What do we mean by 'culture'? This word, purloined by journalists to denote every kind of collective habit, lies at the centre of contemporary debates about the past and future of society. In this thought-provoking book, Roger Scruton argues for the religious origin of culture in all its forms, and mounts a defence of the 'high culture' of our civilization against its radical and 'deconstructionist' critics. He offers a theory of pop culture, a panegyric to Baudelaire, a few reasons why Wagner is just as great as his critics fear him to be, and a raspberry to Cool Britannia. A must for all people who are fed up to their tightly clenched front teeth with Derrida, Foucault, Oasis and Richard Rogers.
About the Author
Roger Scruton was formerly Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London and now works full time as an author and journalist. He is the author of many outstanding books including Elegy for England and On Hunting.
The author starts by giving a definition of the concept of culture and states his intention to pursue an "archaeological" method in studying his subject. He then discusses the difference between cult and culture in which he sees religion as the guarantee of social knowledge and asserts that there can be no scientific culture because culture addresses the question of what we feel. Mr Scruton then proceeds by defining the Romantic movement in art and literature and linking it to the decline of Christian faith and the Enlightenment, the aesthetic thus replacing the religious. And so art and literature ceased to be recreation and became studies. Since the aesthetic is the realm of value, the question of taste arises. He underlines the importance of fiction in high culture because it is the product of the imagination. Art being the product of the human spirit, it is higher than nature and apart from it.
Mr Scruton then concentrates on Romanticism which had nature, erotic love and the world before Enlightenment as its dominant themes. Works of art also pose the question of the importance of fantasy and imagination. Modernism is also discussed with the example of Baudelaire, then avant-garde and the concept of kitsch in which advertising is important because it creates a fantasy in which value can be purchased so that price and value are one and the same.
The author then discusses the issue that the relationship between a painting or a novel and its subject is an intentional one, not a material one as opposed to photography.
A further topic is modern music in which it is not the music that is the focus of attention but the singer himself. In the music of youth, the music is at the service of the performer and not the other way round.
Finally the author concludes that culture is rooted in religion and that the role of modern high culture is to perpetrate the common culture not as a religion but as art.
An interesting study of modern values and of the importance of aesthetic principles which shows that "culture" does not merely denote every kind of collective habit.
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In many respects I should give this book five stars. As ever with Scruton, he makes difficult ideas easily accessible, with a style that is both clear and engaging, and at times almost poetic. He manages to pack a great deal of wisdom and erudition into what is really quite a brief text. If you are looking for a place to get rapidly oriented in cultural history, and in the bitter controversies that have divided academia, more or less back to the days of Nietzsche, then I can't imagine a better or more informative start.
However, the book is not just a neutral description of the territory. It is an impassioned plea from one side of the great divide. Scruton is one of the most articulate proponents of the high culture camp writing at this time. So, I am in broad agreement with his main argument; that high Art has evolved to somewhat fill the vacuum in society left by the demise of Religion. That it is under threat from accommodations made with popular culture by modern powers, and from academic movements that have taken cultural democratisation several steps too far. Such movements as Deconstructionism centered around the questionable ideas of thinkers such as Derrida, who decry high culture as a tool of repression of the power elite. I also agree that Art matters, and that quality and excellence in the Arts matter to quality and excellence in society at large. On these things I am full agreement. In particular I am fully behind his critique of the vacuity and essential inarticulateness of large swathes of popular culture.
Where I am not in agreement with Scruton is that high Art is a bastion of conservative values that were once underwritten by the Church, and that this was representative of a kind of community in which everyone belonged and could find their place. I think that this kind of community was only ever an ideal that approached realisation only for a very few. It was a good and highly attractive ideal, but there were large parts of society for whom such ideals remained pure mythology. I also disagree with Scruton on his attitude to love, sex and family, which again he sees as, in the good old days before mass contraception, providing a thread of belonging and transmission of moral values. Again, family might have fulfilled that idealised role for a small section of society, but for the most part people just muddled along with whatever hand they were dealt. He seems to neglect that fact that the community of yore could be very cruel, and could ruthlessly marginalise various categories of people. Not just those caught up in poverty, but children, for whom there were no systems of protection from abuse, women, unmarried mothers, spinsters burnt as witches, the mad and so on. Scruton also fails to bring to light the thread of subversiveness that runs through the canon of high art, often playing the catalyst to many of the social changes that he finds most regretable, and that it only becomes a repository of conservative values from a rather tame retrospect.
I could go on into my own rant of where I think Scruton has got it wrong, but that would be to depart from the function of a review. The point is that reading this book has helped sharpen and clarify my own ideas on these vexatious issues. I think I've given enough of an outline for prospective readers to determine whether they're going to enjoy or abhor it.
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This book tells it like it is, although perhaps a bit too nostalgic in parts. It is however a fair and accurate analysis of the society we live in. It probes deep into the problems of modern society, and addresses fundamental issues that are often overlooked by both the media and policy makers.
I found the section on youth culture particularly interesting since it offers a partial explaination as to why the youth of today lack direction and act as they do.
However, I do feel that the book will not appeal to the masses, which is a shame really.
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