Cultural literacy, I likes it!

[blamebrampton]

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 tnumfive ! You're in good company ;-)

Comments

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Except that's just not the case.

The idea of 'canon' is one that necessarily cannot be contemporaneous because it is only defined in retrospect. Canonical texts are ones that have massive impacts on the ones that follow them, that shape the language after they are published (and yes, in this day and age there are whole other essays that could be written on what I mean by language and published, but I'll worry about them another time.)

You state that canon is divisive, yet not a paragraph later you are talking about Conan Doyle and Wodehouse, to whom I would du Maurier, Shelley and numerous others, all of whom are 'low culture' as you put it, yet all of which are absolutely parts of the English canon. Hell, Wuthering Heights is up there, and it's the Twilight of its day, but without it, we would not have had melodrama, nor, indeed, Twilight (DAMN YOU Emily Bronte!)

This is the essential point that you are missing. Canon is not a matter of high vs low culture, it is a matter of good works of art vs trash. A lot of literary fiction is trash, as is a lot of mass market fiction. What defines trash is not who wrote it nor what shelf it sits on in a bookshop (because publishers are often the worst judges of quality), it is the lack of substance in the text.

You are making the mistake that canon = high culture and trash = low culture, and I am not sure why you are making it when I expressly say that it does not, in either my definition nor Bloom's.

This is why the Octavia/Veyron comparison works, because people like to read crap fiction, whether it be Twilight or two thirds of Booker Prize winners. People also like to drive reliable family cars. That's fine, like is absolutely unrelated to to this argument. But no one goes to the Octavia to help them think about how to build a better car (market, perhaps, but again, a different discussion). What canon is, what the cultural literacy I argue in favour of is, is the equivalent of a Veyron's elegant engineering solutions. They spark new ideas and solutions and provide groundwork for new developments. The Octavia is a car that benefits from this evolution, but which is not integral to it.

And your argument that what you insist on referring to as high culture = power does not stack up to reality. Literary authors earn about 10,000 pounds per annum from their books if they are doing well. James Patterson, Stephenie Meyer and their colleagues earn that before lunch on a good day. And if you seriously believe the corridors of power are filled with erudite people judging you on whether you have read Proust, then I would contend that you may never have had a discussion with an actual politician.

Moving on to your next comment, as I believe I am about to run out of room here, too.

[niennah.livejournal.com]

it is a matter of good works of art vs trash

But this is the central point that you are missing: who gets to define "good" and "trash", and why?

I would contend that you may never have had a discussion with an actual politician.

And I would contend that you've never encountered Pierre Bourdieu.

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

The next generations of writers! The people who use the language! Canon is an historic document that is written based on the evidence that emerges over following decades. This is why no one would argue that Wolf Hall was essential to an understanding of English literary history, but it is now quite reasonable to say that The Handmaid's Tale is essential to understand North American literature as a whole.

I have, actually, but I far prefer Derrida.