particularly applicable to both popular music and the cultures that emerge around it. His theory of emergent, dominant, and residual styles seem to be most applicable in the realm of music.

Section three of “Institutions” we find another instance in which Williams' theories can be applied to popular music. In (ii) Williams maintains that popular music can be placed in the second post-artisanal stage in which “the producer sells his work to a productive intermediary, and typically capitalist social relations begin to be instituted. The intermediary invests in the purchase of a work for the purpose of profit; it is now his relations with the market which are direct” (45). Later in the section Williams maintains that within popular music “the second, productive post-artisanal phase has long been established, and there has been major movement in later phases of market relations” (46).

Yet, it is important to note that in the current digital era, popular music can be understood within the context of the first post-artisanal phase. Williams defines this phase as the producer selling his work “not directly but to a distributive intermediary, who then becomes in a majority of cases, his factual if often occasional employer” (45). While Itunes and Amazon may not be the patrons in the traditional sense, the way in which the function in distributing music is quite similar to the definition of the first post-artisanal phase Williams sets forth.

In (iii) “Market professional” Williams's definition primarily concerns itself with the role of literature and the wrier. But once again, this definition is highly applicable to popular music. The primary debate surrounding royalty and copyright no longer revolves primarily around the printed word. Instead, the debate in the last ten years has been about recorded audio. The issue is no longer a writer's relations with a publisher being bypassed by domestic or foreign pirates. Instead, artists' relationships with record labels are being bypassed by music pirates around the globe. Furthermore, the notion of royalty is an immense part of the current debate surrounding popular music. Particularly, the issue has been widely debated in regards to such trivial matters as ringtones. The question was to whether or not the use of songs as ringtones and their subsequent use warranted the payment of royalties to artists.

A Balance of Culture

I found Raymond’s Williams’ chapter “Two Literary Critics” in his Culture and Society really helpful in trying to understand the meaning of culture and how it fits into our society. In this chapter, he examines the works of I.A. Richards and F. R. Leavis and their theories as to the nature and creation of culture. Both critics debated the effect of “bad art” and how it must be overcome by culture. Richard’s overall viewpoint is that art and literature provide the means with which society can redeem its culture (247). Leavis’ viewpoint seems a bit more arrogant. For Leavis, culture is “a positive body of achievements and habits, to precisely express a mode of living superior to that being brought about by the ‘progress of civilization’” (254).

Throughout most of the excerpt we read of Culture and Society, Williams summarizes contrasts other theorists’ viewpoints without offering much of his own opinion. I found one section where he does give his own opinion in contrast to Leavis’ quite compelling.

“What is true, I would argue, is that a number of new kinds of unsatisfying work have come into existence; a number of new kinds of cheap entertainment; and a number of new kinds of social division. Against these must be set a number of new kinds of satisfying work; certain evident improvements, and new opportunities, in education; certain important new kinds of social organization. Between all these and other factors, the balance has to be more finely drawn than the myth allows.” (261)

I found Williams’ opinion here to be refreshing. While he does bemoan the existence of lowbrow culture and its effects on society, his proposed cure is entirely constructive. Instead of simply complaining about the existence of what he calls “unsatisfying work” and “cheap entertainment,” he suggests the enhanced creation of highbrow culture. Instead of attempting to destroy what he feels is inferior, he attempts to create a better balance by raising the bar of highbrow culture and inundating our society with “evident improvements” that will, in his mind, create a more balanced and enriched society.

Thoughts on Williams

Thoughts on Williams

On pages 52 and 53 in the chapter entitled “Institutions” Williams discusses how the origin of cultural production for new media; cinema, radio, and television, in the twentieth century is found in the “corporate market.” The dominance of the corporate market makes access to the prior “artisinal” sites of cultural production and distribution more difficult. The older forms of cultural exchange are not eclipsed by the corporate model, but have instead persisted at different sites. “This does not mean, of course, that older forms of relation have not survived elsewhere. In the older arts of painting and sculpture, orchestral music and, as we have seen, some writing, the complex relations of the individual producer (and originator) have persisted” (53). Where is the “elsewhere” that these older art forms survive? Is there some sort of vernacular or folk space that allows the artistic process to adapt and continue? Is there not a middle ground where older forms of production and distribution are combined with newer forms to adapt to emergent technological changes? Is the middle ground a transitional site en route toward assimilation into the dominant corporate form, or can the middle ground adapt enough to originate unique alternative forms? Essentially, I’m interested in how Williams would define and describe folkways and folk culture, because I think they inhabit this “elsewhere” space that seems oblique and indeterminate.

On pages 94 and 95 in the chapter entitled “Means of Production,” Williams discusses how cultural hierarchies became more solidified from the movement of oral to written communication. Oral communication in the realms of “law, learning, religion, and history” already had “marked cultural divisions.” With the movement toward the written word, these hierarchies became more apparent. He argues that the accessibility and distribution of literacy has been slow and the divisions between the literate and illiterate are much larger than we realize. He describes this unequal relationship as “asymmetrical” because “the importance of writing increases but the ability to read rises much more slowly” (108). The most crucial knowledge and information became located in print form, selected, consumed, and understood by a dominant minority of the population. Williams doesn’t go into great detail discussing the asymmetry involved in cultural taste. He does mention the tension cultural elites face in maintaining a “high culture” despite its potential low profit margins. His essential point though, is that print becomes the medium that solidifies class divisions.

A question for discussion: What would be the contemporary equivalent of the printing revolution be for contemporary society? What is an example of a technological development that has changed the way we communicate and understand knowledge but has been slow in accessibility and distribution?

Matt Nelson

Too Short?!

Well … I liked the introduction. I felt like Williams did a nice job of articulating where cultural studies fits in among similar disciplines – history, anthropology, philosophy, etc. He also talks about what culture studies is supposed to do, succinctly, which I liked, because sometimes it’s damn near impossible to explain to an “outsider” the differences between cultural studies and English, the function of cultural studies, etc. without sounding like a rambling idiot (kind of like I do right now). And it is especially hard at a bar when you’ve had a few beers … I usually tell people I meet that I am a business major, because it’s sexier than physics and “Literary and Cultural studies” turns into word vomit. Anyway, here is my one sentence summary of Williams’ function of cultural studies; LCS evaluates cultural artifacts (books, movies, artworks, even personalities) within a specific, contemporary context.

But I did not really understand the rest of the excerpt. It was a little boring and it felt more like a history lesson than a cultural evaluation. I kept thinking … “So what?” “Why does this fact, notion matter?” I also would have liked to see specific examples to support his claims. He also seems a little indifferent, like he is spouting idea after idea and gives us no indication as to how we should feel about this or that. I think that the best cultural commentary comes with a bit of passion and direction, because it is all rather subjective and it cannot rely on factual weight to be impactful.

On the other hand, I admire his ability to take complex ideas, movements and compress them into neat, succinct concepts, which are easily understandable and transferable. I can see why LCS professionals reference him so often. This text provides a toolbox of general ideas that can be expanded and applied.

What Reproduction and the Market Do to Highbrow Culture

Many of us in cultural studies and media studies have been fascinated with the reproduction of cultural objects. What happens to culture when it can be reproduced and distributed in a mass way? That’s a question that Williams is interested in in The Sociology of Culture. He talks about many methods of technical reproduction—from the proliferation of print media to the trendy music discs and cassettes of the early 1980s—and considers how the “means of production” in general change the stakes for culture. At the same time Williams talks about the market forces that surround these means of cultural reproduction, and he takes an unsurprisingly critical stance toward them.

In the passage that I want to focus on, Williams suggests that market forces in effect endanger highbrow culture. But is that necessarily the case? I want to look at this passage and compare it to a similar discussion from John Berger’s classic aesthetics book Ways of Seeing in order to compare the two authors’ divergent responses to the question of how mass reproduction in a commodity marketplace affects the status of the highbrow.

Here’s what Williams says. In discussing asymmetries, he points out that there is a tension between “the notion of a necessary ‘high culture’ and the pressures of the market on its continued viability” (107). In other words, Williams suggests that although we feel that preserving and upholding high culture is “necessary,” our commodity marketplace poses a threat to high culture.

This sounds much like Adorno, doesn’t it? In Adorno the market that has given rise to mass culture concurrently makes high culture a sort of endangered species. The endless pounding of the jazz machine overwhelms Beethoven. We know what Lana Turner looks like in a sweater but not what Rembrandt’s best works look like.

I want to turn to John Berger now for a different take on this issue of how reproduction and the market change the stakes for high culture. Don’t get me wrong: Berger is hardly an apologist for reproduction or for the market commodification of art and culture. But he doesn’t say that these things destroy highbrow culture or make in unviable. Instead he argues that reproduction and the market change our relationship to high culture: “Today we see the art of the past as nobody saw it before. We actually perceive it in a different way” (18). Of reproduction Berger notes that when, for instance, a camera reproduces an art image, “it destroys the uniqueness of its image” (19). It’s that uniqueness that Berger says is the critical change effected by reproduction.

Berger, building on the famous “Work of Art…” essay by Walter Benjamin, explains our changed relationship to high art by discussing a typical visit to an art museum. Because of reproduction, because of market forces surrounding art, our visit to the museum is less an aesthetic experience and more of a market experience: “Now [the artwork] hangs in a room by itself. The room is like a chapel. The drawing is behind bullet-proof Perspex. It has acquired a new kind of impressiveness. Not because of what it shows—not because of the meaning of its image. It has become impressive, mysterious, because of its market value” (23).

Now, obviously Berger doesn’t celebrate the fact that market forces have taken hold over our aesthetic experiences. But in a way he suggests that reproduction and the market, rather than compromising highbrow “original” art, have in fact heightened its cultural or social status by fetishizing its originality. This seems somewhat different than what Williams and Adorno say, doesn’t it? Or, are they suggesting the same thing in different terms? Somehow Berger’s account strikes me as one that’s of more use to us in cultural studies in that it’s, I suppose, a bit more positive and analytical than that of Williams or Adorno. Berger makes me feel like I can do something, whereas Williams and Adorno make me feel pacified.

(tried to keep it short)

It’s obvious to me that Williams is extremely knowledgeable in the field he is describing. If nothing else his extensive referencing reflects an unimaginably comprehensive literature review that I’m glad I’ll never have to index.

Unfortunately as a reader, that’s all I felt this work was, an extensive literature review.

Now, as a master’s student in the LCS program, it may seem like a cheap shot to criticize Williams on the grounds of style (though I imagine our friends and neighbors in the Rhetoric department would counter with something like “how you say something is often more important than what you are saying”). And I admit that it is often easier to point to flaws in a given work in order to invalidate it rather than attempt to understand something in its full complexity. But when I read these excerpts from The Sociology of Culture, I felt as though I could hear the Ben Stein of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off lecturing to me.

I wanted to scream, “Where is your passion? What do you care about?” and perhaps more importantly, “Why should I care?”

I’m not saying that the information Williams has synthesized is of no use, though I admit I struggle to find an application personally; I doubt I was his intended audience when he wrote this. I am saying that, when I find myself asking what the stakes of his project are, it worries me that a lack of effective communication, or perhaps creative communication, could undermine an important piece of research.

I grant you that my criticism is superficial at best and that this post is yet another venting of frustration. Not that not everything needs to be overtly political shouted from a righteous soapbox (though in cultural studies, it might behoove one). We all must unfortunately read many a dry work to add those precious letters to the ends of our names. But it seems somehow better to express my frustrations in a blog post than let them infiltrate class discussion or heaven forbid a paper.

I guess all I’m saying is give me the passion of Gramcsci and Hoggart, even the dire pessimism of Adorno any day over the stale triscuit that is Raymond Williams.

Dialectical Radicalism

At one time the end of this excerpt of Raymond Williams would have given me chills. He taps into this nerve of my old self when he claims that "There is no way to teach a man to read the Bible--a predominant intention in much early education in literacy--which did not also enable him to read the radical press" (110). Of course, this kind of dialectical radicalism is also a paradox for the materialist analysis. How can the agent of oppression--here the church, but in a larger sense, capitalism in all its costumes--also be the worker's saving grace? His name for this paradox is "asymmetry," or the failure of ends and means to line up like one would expect them to. His example is the Marxist tract or the Anarchist cookbook that circulates to a wide audience due to market-driven print capitalism. I think it's hard not to think of the "digital DIY" when Williams explains that "The older though continuing tensions between cultural authority and cultural independence have been transformed by the increasingly dominant social relations of the new means of production and reproduction" (103).Here Williams is coming close to what he will call "emergent social function" in Marxism and Literature. When I first read Williams--way back in 2006--I thought that digital reproduction, things like MySpace, BitTorrent, Napster, you name it, were exactly these emergent social formations that signaled a new cultural means of reproduction. Now, I'm not so sure.

We must notice that in his discussion of "new media," a word that has come to mean more than Williams could have even imagined, the first thing he does is graft it onto the "corporate professional" artist (50-53). Of course TV writers and radiomen were corporate professionals because they got their patronage from a network of film company, but Williams is actually quite perceptive of the future of our "newer" media. The artist is no longer just a "salaried professional" but now she is a "post-industrial" producer. The difference is more than nominal: the writer no longer just writes, she designs with text. Even in new media production seemingly outside the capitalist mode of production, i.e. the gift economy/ meritocracy of the blogosphere, the cultural production takes place strictly on globalized capital's terms (this blog we are contributing to is owned by Google, for example, the fiber-optic cable we connect to the internet to are owned by corporate interests, we taking this class under the catalog one of the most corporatized universities in the world, etc.) Though I once thought Williams offered us unbridled hope of understanding new social formations, I've come to realize he offers us much more: a way to contextualize the "newness" of new media, which, in turn, gives us ammunition in our struggle for truly "alternative" cultural production.

the space of overlap...

Originally, I felt a little bogged-down reading through Williams’ incredibly detailed sections and subsections in his method, but then I started thinking of this work as something of a blueprint. Not only does it contain a glossary of cultural studies keywords, but it also gives us a blueprint of how to carry out our work. With all of this considered, in addition to the knowledge that he is writing this book towards the end of his career, it was easier to appreciate what Williams was trying to accomplish: to literally outline and define the field that he had pioneered in his work.

The thing that I was most fascinated by was the idea of overlap (30-1) which for me really resonated as the perfect way to describe what it is we try and do in cultural studies. I know, personally, when people ask me “what are you studying?” it is very difficult to define it: “well, I study literature, with some theory, and some visual art—and the historical period in which all of these things were developing.” Oftentimes, “interdisciplinary” finds its way into the explanation—but how do you give a concise explanation of a project that spans several discrete disciplines to someone outside the field? This is where Williams’ term comes in. I imagine overlap as the intersection in a venn diagram and circle A, B, C, etc. are different fields in which a scholar can trace a topic. Williams described the role of the bard, the artist with the patron, and the institutionalized artist to show that the arts and literature have never had a solitary existence outside of their relationship to culture, and therefore it is necessary to study the spaces in which the artist and the art meet with the other branches of society:

…but the work now being done, from so many different starting-points, is still a convergence of interests and methods, and there are still crucial theoretical differences at every stage. Another effect of the variety of starting-points, in history, philosophy, literary studies, linguistics, aesthetics and social theory, as well as in sociology itself, is that there is always a problem of overlap with other distinct and still necessary disciplines. (30)

Williams gives us a great outline of what cultural studies should be, and truly exemplifies in the text why he denied being called just a Marxist; his scholarship and his method uproot the limiting effect of definition and categorization so that we can understand the full sociological impact of culture.

Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud!): The Black Arts Movement as an Independent Cultural Formation

" But if we deduce significant cultural relations from the study of institutions alone, we shall be in danger of missing some important cases in which cultural organization has not been, in any ordinary sense, institutional" (Williams 35).

What I appreciate about Williams' approach to culture, specifically his take on the sociology of culture, is its inclusivity of a variety of cultural formations. Williams argues that the study of culture should not be limited to the cultural production and relations of recognized institutions but, conversely, academics and intellectuals should examine as well the development, dynamics, and innerworkings of cultural movements. What makes these cultural movements so valuable is the ability cultural students have to examine closely the methods of cultural production from a grass-roots perspective, which is often difficult when studying art produced at the institutional level.

Why I am so excited about this inclusion of modern cultural formations is the importance given to art of resistance and revolution, which I find so powerful and captivating. This type of art was all too common during the 1960s, which marked a period of social unrest and revolution. One movement durng the 1960s that has always captured my interest is the Black Arts Movement (BAM), which was the artistic branch of the Black Power Movement. In order to understand the art of this movement, one definetely would have to adopt William's view of culture representing a "signifying system," through which the art of the Black Power Movement does not merely indicate a new approach to style, technique, composition, and form but more importantly reflects the social conditions and social relations of the African-American population during the 1960s.

In regards to the social relations of cultural production of the BAM, which I find the most interesting, it is important to note that the Black Arts Movement emerged right after the assassination of Malcolm X in 1965. Malcolm X was a strong proponent of the "Black is Beautiful Ideology," and urged his black followers to celebrate their skin color instead of viewing it as being a hindrance or a curse. The leader also fought against Euro-American cultural hegemony and assimilation, teaching blacks that they ought to return to their own heritage and culture for guidance and direction. In hopes of preserving and commemorating Malcolm X's ideological stances, African-American author,playwright,and activist Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) led Harlem-based black artists in a movement that would celebrate and promote a black aesthetic, which included ideologies and perspectives that focused on black cultural tradition and rhetorical strategies. This aesthetic could be found in a vast range of mediums including literature, poetry, theatre, music, and dance. Furthermore, these mediums not only celebrated black culture, but served as tools to promote black political agendas and to address issues in the black community.

Although the BAM movement was self-organized, the art it produced was far-reaching and had a huge impact on political, social, economic, and educational institutions. For example, the Black Arts Movement paved the way for subsequent civil rights movements which would be led by feminists, members of the LGBT, Asian-Americans, and Latinos. Furthermore, in regards to academia, the movement helped promote multiculturalism, which led to the expansion of the literary canon in addition to the emergence of African-American Studies and Woman Studies departments in many colleges and universities. The Black Arts Movement gives us as cultural students a reason not to dismiss the power independent cultural formations have to promote change through their art.

williams out of context

Williams is great at giving his readers clear categories to use when approaching projects. His description of the role of a sociologist of culture or cultural materialist is very clear: he is not concerned with exploring the types of art and social practices seemingly “produced” by certain ideologies or belief systems, but rather the way in which social and material practices generate art and culture, and the way in which these things (as signifying systems) mediate this relationship. So often we find, upon closer examination, that the creation and dissemination of particular artistic works depend on situations and relationships that have remarkably little to do with the content of the work itself but rather its social or political function.

Critics of historicist approaches like Harold Bloom often tout classics like Homer, Vergil’s Aeneid, and the tragedies of Aeschylus for their purported universal qualities and are greeted with rounds of laughter by classical scholars. If we use Williams’ distinctions (p 21-5) we can see why. He distinguishes between (i) the social conditions of art, (ii) social material in art works, and (iii) the social relations in art works.

(III) The Iliad and Odyssey were randomly performed in scattered fragments by itinerant bands of orators until the 6th century when the Athenian tyrant Peisistratus (during his famed “settlement of the state”) reduced taxes on the poor, reorganized the court system, and publicly funded the expansion of arts, theater, and drama in the city’s Panathenaic Festival. It was here that “Homer” became codified and written down so performances could be judged by an objective standard. Even though it was recorded in multiple dialects the very existence of a standard text solidified the Athenian claim to Greek cultural dominance in the region.

(II) Out of the settlement came the invention of Tragic Drama. To elaborate on Williams’ “social material in art works” we need look no further than The Oresteia of Aeschylus. Here, under the guise of a well-known family revenge plot, we have the transition from a household-oriented system of justice based on vendettas and familial revenge to a system of justice oriented in the polis. As the growing urban market demanded a shift from an economy based on autonomous households to one based on contracts and increasing public and military service, the new seat of justice (the Areopagus) required legitimation in the popular imaginary (artistic sphere). How better to inaugurate the authority of the new court than to have Athena herself come down and dispense justice, saving the aggrieved citizens from endless cycles of “mythic” (and feminine) violence? The “social material” in this work marks the very real economic and juridical transformation of space as well as the (further) disempowerment of women.

(I) For Williams the “social conditions of art” relate to an affective and psychological process present in historical texts which can be used to illuminate the historical consciousness of those who produced the work. Vergil’s Aeneid is a prime example. In it we have a piece of epic literature commissioned by Augustus in a classicizing move to garb his politics in an aesthetics of authenticity and timelessness. The Aeneid was an attempt to establish the Julio-Claudian family line at the founding of Rome and constructs the pre-Romans as the refugees of Troy. The narrative itself is told in the future anterior as if all along Rome and its destiny lay in the hands of Augustus. Vergil left it unfinished and is said to have demanded that it be burned while on his death bed. So we have a political ruler essentially commissioning great works of art, sculpture, literature, and architecture to produce a total affective social reality which reconstructs its own history in order to legitimate the present and consolidate his rule after a brutal civil war.

We see a clear shift towards a historical consciousness and a self-referential character that develops in signifying systems: it begins to refer to itself and its (borrowed) traditions in order to legitimate itself. The kind of recursive and dialectical sociological analysis of culture which Williams developed is still a very effective and useful tool.

Art(ifact) - Your roots are showing

Raymond Williams is careful not to allow his arguments to become too reductive. He shows his readers many doors but no true exits from the relationships between art and market in relation to cultural production (or 'reproduction'), whether that be articulated in his five stages of patron/artists ties, or his examination of their institutions of perpetuation. However, one of those bricked off doors stuck out in my mind as an interesting example of commodification of art.... or more specifically, commodification of artifacts.
The differentiation of art from artifact becomes an iffy one to make. An artifact is a product of human agency or craft as opposed to something inherent to nature. Traditionally, art is (simply) a conscious human effort to imitate, complement, or alter the work of nature. Indeed for Marxists both are basically expressions of the class interests and socio-economic world-views of certain distinctive groups in society, for Williams they are equally market driven, but not all cultural production has been transformed in to a market commodity type. Still, the question that lingers for me is the question of art vs. artifact and where does one end and the other begin. For Williams, art and artifact are almost interchangeable and mediated in a kind of checks and balances system by the patron/artist relationship.
I found myself fascinated by the implications of his discussion on the differences between 'artisans,' 'craftsmen' and 'artists' and the utility of the objects they create. More specifically, the ways in which objects are displayed. Where better to illustrate the market forces of patronage than a museum? He does mention the institution of the exhibition of art (starting on pg 61), and I got to thinking about more permanent displays of art and artifacts, particularly that of the museum. Not only Art museums are the products of wealthy individuals (patrons) amassing private collections, but in fact most museums (whether History, Maritime, Science, or even Zoos and Botanical Gardens) are the result of private patronage. Land, pieces of interest, even payroll are often only possible through donations. The objects themselves are displayed similarly, whether they be an early stone hammer or VerMeer's Girl With the Pearl Earring. One obviously serves a more practical use, while the other does not. Value, then dictated by the market forces of the various markets of patronage or cost of acquisition of cultural products, is just as complex as Williams might suggest. It's not surprising to me that Williams remained more optimistic concerning the agency of the common man. His final work was a historical novel about the common man done in snapshots from the Paleolithic era through the modern. A kind of history museum of Williams own design. Obviously history is an important aspect to Williams interpretation of culture, production, and market. Whether the Cultural production be of Art or artifact, it is the artist or artisan that controls cultural production and utility of said item. There in lies the agency or power of the producer. The patron merely ascribes the art(ifact) market value.

Thoughts on Hoggart

Thoughts on Hoggart

In Richard Hoggart’s preface to The Uses of Literacy: Changing Patterns in English Mass Culture, he describes the type of reader or audience for his work. “I have thought of myself as addressing first of all the serious ‘common reader’ or ‘intelligent layman’ from any class” (11). He asserts that the language is neither too technical or meanings deliberately made obvious. He admits that finding the right style to write about working class life is difficult, for “The ‘intelligent layman’ is an elusive figure, and popularization a dangerous undertaking: but it seems to me that those of us who feel that writing for him is an urgent necessity must go on trying to reach him” (11). He doesn’t elaborate what is particularly dangerous about ‘popularisation’ in regards to the composition of his study. He is suspicious of what he terms “mass culture,” being cheap romances, television, movies, and that this shift is replacing a more ‘authentic’ working class way of life. “the new mass culture is in some important ways less healthy than the often crude culture it is replacing” (24). Thus, the old working class culture may be crude, but at least it’s organic, as opposed to the cheap vulgarity of the “new” popularizations. He doesn’t state where the new mass culture comes from – one can assume it’s a degraded American import. Is the fear of ‘popularisation’ as a literary style and a form of entertainment a fear of fascism? An imposed unifying style that stifles intellectual work and creativity? I’m curious what Hoggart means about “trying to reach” the working class with his work. Did the working class read Hoggart’s book? Could they afford Hoggart’s book? If they did read it, how did they feel about it? The idea of finding a middle ground language that appeals to all audiences but is still respectfully intelligent is found in Wordsworth’s 1802 publication “A Preface to Lyrical Ballads” where Wordsworth idealizes the language of the rural poor and aims to create a classless language that incorporates words and phrases of how people actually speak. Wordsworth also despised the “frantic novels, sickly and stupid German tragedies,” being read in England at the time. Similarly to Hoggart, he disapproved of the imported “sentimental” popular literature devoid of authentic working class culture. Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads was too expensive to have been read by the rural poor in 1802, and the intended audience was for scholars and poets. Essentially, though the intentions behind Wordsworth’s and Hoggart’s projects are different. Wordsworth hopes to bring down the elevated language of poetry to that of the plainspoken for a new kind of poetic language, though not distributed for and accessible to the rural poor. Whereas Hoggart aims to describe the cultural shift from a more authentic working class way of life to a degraded “unhealthy” mass culture devoid of meaningful and local folkways. I’d be curious to find out if the people in Leeds found his observations accurate.

Matt Nelson

Hoggart -- Marriage and Family

In “The Uses of Literacy,” Richard Hoggart spends a good deal of time outlining the characteristics of the working-class family, particularly the roles of the father and mother. Many of his descriptions were very era-specific, and I found myself wishing he would explain how his descriptions of working-class families differed from those of the upper classes. While there is the obvious difference of occupation and leisure, most of Hoggart’s descriptions seem to revolve around traditional gender roles and how the working-class parents adhered to them. While the upper-class mother of 1957 presumably did not have to spend her entire day making the house “workable” (44), she was still locked in a submissive role to her husband. Hoggart says that for the working class, “the basic assumption is that the man is master of the house” (50). However, wasn’t the man the master of the upper-class house, as well? I would have appreciated some examples as to how the upper-class families operate, showing how the working-class wife is treated differently than the upper-class wife.

Hoggart does point out, however, that for the working-class family, many wives work in addition to their husbands and “come home from work just as tired as their husbands and ‘set to’ to do all the housework without help from them” (51). I believe that this is where the biggest difference would lie between working- and upper-class families. Hoggart is proposing that working-class wives take on both traditionally male and female roles by working outside and inside the home, whereas working-class husbands continue to maintain their traditional male roles. In fact, Hoggart points out that working-class women pride themselves on their heavy workload and would not want a husband who took on more traditionally feminine roles (45, 51). Hoggart explains this by hypothesizing that for working-class men and women, the institution of marriage itself is the end-goal. Working-class women believe it is their duty to get married, raise, and take care of a family, while working-class men believe that it is their duty to provide for and protect a family. Again, I would have like for Hoggart to compare this to upper-class views on marriage. Did the upper class not value marriage as much as the working class? How did upper-class gender roles reflect their marriage values?

In comparing Hoggart’s observations with modern-day families, I do not see that many differences. While we often pride ourselves on how much women’s roles have progressed, watching any one of TLC’s wedding shows (“Say Yes to the Dress” for example) will show that modern-day women are just as consumed with the idea of getting married as Hoggart’s working-class women of 1957. The main difference may be that today, the emphasis is placed on the wedding itself and the status of being a bride rather than on maintaining a successful marriage and family.

keeping a good fire

It is surprising how many people who call themselves materialists (cultural or otherwise) rarely comment on the most basic element of a society… energy. Reading Hoggart’s account of the housewife who can “keep a good fire,” he reminds us that “seventy years of cheap coal have ensured that most people have learned to use it lavishly, by most foreign standards” (35). Here we have an instance where part of the material base of the economy is brought out in a particular cultural practice: having, sharing, and seeing a large, warm, coal-fueled fire.

This fire not only mediates relations within the family by providing a common source of warmth and utility, by its very lavishness and the cheapness of the coal itself, it conceals other social relationships which make this family’s togetherness possible, namely, the relationship between the coal miners and the owners of the mine. Reading this brief account sixty years after it was written we might see this family fire inside the home as mediating and constituting a particular relationship to the outside.

This could be why there is today such a virulent reaction to calls for conservation of energy or curtailing of consumption. When things as crass and “external” as geological deposits of petroleum or bauxite (and the people who live on those deposits) all of the sudden appear or are implicated in our most intimate of encounters, it IS unsettling. This is why I believe that in the 21st century the materialism of culture, the very matter (and material possibilities) which comprise the objects, relationships, and people in question, will be laid bare in environmental discourses on habitation itself.

Raymond Williams is apt to disagree with R.E. Warner’s statement that “capitalism has no further use for culture” (270). Every commercial we see now is about creativity. Energy companies market themselves by highlighting the ingenuity of their human (mental) laborers and never mention the US soldiers who protect the supply lines from the insurgent locals. The US military now hires cultural anthropologists to put a more human face on occupations, literally going into people’s homes. It seems as if the only way capitalist modernization can continue, to keep economies expanding on increasingly difficult-to-obtain supplies of material resources, culture itself needs to be mobilized as a supplement.

If we wish to go on keeping good fires and good tables we will have to reconstitute the base. Both Williams and Hoggart highlight the role of culture in making this possible.

The Power of Folk Culture as a Navigational Tool in an Ever-Changing, Modern-Day Society

Jacob Lawrence's The Migration of the Negro from the Migration Series
(1940-41)

"Yes, I thought, what about those of us who shoot up from the South into the busy city like wild jacks-in-the-box broken loose from our springs- so sudden that our gait becomes like that of deep-sea divers suffering from the bends?" - Protagonist in Ellison's Invisible Man

As I study African-American Literature, I have become more and more interested in the portrayal of the migration of black Southerners to the urban, industrial North. Many authors tied to the Harlem Renaissance, notably Ellison, Wright, and Hurston, were inspired by the events of the Great Migration Era (1919-1929) and sought to uncover and creatively express the transformation of the southern Negro's consciousness as he or she developed into a more modernized and urban individual. Unfortunately, this mental transformation was often marked by intense periods of disorientation, confusion, turmoil, and alienation. These occurances, however, should come as no surprise considering the stark contrast between the South and the North, which resulted in the difficultyblacks faced in effectively applying the teachings of their folk culture to an industrialized and increasingly modernized society.

Notwithstanding this difficulty, however, Ellison, Wright, and Hurston did not lose all hope in the power of black folk culture to serve in some manner as a tool of survival and navigation for blacks living in urban enviroments. For example, the authors explored how various folk songs, aphorisms, and oral narratives of southern black folk culture could be used to help black urban dwellers understand how to combat the latent forms of racism found in the North. Ellison effectively demonstrates this use of folk culture in his novel, Invisible Man, where the protagonist slowly draws a connection between a folk song he learned growing up in the South, which makes references to lynching, and the racial discrimination he faces while living in Harlem. While he is not being physically attacked by his white counter-parts, the protagonist comes to believe that he is being symbolically lynched.

Furthermore, the Renaissance authors also acknowledge how limiting folk culture can be to urban blacks and urge them to make the effort to reach beyond the confines of folk tradition and adopt aspects of the modern-day rationale. This rationale includes the celebration of individuality, creativity, open-mindedness, and most importantly, progress and self-improvement.

Similarily, I appreciate Hoggart's hope in the ability the English working-class has to navigate an ever-changing society through the use of speech, oral tradition, superstition, and myth. Hoggart writes, "The truth lies between the two extremes: the persistence in so strong a measure of older froms of speech does not indicate a powerful and vibrant continuance of an earlier tradition, but the tradition is not altogether dead. It is harked back to, leaned upon as a fixed and still largely trustworthy field of reference in world now difficult to understand" (28). It is all too common that intellectuals and academics become so pessimistic about the fate of marginalized and oppressed groups to the extent that they label the tools of their culture as antiquated and inapplicable to modern-day society. Conversely, Hoggart refuses
to ignore such tools. Although he refrains from overly romanticizing the lives of the working-class, Hoggart still celebrates their ability to resist the tendency to seperate themselves entirely from their culture. Furthermore, Hoggart is still being realistic in the sense that he acknowledges the inevitability that members of the working-class will have to adopt modern-day sensibilities in order to survive. For Hoggart, however, just like the Renaissance authors, it is all about balance.