Message-ID: <AFBL2MtWsK@mb.sorostm.ro> Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 19:13:15 +0400 From: Florin Jurcovici <mailto:fljurcovici@MB.SOROSTM.RO> Subject: Re: Re[2]: American Empire Building -Reply To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
> ***** what is VALUABLE popular culture? Who are you to
> determine what is and is not valuable. Maybe the reason
> American culture is adopted is because the people adopting
> it think is valuable to them. Also, define kitch. What you
> think of as valuable now was often kitch when first
> introduced.
>
> **If the above is defined as popular culture then what
> defines value? How can traditional forms of music be
> defined as popular culture - a term which assumes a mass
> appeal to people of the times in which they are produced?
> What of architecture?
I thought in terms that define the most appealing (to me) parts of the popular culture of my nation. Maybe it wasn't the best idea.
For instance, Germans, Romanians, Chinese, Englishmen, Japanese have very particular traditional styles of building, and I think those styles are part of their national culture. Even in USA, the way farms appear in movies might be considered a traditional style of building.
Kitch: I cannot define it. But if I see some cultural product (this is, poems, songs, paintings, clothing, buildings, written texts, and so on) which tells nothing new, not only to me but to most people, including people to which looking at such products is their profession, or tells it in a extremely simple, black and white style, I am not interested in it, and at least to me it's kitch.
I'd say country music is traditional to americans, and it is also popular music, so it is a part of the american popular culture. This music isn't produced by the people crouded in big towns, as far as I know. Still many people, not only americans, enjoy this music. Also, jazz originated from a large mass of people, and it was afterwards converted to a cultivated style of music (as far as I know). Many people like jazz. Another sort of music originate dfrom USA is rap, but I wouldn't call this a traditional sort of music (it might become after a while). Altough many people like rap, I am not one of them. To explain why I don't consider this sort of music valuable music, I would have to make some statements about the role of art in generally, which might very well be considered as very personal opinions, so with no general value. This is why I won't explain it.
Since the subject of this reply is "Re: Re[2]: American Empire Building -Reply", I want to say something on empire bulding. At the present moment, there are two ways to do it: by developing an economical system as a tool for empire building, or by developing a culture which should be so atractive to other people that the originators of this culture should become extremely well known worldwide only because of their cultural products. Most people know that the arabians brought the decimal numbering system to the western world. If arabians would have continued the strong cultural development the had during some part of the middle ages, they would be one of the strongest nations today.
-- Jurcovici Florin mailto:fljurcovici@mb.sorostm.ro