What makes you "cultured"...? (neighborhood, zip codes, richest)
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I think, at least from what it appears in the context generally on display in the City-vs-City forums, culture is used more in the anthropological sense (defineable patterns of behavior characteristic of individual breeding groups). And, when these braggarts wax on about how much culture New York City has, they aren't specifically saying they're cultured in the intellectually curious sense. They're merely saying something to the effect of, "We gotz lotsa peepul from all overs the places that look and act differnt from mee."
In other words, some posters from New York City think its "culture" is unsurpassed because of the readily availabile durian fruit ice cream.
That I can put a 12 pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon away in two hours... THAT makes me cultured.
I do Lonestar (I'm a provincial homer I admit), but I can only get through about eight in that amount of time. A twelver in two hours? Yeesh. That's one beer every ten minutes. I was able to pull that off in college. I was more cultured then too.
I do Lonestar (I'm a provincial homer I admit), but I can only get through about eight in that amount of time. A twelver in two hours? Yeesh. That's one beer every ten minutes. I was able to pull that off in college. I was more cultured then too.
They must have offered that durian fruit ice cream at college. The ice cream that needs to be imported specially from NY according to some
San Diego seems to have a good deal of museums. Charleston has a reputation for manners and also has many museums. Boston College has a "great books" program and Boston is known for its symphony. Philadelphia has a good deal in the classical music world. Baltimore has the Peabody. Even with smaller cities Santa Fe, New Mexico seems to have a good deal of highly educated people and one of their colleges does a "Great Books" program.
There are cultured people everywhere, even in small towns. What makes New York different is the enormous number of cultured people. So many that, in Manhattan and the affluent parts of Brooklyn, they are the dominant culture. The only city that can compare is Boston.
What is the effect? For professional middle- and upper-middle-class people, it is socially unacceptable to be a philistine (just as it's unacceptable to be openly racist, homophobic or sexist). In Manhattan, being educated and (at least casually) conversant with high-culture is the norm, not the exception. What's more, even people who have no interest in music, or painting or literature have respect, or at least acceptance, of those who do.
In much of the rest of the country, high-culture is viewed with suspicion by many. Some see it as a conspiracy or even a fraud. "Cultured" people are often seen as hoity-toity and highfalutin; they are the objects of scorn and ridicule. Politicians get a lot of mileage out of mocking "cultured" people. That doesn't happen in New York. Cultured people are not perceived as a threat. Rather, they are often celebrated.
Does that mean everyone on the subway is reading Dostoevsky or listening to Stravinsky on a iPod? No, but a surprising number of people do.
^ are you kidding me? Just because there are museums and institutions doesn't mean the populous there is actually going. NYC has UN, but it is hard for even Americans to get jobs there. I know plenty of people in NYC and Chicago for example who walk by say the art institute or MOMA everyday, lived there 30 years and never walked inside. I've found this in every town though as visiting I often know more about the city in a week than the locals who have lived there all their lives going about their daily stuff.
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The ice cream that needs to be imported specially from NY according to some
