blamebrampton (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blamebrampton) wrote2010-01-09 11:52 pm
blamebrampton) wrote2010-01-09 11:52 pm
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Cultural literacy, I likes it!
I had a strange discussion with a person on the internet (god forbid!) over the concept of cultural literacy. Her thesis was that it wasn't important, that popular culture was more useful, and that no one could agree on what one needed to know to be culturally literate anyway.
We exchanged a number of comments, and she was a thoroughly decent person to argue with, but I can't help thinking that we come from opposing starting positions on this one. To start with, she's literally half my age. But she also went to school all through the period where one text was interchangeable with another, whereas I went to school in the days when you had to learn about great literature before they let you mess around with the other stuff.
And yeah, I do mean great and other. I know this will have some of you demanding I turn in my Credentialled Postmodernist badge, but some texts are better than others. They last longer, they impact more, they're Penicillin rather than Cialis, the Periodic Table as opposed to Phlogiston. To my mind, there are certain texts you should have a grounding in if you want to be a culturally literate person.
The problem is, of course, that the idea of their being 'certain texts', a canon, if you will, has become problematic. Harold 'Groper' Bloom's The Western Canon is often held up to ridicule by people who call it a roll-call of dead white men. But I think that's because they couldn't be arsed reading it. He talks positively about Austen and Woolf, Mary Shelley and not one but two Brontës (though how he could choose Emily over Anne is a mystery to me), among other women, and has a good set from the Ancient world as well as Persian and Asian sources. He is weaker on the Orient, I wanted The Tale of Genji at least, but when he sat down to think 'Who has influenced what we think about literature in the West', he genuinely seems to have done so on the basis of the works, not who wrote them.
To me, the idea that we should not privilege some texts over others is ridiculous. No one would argue that there is no difference between a Skoda Octavia and a Bugatti Veyron, or between salad cream and hand-made mayonnaise. It's fine to like and enjoy trashier texts, Skodas and salad cream, but to argue that they should be given the same weight as their opposing numbers is something I cannot agree with.
And the case is more certain with literature than with salad cream. If you only know salad cream, you don't know how delicious aioli is. But, to use an example given, if you are familiar with Harry Potter and not Hamlet, not only do you miss out on Hamlet, but you miss out on the myriad Shakespearean references and jokes within Harry Potter. And while I think it's certainly possible to enjoy Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire if you have no classical education, I suspect it is not possible to do so without a constant feeling that there are certain levels of the text that are passing over your head. Without the cultural literacy that allows you to do so, some authors are wholly unapproachable: Laurence Sterne, Jasper Fforde and the entire Monty Python output, to start with.
Some people have absolutely no urge to cultural literacy, which I can see as a valid choice, but it cuts you off from a lot of reading. I would argue that you cannot say that you are a keen reader or keen consumer of film and television if you are also avowedly against cultural literacy, because it is like saying that you are a biochemist who doesn't believe in valences. However, this could all just be another sign of me becoming an old fogey.
What about you lot? Especially you young folk? Do you still have that frisson of glee I used to have when I uncovered secret references in texts as I read and learned more and more? Or is that so appallingly 20th century that I should just dig out a corset and start worrying about those commies?
On a final pomo note, Happy 50th Birthday, Severus, and Happy 75th Elvis! May you continue to bring joy to your fans for many years! And happy Real Birthday to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tnumfive ! You're in good company ;-)
We exchanged a number of comments, and she was a thoroughly decent person to argue with, but I can't help thinking that we come from opposing starting positions on this one. To start with, she's literally half my age. But she also went to school all through the period where one text was interchangeable with another, whereas I went to school in the days when you had to learn about great literature before they let you mess around with the other stuff.
And yeah, I do mean great and other. I know this will have some of you demanding I turn in my Credentialled Postmodernist badge, but some texts are better than others. They last longer, they impact more, they're Penicillin rather than Cialis, the Periodic Table as opposed to Phlogiston. To my mind, there are certain texts you should have a grounding in if you want to be a culturally literate person.
The problem is, of course, that the idea of their being 'certain texts', a canon, if you will, has become problematic. Harold 'Groper' Bloom's The Western Canon is often held up to ridicule by people who call it a roll-call of dead white men. But I think that's because they couldn't be arsed reading it. He talks positively about Austen and Woolf, Mary Shelley and not one but two Brontës (though how he could choose Emily over Anne is a mystery to me), among other women, and has a good set from the Ancient world as well as Persian and Asian sources. He is weaker on the Orient, I wanted The Tale of Genji at least, but when he sat down to think 'Who has influenced what we think about literature in the West', he genuinely seems to have done so on the basis of the works, not who wrote them.
To me, the idea that we should not privilege some texts over others is ridiculous. No one would argue that there is no difference between a Skoda Octavia and a Bugatti Veyron, or between salad cream and hand-made mayonnaise. It's fine to like and enjoy trashier texts, Skodas and salad cream, but to argue that they should be given the same weight as their opposing numbers is something I cannot agree with.
And the case is more certain with literature than with salad cream. If you only know salad cream, you don't know how delicious aioli is. But, to use an example given, if you are familiar with Harry Potter and not Hamlet, not only do you miss out on Hamlet, but you miss out on the myriad Shakespearean references and jokes within Harry Potter. And while I think it's certainly possible to enjoy Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire if you have no classical education, I suspect it is not possible to do so without a constant feeling that there are certain levels of the text that are passing over your head. Without the cultural literacy that allows you to do so, some authors are wholly unapproachable: Laurence Sterne, Jasper Fforde and the entire Monty Python output, to start with.
Some people have absolutely no urge to cultural literacy, which I can see as a valid choice, but it cuts you off from a lot of reading. I would argue that you cannot say that you are a keen reader or keen consumer of film and television if you are also avowedly against cultural literacy, because it is like saying that you are a biochemist who doesn't believe in valences. However, this could all just be another sign of me becoming an old fogey.
What about you lot? Especially you young folk? Do you still have that frisson of glee I used to have when I uncovered secret references in texts as I read and learned more and more? Or is that so appallingly 20th century that I should just dig out a corset and start worrying about those commies?
On a final pomo note, Happy 50th Birthday, Severus, and Happy 75th Elvis! May you continue to bring joy to your fans for many years! And happy Real Birthday to
tnumfive ! You're in good company ;-)
A rambling answer
I think cultural literacy is useful, though I always have concerns about whose culture is being taught and whose is being devalued. While the classic texts are important, there are a lot more cultures now, and I don't want to give people the sense that one culture is innately better just because it's older/has more political power. That said, people need to know the dominant culture in order to succeed, if for no other reason than those in control of the world value that culture. If a person wants some of that power, they have to as well. This comes up in writing classes a lot, and it's a line I feel like I have to balance constantly.
Are you familiar with Hirsch's view on cultural literacy? I tend to lean more towards that approach, though I'd make his list a lot longer. Of course, this could be the teacher's impulse to make sure students know all they should, even when my job is to make sure they know how to find answers themselves. . .
Re: A rambling answer
I think that we have a lot of angst about culture being devalued in the name of cultural literacy, but that most of it is misplaced. For example, the idea of there being ingrained political power in knowing Shakespeare is anachronistic: you might gain the power to challenge Stephen Fry in a quiz, but the average US Senator is more likely to be unable to tell his Hamlet from his Macbeth.
Increasingly, the world is run by people who are anti-culture, for which I cite the Murdoch empire with particular focus on Fox News, the US Republican party circa 2000-now (minus a sterling few who are not heard from very often), and the educational boards in Texas (I accept there may be some crossover in these three sets).
Where knowledge of the classics gains you an advantage is being able to use that knowledge in the way of, say, a junior Senator from Illinois, whose rhetorical skill can captivate and inspire. This is the reason literary classics are classic: because they are great, and because they speak to us on deep levels. Capturing the tempo of the saga in a way that would be as familiar to those who first heard Gilgamesh as to those who held their breath to 'we few, we happy few', and using it to convince a nation that 'yes, we can', is as bold and beautiful a use of language as any you will find in the canon, and born solely out of knowledge thereof.
As to who is in and who is out: it is the case that you're generally a generation dead before you are 'in', which makes change slower than it need be, I agree. But there are also different lists for different Englishes, and wholly separate lists for other cultures. These other English lists should change faster, given the regional tradition is shorter, and be more locally responsive: I would be suspicious of any US canon that included Shakespeare but not Twain, Philip Larkin but not Toni Morrison, for example.
And I don't think it makes one culture 'better' than another: it's about individual practioners who are. For all that Elizabethan Shakespeare remains our touchstone, very few recall Thomas Nash. What it does do is say that some ways of using language are better than others, and that I would stand by. But I think that you could say Jean Rhys or Toni Morrison is better than Stephenie Meyer just as easily as using the example of Jane Austen or Mary Shelley.