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Rock, hip hop, country, rap, slang, gangster culture, tattoos, piercings, and mannerisms that dominate entertainment and social society have all come from the lower rungs of society.
The upper class appropriate this behavior for themselves with upper class children going to hippie festivals, following the same trends that street kids do, etc.
I'm not part of the upper class but I did go to an event in a golf club filled with well to do old people. I had expected this well educated crowd to be stuck up, but they would talk like a country folk, laughing at crude humor among other such behaviors.
Economically we are more divided than ever by class, but socially we are more united than ever before.
Rich folk love going to coachella and doing what others in their peer group do, just with more material comfort.
They like money but they don't have a sense of noblesse oblige, or see them selves as representatives of their society, nor as role models.
Hollywood culture has been deviant, but never before has their been more cult worship for celebrities who act poor (in terms of mannerism) or behave without dignity. Good skills like charisma or bravery are replaced by openness, vulnerability, and behavior that makes a celebrity seem like another one of their fans.
Personally I hate mass media and how it has homogenized cultural consumption for everyone across this vast country, and I hate celebrity worship. But more than that I believe it is the job of the rich to build monuments of design, art, and pleasure, and set the standards the rest of us aspire to.
That doesn't mean everyone acting rich or entitled, but it does mean giving commoners a regional or local figurehead that inspires them rather than copy them.
Today the elite entertainers copy the trends from the bottom of society and try to market their own participation. On one hand that gives trashy celebrities less influence, but on the other hand it consumes the rest of the elite class in mimicking sad and undignified behavior.
I would rather them have less wealth and power over our society, but more social prestige that donates monuments and cultural joys that build a sense of community.
Without hereditary wealth we would have no temples, palaces, or statues that have remained through history giving each region of the world a distinct style and character.
Now we have a globalized culture that comes from the bottom rungs of society homogenizing our entertainment consumption while inadvertently funneling more capital and power into the richest members of society.
It's silly, in bad taste, and a betrayal of what should be a good moral society.
America has no culture, unless rampant consumerism and wealth acquisition is what one considers culture.
As far as Hollywood and music artists being of less than stellar character, they are still representative of most of America. If you want our entertainers to be of better character, then their fans and followers should raise the bar on society, and themselves, and project a model that does not mirror the lives of these people.
America has no culture, unless rampant consumerism and wealth acquisition is what one considers culture.
As far as Hollywood and music artists being of less than stellar character, they are still representative of most of America. If you want our entertainers to be of better character, then their fans and followers should raise the bar on society, and themselves, and project a model that does not mirror the lives of these people.
Good luck with that.
We use to have regional cultures. There is a myth that because Americans are colonists we have no culture and are just a blank slate for immigrants to do with what they will.
But colonists who for hundreds of years communicated with the natives built their own regional cultures separate from Europe, as black slaves did separate from Africa.
New England, Louisiana, North Carolina, etc. all had their own costumes and even architecture promoted among its people.
Then we worked tirelessly to destroy all our accumulated culture and replace it with mass consumerism, suburbs, and canned goods. And by the late 20th century it was all hyper nationalized and then hyper globalized.
We could have a national identity again, and not just a place where people buy cheap stuff and mind their own business. It'll take work but it existed once and could exist again, but culture needs to trickle down, not trickle up.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Winterfall8324
Rock, hip hop, country, rap, slang, gangster culture, tattoos, piercings, and mannerisms that dominate entertainment and social society have all come from the lower rungs of society.
The upper class appropriate this behavior for themselves with upper class children going to hippie festivals, following the same trends that street kids do, etc.
I'm not part of the upper class but I did go to an event in a golf club filled with well to do old people. I had expected this well educated crowd to be stuck up, but they would talk like a country folk, laughing at crude humor among other such behaviors.
Economically we are more divided than ever by class, but socially we are more united than ever before.
Rich folk love going to coachella and doing what others in their peer group do, just with more material comfort.
They like money but they don't have a sense of noblesse oblige, or see them selves as representatives of their society, nor as role models.
Hollywood culture has been deviant, but never before has their been more cult worship for celebrities who act poor (in terms of mannerism) or behave without dignity. Good skills like charisma or bravery are replaced by openness, vulnerability, and behavior that makes a celebrity seem like another one of their fans.
Personally I hate mass media and how it has homogenized cultural consumption for everyone across this vast country, and I hate celebrity worship. But more than that I believe it is the job of the rich to build monuments of design, art, and pleasure, and set the standards the rest of us aspire to.
That doesn't mean everyone acting rich or entitled, but it does mean giving commoners a regional or local figurehead that inspires them rather than copy them.
Today the elite entertainers copy the trends from the bottom of society and try to market their own participation. On one hand that gives trashy celebrities less influence, but on the other hand it consumes the rest of the elite class in mimicking sad and undignified behavior.
I would rather them have less wealth and power over our society, but more social prestige that donates monuments and cultural joys that build a sense of community.
Without hereditary wealth we would have no temples, palaces, or statues that have remained through history giving each region of the world a distinct style and character.
Now we have a globalized culture that comes from the bottom rungs of society homogenizing our entertainment consumption while inadvertently funneling more capital and power into the richest members of society.
It's silly, in bad taste, and a betrayal of what should be a good moral society.
And just WHO should be allowed to determine just what IS a "good moral society"?
Is it one that invades other nations that have done nothing to it?
One where people buy admission to college?
One where personal bankruptcy is frequently caused by bloated healthcare bills?
One where corporations are allowed to pollute the environment in search of profit?
One where species may be made extinct in search of profit?
And just WHO should be allowed to determine just what IS a "good moral society"?
Is it one that invades other nations that have done nothing to it?
One where people buy admission to college?
One where personal bankruptcy is frequently caused by bloated healthcare bills?
One where corporations are allowed to pollute the environment in search of profit?
One where species may be made extinct in search of profit?
WHO is to be trusted to make these judgements?
I think most of these things are bad, and also in part caused by the treatment of america as a consumer market for global investors and not an active country with interests beyond increasing revenue for financial speculators.
One effect is that our cultural consumption has been homogenized by mass media, and the upper class consume the same bottom rung music and fashion that is produced by the masses and then shared between everyone.
If we had more regional cultures affected by the upper class, we could learn to value mutual support, more stability in the economy rather than creative destruction, and not just offshoring labor and waste to third world countries that suffer from the pollution our over consumption causes.
Rock, hip hop, country, rap, slang, gangster culture, tattoos, piercings, and mannerisms that dominate entertainment and social society have all come from the lower rungs of society.
A bit of a random cut-off point in time, there. The grandfather of rock, hip hop and country is of course the blues and later jazz - arguably the unique American contributions to the world's music. The blues has its root in 1870s black Southern culture, probably the lowest rung imaginable.
It was of course decried as demeaning and shameful, that clean-cut young white people would listen to primitive (that is, black) music like jazz.
Rock, hip hop, country, rap, slang, gangster culture, tattoos, piercings, and mannerisms that dominate entertainment and social society have all come from the lower rungs of society.
The upper class appropriate this behavior for themselves with upper class children going to hippie festivals, following the same trends that street kids do, etc.
I'm not part of the upper class but I did go to an event in a golf club filled with well to do old people. I had expected this well educated crowd to be stuck up, but they would talk like a country folk, laughing at crude humor among other such behaviors.
Economically we are more divided than ever by class, but socially we are more united than ever before.
Rich folk love going to coachella and doing what others in their peer group do, just with more material comfort.
They like money but they don't have a sense of noblesse oblige, or see them selves as representatives of their society, nor as role models.
Hollywood culture has been deviant, but never before has their been more cult worship for celebrities who act poor (in terms of mannerism) or behave without dignity. Good skills like charisma or bravery are replaced by openness, vulnerability, and behavior that makes a celebrity seem like another one of their fans.
Personally I hate mass media and how it has homogenized cultural consumption for everyone across this vast country, and I hate celebrity worship. But more than that I believe it is the job of the rich to build monuments of design, art, and pleasure, and set the standards the rest of us aspire to.
That doesn't mean everyone acting rich or entitled, but it does mean giving commoners a regional or local figurehead that inspires them rather than copy them.
Today the elite entertainers copy the trends from the bottom of society and try to market their own participation. On one hand that gives trashy celebrities less influence, but on the other hand it consumes the rest of the elite class in mimicking sad and undignified behavior.
I would rather them have less wealth and power over our society, but more social prestige that donates monuments and cultural joys that build a sense of community.
Without hereditary wealth we would have no temples, palaces, or statues that have remained through history giving each region of the world a distinct style and character.
Now we have a globalized culture that comes from the bottom rungs of society homogenizing our entertainment consumption while inadvertently funneling more capital and power into the richest members of society.
It's silly, in bad taste, and a betrayal of what should be a good moral society.
This is one of the strangest post I have read on C/D.
By "lower rungs of society" I assume you're talking about lower economically? I don't see why one's income level would determine what kind of music they like or whether or not they like tattoos.
What used to be considered "high-brow" culture - classical music, opera, ballet - had origins in Europe and Europeans were much more class-conscious, so maybe it was the rich and the nobility that had access to those. In America, we invented our own forms - country, jazz, rock and rap - and being a more egalitarian society we enjoy these regardless of our economic circumstances.
You believe it is "the job of the rich to build monuments of design, art, and pleasure, and set the standards the rest of us aspire to." Again, that is a very old notion, with its basis in European nobility, who considered themselves better than the masses.
You state "Today the elite entertainers copy the trends from the bottom of society..." Well, first I object to characterizing the less-wealthy as "the bottom of society". That's just wrong. Second, I don't know who are these "elite" entertainers you speak of, but most of our most successful entertainers had humble beginnings. Rich and poor audiences alike are drawn to them because they express their art through honest emotions, not some antiquated idea of what is proper and dignified.
Yeah, that right there would have stopped a ton of extremely worthwhile art from being added to humanity's treasure trove.
We really don't need a class of refined gentry to decide what is appropriate culture and what isn't.
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