Is Culture a dirty word now?

[sufi]

1. Cancel Culture
2. Culture war
3. Cultural Marxism
4. Multiculturalism, even

All seemingly include Culture as a sort of negative force
culture is presented to us as a cause of conflict among the less politically aware, a sort of irrational belief system for primitives - Racism has moved from being scientific to cultural
So, how does that mean we talk about the things we used to call culture then? Or were those concepts disreputable or not valid?

 

[line b]

The title is a reference to the often-mistranslated quotation: "When I hear the word 'culture', that's when I reach for my revolver"—the actual quote from Hanns Johst is "Wenn ich Kultur höre ... entsichere ich meinen Browning!" This translates as: "Whenever I hear [the word] 'culture'... I remove the safety from my Browning!"

 

[line b]

Think culture has always been a kind of dirty word. But now as you said 'racism has moved from being scientific,'culture is that much more fixated on.

 

[line b]

Also think theres a correlation between the rise of white nationalism/identitarianism and what you are talking about. With scientific/overt racism falling out of vogue its dawned on white people we don't really have a culture, a horse in the race, at least not here in America. We have an anti-culture. So there's a retroactive building of a culture that we've been systematically destroying in past decades.

 

[constant escape]

Also think theres a correlation between the rise of white nationalism/identitarianism and what you are talking about. With scientific/overt racism falling out of vogue its dawned on white people we don't really have a culture, a horse in the race, at least not here in America. We have an anti-culture. So there's a retroactive building of a culture that we've been systematically destroying in past decades.

That's a point James Baldwin makes, no? That a variety of European immigrants, upon arriving at America, were collapsed/neutralized into the category of whiteness, a category solely defined in opposition to the supposed nonhumanity of Blackness. So yeah, Whiteness just seems to be the negative of a negative - it doesn't posit anything about itself other than it is not black, because black isn't human, etc.

Thats why there isn't a way to embrace whiteness, because it is negatively predicated upon atrocity.

 

[sufi]

"Cultural Norms"
It's almost shameful to admit having or subscribing to a culture

 

[luka]

Also think theres a correlation between the rise of white nationalism/identitarianism and what you are talking about. With scientific/overt racism falling out of vogue its dawned on white people we don't really have a culture, a horse in the race, at least not here in America. We have an anti-culture. So there's a retroactive building of a culture that we've been systematically destroying in past decades.

One of the things that happens once an anti culture is put in operation is that culture proper takes on an ersatz air. For instance Regional Accents seem put on and played up to, you feel you can hear builders struggling to remember to drop aitches and include glottal stops. Customs are preserved for the tourist industry. Everything feels like a quotation.

 

[luka]

Mamma Mia!

 

[constant escape]

Nice point, sort of saying that cultures are being reduced to wallpapers, but its all the same office? Maybe I'm bringing something else to the table.

 

[version]

I think individualism's now so ingrained in the Western mind that anything on a larger scale, anything collective, is eyed with fear and suspicion. It appears as a threat because it demands you cede control, trust something other than yourself and become a part rather than standing alone as a whole.

The other thing that comes to mind is that "culture" is an easy way to conflate everything you don't like. You don't have to get into specifics. You can just conjure up this nebulous mass that's allegedly devouring everything in sight like something out of a Godzilla movie and throw in everything that bothers you.

 

[version]

The two primary uses of the term I see these days are the examples sufi mentioned (cancel culture, cultural marxism etc) and the ironic "a man of culture" stuff when someone posts something horrendous/ridiculous online. Both negative. Culture's either something to be mocked or something to be feared.

 

[version]

I guess there are also those who lament the lack of an English culture, but they often seem to be the same people who scoff at funding for the arts and think any degree outside of STEM and business is a waste of time. They actively fight the things which generate culture then wonder why a nation of engineers and "entrepreneurs" isn't enough.

 

[line b]

I think individualism's now so ingrained in the Western mind that anything on a larger scale, anything collective, is eyed with fear and suspicion. It appears as a threat because it demands you cede control, trust something other than yourself and become a part rather than standing alone as a whole.

Something paradoxical to this point is revealed when looking at archetecture/design. This goes back to the recent dematerialization conversation-

A space in the grips of anti culture completely removes any and all iconography with direct connection to a specific place and time. Any collection of symbols that could betray to any possible individual that they are on the outside of a collective knowledge must be removed. The space is 'yours'. Its so hyper concerned with the appealing of individuals its become collective.

 

[version]

The hostility in England and America strikes me as particularly pronounced because of the anti-intellectualism of both nations.

 

[constant escape]

Well can we think of any ways to sneak intellectualism back into the mainstream culture/milieu? Is that the Joe Rogan route, or can we name others?

Is this anti-intellectualism reducible to an aversion to complicated or rare/unknown words? In that case, we can just attempt to extract the theories/concepts and express them more accessibly?

I mean, when I hear/read the word culture, I think of a setting of ideological development. Some area in which things grow. What things? Values, perhaps. Behaviors, habits, beliefs, etc.

So difference across cultures consists of a difference in these developmental settings/conditions, a difference in ideological environments, most broadly?

In that sense, there is culture everywhere - some may just be more singular than others, some may be appear to be more robust, some may appear to be more refined/defined. In this sense, a "culture war" would consist of a conflict of ideological potentials, a conflict in which culture A fosters ideological development in one direction, and culture B fosters ideological development in a direction against culture A's.

Just like how different fauna are fostered by different (agri)cultures. The different things actually grown (people with a certain ideology) are not the primary actors of the conflict. Rather, the different conditions for growth (cultures) are the primary actors of the conflict. People may be the footsoldiers, but cultures are the nations, no?

 

[Leo]

in the states, intellectualism has fallen victim to tribalism: intellectualism is equated with elites, the college-educated, white wine drinking NY Times readers who donate to public television, shower before they go to work instead of after, and probably haven't been to church in decades/ever (because they're atheists, jews or muslims). the knee-jerk reaction to "the other side", opposition, egged on by Fox News et al. disparaging Fauci is just the latest example.

 

[Leo]

we're called the melting pot, but there's also value to immigrant groups who retain some semblance of their traditions and cultures. NYC is less interesting without koreatown, little Italy, Chinatown, the polish sections of greenpoint, Russian community in Brighton beach.

 

[line b]

I don't think you can have intellectualism with the current mode of individualism. Individualism as we have it acts as if the mind is already fully realized. What are the trappings of our culture of individualism- working out, free enterprise business activity, curating your images online, brand affinity....? Our whole modus operandi revolves around the perfect internal individual that you must bring out of the mind and into the visible world. Intellectuallism throws that all out of orbit.

 

[line b]

The hostility in England and America strikes me as particularly pronounced because of the anti-intellectualism of both nations.

I think about this passage alot (pynchon's luddite essay, to be embarrassingly on brand)

Since 1959, we have come to live among flows of data more vast than anything the world has seen. Demystification is the order of our day, all the cats are jumping out of all the bags and even beginning to mingle. We immediately suspect ego insecurity in people who may still try to hide behind the jargon of a specialty or pretend to some data base forever ''beyond'' the reach of a layman. Anybody with the time, literacy and access fee these days can get together with just about any piece of specialized knowledge s/he may need. So, to that extent, the two-cultures quarrel can no longer be sustained. As a visit to any local library or magazine rack will easily confirm, there are now so many more than two cultures that the problem has really become how to find the time to read anything outside one's own specialty.

 

[constant escape]

I don't think you can have intellectualism with the current mode of individualism. Individualism as we have it acts as if the mind is already fully realized. What are the trappings of our culture of individualism- working out, free enterprise business activity, curating your images online, brand affinity....? Our whole modus operandi revolves around the perfect internal individual that you must bring out of the mind and into the visible world. Intellectuallism throws that all out of orbit.

Is this the kind of curated individualism that wellness/mindfulness would be subordinated to, or operationalized for? That is, one's spiritual/psychic hygiene is just another facet to optimize?

And you're saying that intellectual throws it off because it calls things into question?