Critical summary #1
Williams, Raymond. “Culture is ordinary.” The Everyday Life Reader. By Ben Highmore. New York: Routledge, 2002. 91-100. Print.
Williams begins his piece with a story about his childhood and growing up in Wales, using a rhetorical strategy that makes the piece seem more authentic and personal. From here, Williams provides us with his belief that culture is created from the bottom-up and that culture is forged from its’ members interacting. He debates that, society is created by “the finding of common meanings and directions, and its’ growth is an active debate and amendment under the pressures of experience, contact, and discovery.” (Pg. 93) Meaning, that the culture created in a society is from the sameness and likeness …show more content…
In Leavis’ belief, the only defense against the changing of vulgarity is in education which will preserve the highest values in at least some minds. Williams was initially impressed by this view because it respected the working class culture that he grew up in, but he rejects it because he sees that it doesn’t match up with his knowledge or experience. Williams suggests that England can move into an age of economic abundance and productive common culture by rejecting two false equations, one false analogy, and one false …show more content…
He claims this is false because “We need not to say that ugliness is a price we pay for progress. Any new ugliness is the product of stupidity and indifference.” (Pg.98) He then proposes that progress will only fix the ugliness through cleaner, less abrasive technology.
The first false equation is that popular education gives rise to commercial culture. Which in simplistic terms, means that letting mass culture in, makes the quality of culture drop. Williams denies this idea, by saying that he does not believe that ordinary people fit the description of the masses. He also says that there are no masses, only ways of seeing people as masses. His second reason to refute the idea is the education act of 1870 which introduced compulsory education, did not create cheap press, rather cheap press was around much before the introduction of the education act of 1870
The second false equation is that consumption of popular culture indicates a flawed character. This is simply and easily refuted because Williams has a lot of experience with people who consume popular culture and this is just simply not true of the people that we meet. The “badness… of popular culture” is not “a true guide to the state of mind and feeling, the basic quality of living of its
Williams, Raymond. “Culture is ordinary.” The Everyday Life Reader. By Ben Highmore. New York: Routledge, 2002. 91-100. Print.
Williams begins his piece with a story about his childhood and growing up in Wales, using a rhetorical strategy that makes the piece seem more authentic and personal. From here, Williams provides us with his belief that culture is created from the bottom-up and that culture is forged from its’ members interacting. He debates that, society is created by “the finding of common meanings and directions, and its’ growth is an active debate and amendment under the pressures of experience, contact, and discovery.” (Pg. 93) Meaning, that the culture created in a society is from the sameness and likeness …show more content…
In Leavis’ belief, the only defense against the changing of vulgarity is in education which will preserve the highest values in at least some minds. Williams was initially impressed by this view because it respected the working class culture that he grew up in, but he rejects it because he sees that it doesn’t match up with his knowledge or experience. Williams suggests that England can move into an age of economic abundance and productive common culture by rejecting two false equations, one false analogy, and one false …show more content…
He claims this is false because “We need not to say that ugliness is a price we pay for progress. Any new ugliness is the product of stupidity and indifference.” (Pg.98) He then proposes that progress will only fix the ugliness through cleaner, less abrasive technology.
The first false equation is that popular education gives rise to commercial culture. Which in simplistic terms, means that letting mass culture in, makes the quality of culture drop. Williams denies this idea, by saying that he does not believe that ordinary people fit the description of the masses. He also says that there are no masses, only ways of seeing people as masses. His second reason to refute the idea is the education act of 1870 which introduced compulsory education, did not create cheap press, rather cheap press was around much before the introduction of the education act of 1870
The second false equation is that consumption of popular culture indicates a flawed character. This is simply and easily refuted because Williams has a lot of experience with people who consume popular culture and this is just simply not true of the people that we meet. The “badness… of popular culture” is not “a true guide to the state of mind and feeling, the basic quality of living of its