Raymond Williams’ Culture is “Ordinary” poses an argument to the “Kept Men” — those who are in “High Culture”, or upper class citizens — about culture being something that isn’t bound to one idea, one definition. Rather, culture is something that is defined by many people, many social economic classes. This argument takes place at Cambridge among Williams’ colleagues (the “Kept Men”) in the mid 1900s. He argues his case, his opinions, to those who he went to school with, to those who he sits alongside within the tea shops. “Culture is ordinary: that is the first fact. Every human society has its own shape, its own purpose, its own meanings” (93). In that sentence, you find the first example of Williams’ opinion of why culture isn’t bound to …show more content…
These people believe that the definition of culture should be given to them, the elite, in order to come to an exact definition of what culture actually is. But Williams argues that culture doesn’t have one exact definition. That these peoples’ culture is no better or no more superior than others’ culture. That there is no high culture or low culture. That culture cannot be bound by a single rounded definition. What Williams accuses the “Kept Men” of, is dismissing an entire mass of people just for appreciating different things than …show more content…
That Williams’ argument is indeed accurate. He sits alongside these men associated with “higher culture,” but also sits with the people of “lower culture” such as the bricklayer or the lorry driver — he knows both of these groups are just as complex: “Now they read, they watch, this work we are talking about; some of them quite critically, others with great pleasure” (99). He knows that we cannot dismiss a mass, that each of these cultures fit into society — that if it did not work, that it would not still be around. He practically tells the men in tea shops that their ideas just simply won't work. It will not work into society. “But could I sit down in that house and make this equation we offered? (99)” Could he take the “Kept Mens’” ideas into that house with the shopgirl, the lorry driver, the the fitter and expect them to work? He could
Can you imagine yourself being apart of a group or lifestyle, now imagine yourself not fitting in. Maybe some people think you’re weird, but people just like you understand. Many suggest that it’s dangerous while others want to join. Whatever the reason may be you still consider yourself apart of society. As you grow older you realize that many people have different backgrounds and maybe even distinct behaviors. When people feel a deep need for love or respect, values and morals may be forgotten. It’s their customs, rituals, and beliefs that make up their own culture.
“Williams says that, his perspective and ideas are referred to culture as to social practice, he saw “culture as a whole way of life” and as to structuralism that makes the concept of the “structure of feeling“(Stuart Hall, “Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms” 1980). “William says that he was influenced in the seventy by Gramsci’s,” but he became familiarly with Gramsci dominate and at the end of the 1970’s hegemony became the central concept of cultural studies. Thompson main idea was cultural focus, but mostly on social classes and class consciousness; he was not interested in the way “whole way of life” but how people, social class were struggling by the influenced and controlled by the “upper class” has a great deal of “dominant aspect of the “way of
At the beginning of Chapter 11 in Neil Postman’s book, he reminds us that there are two representations of how a culture maybe withered. He writes that a culture either becomes almost like a high security prison or a culture can become just like a mockery.
Culture of the elite refers to the national culture while popular culture refers to that of non-elites. Therefore the African contribution is often ignored or forgotten about because they were of a lower class. Critics against Gonzales' argument claim that he exaggerates the contribution of Afro-Puerto Ricans,and the importance of race, class and ethnicity.
Williams is very satirical in the presentation of her topic, and the way that she addresses the reader from the very first paragraph is very interesting inasmuch as she is almost offensive with her gestures. This served it's purpose well as an attention getter or hook, but it was a little over done to the point of being unecessarily redundant. If the author's intention was to seem obsessively passionate about her topic then she did a wonderful job, but if her aim was to provide helpful information regarding the seriousness of her percieved problem, then she may have offended some of the readers that would have benefited most from understanding her point of view. Also the reader gets the impression from the authors voice that she is very pessimistic about the future, almost as if she has given up and is simply lashing out in anger at the percieved harbingers of this atrocity.
Culture often means an appreciation of the finer things in life; however, culture brings members of a society together. We have a sense of belonging because we share similar beliefs, values, and attitudes about what’s right and wrong. As a result, culture changes as people adapt to their surroundings. According to Bishop Donald, “let it begin with me and my children and grandchildren” (211). Among other things, culture influences what you eat; how you were raised and will raise your own children? If, when, and whom you will marry; how you make and spend money. Truth is culture is adaptive and always changing over time because
According to Charon, culture is one of the social patterns in society. It arises in social interaction. It is taught in social interaction. Culture is made up of three smaller sets of patterns: (1) rules, (2) beliefs, and (3) values (Charon p. 56). For these two peer croups, the contrast in their lifestyles and culture can be attributed to the influence, involvement, and expectations of their parents. The parents of the Brothers expect that their children will do well in school, they expect them to stay out trouble, and to refrain from the use of drugs and alcohol. Thus, from their families, the Brothers take away a contradictory outlook. On the one hand, they see that hard work on the part of their parents has not gotten them very far, an implicit indictment of the openness of the opportunity structure. On the other hand, they are encouraged by these same people to have high hopes for the future (Macleod p. 167). In contrast, the Hallway Hangers’ families do not hold high aspirations, they do not expect that their children do well in school, stay out of trouble, or refrain from the use of drugs. In fact they have very little influence in their children’s lives. It is not that the parents don’t want the best for their children, they are just afraid to set them up for failure. The Hallway Hangers have seen their older siblings and other friends fail in school. As a result, they hold a firm belief that children from higher econo...
Torkildsen (2011) stated that the nature and definition of 'social class' is generally regarded as being problematic, as class not only relates to income or occupation but also upbringing and family background. "social class is often regarded as grouping on the basis of occupation, which is 'socioeconomic class' rather than social class" (Torkildsen, 2011 p.49). divine
The notion of culture that Mauss refers to is one conceived as a corpus of knowledge and information that is passed through generations through practical application (In...
Before taking this class, I often thought that our advanced society was the standard in which to measure all other societies from, but after reviewing the material in this course, it is impossible to make such a comparison. Many of the people in a culture similar to the U.S. would probably find most of the cultures we have studied to be “slow”, strange, or undesirable. In fact, it seems that many of the societies actually prefer to live the way they do and accept it as normal. “Normal” is a relative term, and it is difficult to establish evidence to label a culture or its characteristics abnormal. What may seem to work here often would be disastrous to other cultures.
It is important, for the purposes of this essay, to distinguish between ethnicity and race. Ethnicity is “a process by which individuals or groups came to be understood, or to understand themselves, as separate or different from others”(Burgett & Hendler “Ethnicity” pg. 103). Race is often thought to be observable, biological differences between people. However, this idea “intersected with sociological arguments that displaced notions of race as a strict biological inheritance and forced scholars to confront it as a category with broad political and economical implications.”(Burgett & Hendler “Race” pg. 192). It is also important to establish what exactly American culture is. I believe that in this context it w...
To address the first part of my argument, we fist must take in hand what exactly is this “pure” culture that has been mentioned thus far. Clifford believes that cultures, for the sake of the argument being made can be said to be impure cultures, “have had to reckon with the forces of ‘progress’ and ‘national’ unification,” and that essentially this has led to “many traditions, languages, cosmologies, and values [being] lost, some literally murdered” (Clifford, 16). He argues that inevitably, all cultures either will, or have experienced this, and in the end have transformed into an alternate version of themselves. I propose that a “pure” culture is one that has either not had to deal with such circumstances, or has dealt with outside influences, without altering what is wholly exclusive about itself.
Culture is something that is alive, moving. It is not something that some people have and some don’t. It is not only what is seen in public “common meanings” as Williams say, or some kind of education, but also what an individual experiences when s/he encounters them both. Therefore, it is a false approach to declare some people “cultured” and others “not cultured”, because in the end, however uneducated one might be, whatever s/he sees in life is his/her own culture.
It incorporates the daily interactions, needs, desires and cultural moments that make up the everyday lives of the society. It finds expression in day to day practices such as cooking, fashion, newspapers, magazines, television, mass media and the many facets of entertainment such as sports, music, dance and literature. Thus popular culture becomes “culture actually made by people for themselves” (Williams 111). In the essay “Notes on Deconstructing the Popular”, Stuart Hall defines popular culture as all the cultural activities of the people, or their “distinctive way of life” which is considered as popular within social context, and is popularly accepted within the society in any particular period (449). Popular Culture also accommodates cultural texts and practices which fail to qualify as the high or elite culture. This residual nature makes it a site of struggle between the marginalized and the dominant groups in society, where forces of incorporation and resistance against them come into
Culture has been a pervasive part of humanity since the beginning of civilization. Wood (2010), professor of communications, defines culture as "the totality of beliefs, values, understandings, practices, and ways of interpreting experience that are shared by a number of people" (p 78). The way I see it, culture shapes an individual and creates their worldview. Each culture emphasizes an important aspect of the humans and displays the complexities of our species. Even though culture includes many elements, I will discuss one of Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions, Individualism, and explain how it creates a high or low context culture.