Cultural snobbery

Attitude demonstrated by those who consider the entertainment and arts they enjoy to be inherently superior to someone else's.

For example, who are we to claim that a Puccini opera is "better" or even more "worthy" than an episode of Mr Ed.

... or that the works of The Smiths are deserving of respect while the recordings of the Spice Girls are not.

There is room in this world for both the deep and the shallow, the subtle and the immediate, the fun and the affecting.

You can enjoy both Se7en and There's Something About Mary. You can enjoy Belle de Jour and Teletubbies too.

So why be a snob?

I am often labeled a snob because I feel that culture should be what it had been for the first million years of human history: something organic, beautiful, and dynamic that people within a society create to entertain, enlighten, inform comfort, persuade, celebrate, distract, or make sense of themselves and others.

Unfortunately, in the past several decades, culture has pretty much become a mere by-product of marketing. It is promulgated by committees in board rooms with a specific agenda and armed with market research and demographic data. If boy bands will rake in more endorsement deals this year, then boy bands it is. If making it hip to wear our sneakers will sell more of our sneakers, then it shall be hip to wear our sneakers.

I don't think it makes me a snob to desire authentic culture over this inauthentic shyte. It only makes me human.

I agree with Purvis. The nature of culture should be inherently to enlighten and to explore more facets of humanity. Culture gives us roles, and a complex harmony of associations in our daily lives. This adds meaning and richness, if as is said they are authentic.

If the culture is manufactured simply to line someone's pocket, then it is liable to omit those valuable qualities that make culture so great in the first place.

Quality matters, and we must be discrimate as well as open minded. To say there is room in this world for both the deep and the shallow is as true as saying there is a place in this world for racism, or child pornography.

Both of these things are part of what we call "culture" and both are very bad from a quality point of view. We are supposed to evolve towards something that is better, objectively as well as subjectively. That is why Vermeer hangs in the Gallery, and the 2000AD doesn't. Some culture is better than others, and thank goodness for that.