Many would raise their hand if asked if today's generation is a dumbed-down version of its earlier counterparts, severely deficient in taste and culture. Sheer statistics will ensure that if they take that stance, they will win the debate.
It is commonplace to note that reality television and yellow journalism are crowding our mental space. Yet, living in a city as populous as Bombay, one cannot help but find cultural incongruities popping up everywhere.
The guy who spruces up his daily commute by alternating between hip-hop music and Chomsky lectures. Mozart's 50 Best Loved Tracks on Flipkart's music bestseller list. The Hitchcock movie that surprises you in the air-conditioned BEST bus on your way home. Plagiarized remixed songs playing on loop, on the same channel that airs Coke Studio. The fact that the Jaipur Literature Festival records greater visits with each passing year.
The times they are a-changin'. At snail's pace, but undoubtedly so.
Yet, I can't avoid but view the situation with a hint of skepticism.
Cultural discernment cannot possibly be boiled down to checking off items on 'reliable' prescribed lists on the internet. I hope not.
The questions that sprout in your mind when you read a book that is a New York Times bestseller, but hated, then went on to justify to yourself saying there's something wrong with YOUR taste. The New York Times Bestseller List cannot possibly be wrong. And so, the book will promptly be added to the 'Favourite Books' section on your Facebook, for the world to acknowledge your brilliant taste in literature. Alongside Five Point Someone and Rhonda Bryne, of course.
If there is a place to document cultural awakening and rebirth in the 21st century, Facebook is the Mecca in my opinion. People strain to be unique and cast themselves in the light that depict facets of their personality that will set them apart from its other 600 million users.
The feigned nonchalance of the scrupulously scripted 'About Me' section.
The Quotations page filled with dialogues from obscure movies and underground poets.
While I am glad that book sales for William Faulkner's novels shot up when it became part of Oprah's Book Club, I wonder how they sit on bookshelves today-as mere conversation-starters or as genuinely appreciated words?
A devout fetishization of devouring intelligence is being witnessed, that is only leading to the consumption of high culture as a commodity with the aim of upping personal brand value. I just feel that demise of a non-ostentatious appreciation of culture is lamentable. And if our societal IQ is going up, I can only hope it's backed by the right reasons.
Image Courtesy: Jochenworld's Flickrstream
11 comments:
you like Tom and Jerry? remember when Tom runs to catch Jerry and crosses over the cliff without noticing....suddenly he realize that he is in mid-air...he looks down, and then falls...
we are in that in between stage...in mid air but yet to realize...we think our feet are firmly ground...we think we are right...we think we are intelligent...
if we were, why would we try so hard to impress?
great post...
Great Post.
Really liked...
I guess many of us are pseudo -intellectuals.
Sometimes I even find myself as a pseudo...when one of my friend would raise some great world political issue of importance, which i have been oblivious to at times.....
Funnily I believe that intellectual is a subjective term.....
You know, I think that need for individuality and recognition is probably the reason man first painted on the walls of caves. In that way, not much has changed, now it's just a facebook wall. Is our societal IQ really going up? Or is it just the spread of and access to higher education that shows in these increased numbers of book sales.
And who gets to decide what is high-culture anyway? How can one know for sure that Coke Studio is in any way better than rehashed remixes? It's a matter of taste. But what is in good taste for one, is distasteful to another.
If we stick with the notion that everything that is mass-produced and mass-appreciated is of poorer quality becoz the masses fall in the middle of the normal distribution curve, then our very definitions of good music or good art being universal are self-contradictory.
Does what the minority at the higher-end of the intelligence curve declare to be brilliant, the only criterion for deciding what is truly brilliant?
That doesn't seem to be correct. But that is possibly the explanation for quotes from 'obscure movies and underground poets'.
The truth is, as times change, tastes change. What was subversive and radical once, becomes commonplace and cliche later. Like The Catcher in the Rye or Lady Chatterley's Lover.
Sorry to have rambled on like that, but my point was, any argument involving generalizations in matters of individual taste does become rather convoluted.
An individual that one person labels a wanna-be cud well be perceived as somebody who is trying to improve their self by a more charitable-minded person.
So how will we ever know that it's backed by the right reasons? What are the right reasons?
And I agree with Tangerine, it is all rather subjective. Great post, Nitisha, gives me much fodder for thought.
Great post and a very good read. It's nice to have chanced upon your blog.
That's a bit cynical, I say.
There are people, I don't say a lot of people, but people, nevertheless, who genuinely don't go by lists, don't follow convention and manage to be brilliant, by themselves.
Not a lot of people, but people, nevertheless.
:)
I really like this post. And I agree with the non-cynical part of it.
Ah, I love comments and opinions like this. Thank you all for your compliments as well.:)
First off, my cynicism comes purely out of personal experience, and I am less than qualified to make generalisations on a grand scale when it comes to who is intellectual, and who isn't. I wholeheartedly agree, however, that the word 'intellectual' is subjective in nature. To a certain extent, so is taste. (To that extent, TUIB, I have to differ from you. If mass-produced mainstream music was that good, Rebecca Black would not have been ostracized the way she was.) The bone of contention here was somewhat different:
While we do chance upon the occasional person who is well-read, has a great taste in music etc.- my question is, are they doing it to really acquire wisdom and better their knowledge in that area, or just to wear the items as badges of honour on their Facebook profiles?
The acquisition of knowledge, high culture, call it what you may, in its purest form can never be deemed an insignificant act. And I will be the last to deride anyone for the same.
I only question the intention.
Yet, we are witnessing a landslide shift of tastes and taking a more liberal view of all things uncommon than ever before, and I embrace the change, and everything associated with it. :)
What I am wondering is, does anyone ever do anything simply to 'acquire wisdom' and once acquired, what does that wisdom signify? Why do we learn anything? So it may improve our life in some manner, for success, for survival, for pure mental pleasure or a facebook badge of honour..how can one decide on the purity of anyone's intentions?
As for mass-produced music, in another time and place, Mozart was considered a mass-entertainer..now he is a class-entertainer..isnt that odd?
One wonders how Rebecca Black will fare in posterity. :D
And once again, truly excellent post, Nitisha!
Nice post. I would agree with TUIB. No search for knowledge is truly divorced from a desire to define ones identity, to differentiate oneself. But it could also consist of appreciation of knowledge/art itself. Every musician started out with the desire to impress girls (or guys).
The last part of this post made me go back and check a few about me sections on FB ;)
Thought provoking post.
Reminds me of a quote that goes like 'Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it'
Too many people take that quote in a literal sense
I remember updating a I Read app on FB with 'The Finkler Question',soon after it won the booker.So this post is making me introspect;-)
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