Lecture 6 -Critical Positions in Popular Culture

• •‘One of the two or three most complicated words in the English language’ •general process of intellectual, spiritual & aesthetic development of a particular society, at a particular time •a particular way of life •works of intellectual and especially artistic 
• significance

• Marx's Concept of Base / Superstructure
• Base forces of production - materials, tools, workers, skills, etc. relations of production - employer/employee, class, master/slave, etc Superstructure social institutions - legal, political, cultural 

• forms of consciousness - ideology *
• Ideology 1.  system of ideas or beliefs (eg beliefs of a political party) 2.  masking, distortion, or selection of ideas, to reinforce power relations, through creation of 'false consciousness'.

• Raymond Williams (1983) ‘Keywords’•4 definitions of ‘popular’ –Well liked by many people –Inferior kinds of work –Work deliberately setting out to win favour with the people 
• –Culture actually made by the people themselves
• Inferior or Residual Culture
• •Popular Press vs Quality Press •Popular Cinema vs Art Cinema •Popular Entertainment vs Art Culture
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• Caspar David Friedrich (1809)‘Monk by the Sea'
• •Culture is 
• –‘the best that has been thought & said in the world’ 
• –Study of perfection 
• –Attained through disinterested reading, writing thinking 
• –The pursuit of culture 
• –Seeks ‘to minister the diseased spirit of our time’

• ‘Authentic Culture vs Mass Culture’
• Qualities of authentic culture 
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• •Real 
• •European 
• •Multi-Dimensional 
• •Active Consumption 
• •Individual creation 
• •Imagination 
• •Negation 
• •AUTONOMOUS