From the Notebook

         It seems that pop culture is a new type of phenomenon.  Through out history, in various cultures, there are high cultures, and there are folk cultures, where high cultures emphasis on ideals, some are called arts, while folk cultures focus more on entertain, to make folks feel good.

            But pop culture is something different.  It is for entertainment, yet it is treated as high culture in reach and prestige.  On one hand, you can call it the culture democracy, what is good for the mass is viewed as what is good for the society, on the other hand, it seems to reject the a fundamental culture tradition.  In form and substances, pop culture often rejects the idea of ideals, and attunes to individual reality.

            In the tradition of western civilization, arts and high cultures are often closely related to religion, ideals are close to the assertion of the God.   This is not directly reflected in the pop culture.  Yet the pop culture is also different from the folk cultures, as it is not simply the reflections of life, but the indications of something larger than life. 

            Pop culture is not just a folk culture because it is supported by high culture concepts.  It is where the high culture and folk culture merged.  Philosophical ideas had provided supports for the underlining ideas of the pop culture.  It is the freedom of the individuals.

            When people look at Dadaism piece the “Fountain”, it is clear that it is making a mockery of the high culture.  But when Andy Warhol exhibited the “Campbell soup “, he was making a statement.  No wonder many consider it as the beginning of the pop culture. 

            We can interpret the “Campbell soup” as the statement about consumerism, it certainly is, and it is not in conflict with the idea of instant gratification, but it may also represent some thing structural.  It is the mass production itself.  In essence, pop culture itself is closely related with mass production. 

            Consumerism and mass production make many modern comforts available to the masses.  No doubt it increased the quality of life for most people.  But the close relationship of the pop culture with consumerism and mass production has its drawbacks.  In order to have mass appeal, in search of commonality of the audience (consumerism is all about giving the mass what they want), pop culture often had to strip down to human biological existence, rather than social existence.  This leads to the effects of dummied down, and the focus on sex and violence.

            It seems that majority of the people accepted without question that human knowledge is innate existed, people talking about who they are as if that were who they were, and who they are going to be.  It seems that most people seem to be happy with accepting stimulate to entertain biological or semi-biological desires more than to grow as a person.

            But culture influence is a tool for building social consensus and is a form of education.  Unfortunately, many entertainment products are designed to please people, so that when people think they are learning from what they see, they are actually reinforced with the idea for self indulgence and self gratification. 

            In format, there are many religious organizations in operating.  But the function of them is hardly helpful.  We have to admit in the western society, religion had lost its gripping power.  More and more, they are like a commercial institution, for making people feel good about themselves.   This is to say that they are also part of the pop culture. 

            There were debates about whether God is dead, and there are also debates about whether art is dead.  The bottom line is in the culture development, what was used as foundation of cultures was no longer useful.  New foundation need to be established.

            Pop culture not only reduced the substance of the culture by emphasis on desires based on biological needs, it also limited the culture to focus mostly on the first level of conscious, i.e., the conscious of self and perceive the world based solely on the conscious of self.  Traditionally, the high culture requires people to elevate the conscious to a higher level, i.e., the perception is based on the paramount view of the world.  However, the traditional high culture did not actually based on the perception from a paramount view, but often from the view of privileged people. 

            In history, God is the foundation of the western society, and individuals were asked to obey the rules of God.  The new era with democracy bring demand for individual freedom.  Regardless of what is the attitude towards God, individual freedom was asserted as paramount.  But we ought to remember that humans are social animals.  And what we view as an individual is a social component.  We know nothing when we were born.  What is then becomes “I” is a collection of knowledge and rules that we accepted from the society. 

            Individual freedom first and foremost is the freedom of the mind, not the unrestricted freedom of the body.  The purpose for freedom of the mind is to question and challenge the existing social knowledge and social rules, in order to advance social development.  Granted in order to maintain social structure, the freedom of individuals in the society (especially as an average citizen) is limited.  We ought to aware the consequences of our actions, and be aware of the knowledge and rules of the society.

            But when the pop culture rejected the paramount view, it also segmented the society, basically resulted in the world separated into many different parallel universes (the universe of each individuals).  It is viewed as the rejection of established culture, but most often it results in the rejection of rationality.  There are many discussions about the political polarizations in the United States.  Fundamentally, the influence of pop culture is the key. 

            Society needs common consensus, and cultures reflect common consensus at any given time.  But the indication of the pop culture is that the common consensus is that there is no common consensus.  This is certainly troubling.  In a democratic society, there is no governing class (at least in theory), everyone is part of the governing body.  So, it makes sense that the pop culture is also the high culture. 

            If you read the novel “The Brave New World”, you might consider the theory of conspiracy.  But I believe that it just gives too much credit for them.  It is obvious that people will try to do what is good for them, and many will try to manipulate the situation to benefit themselves.  But the environment that provides them the ability to do so should be exam first.  This is the confusion of the culture development.  New ground for building consensus needs to be discovered and developed, and the foundation is what is commonly known as utilitarian view.  The existing utilitarian theory had taken much of the heat because it lacks full development.  In essence, there should only be one measurement, that is the measurement of reality, but it is not the isolated individual reality, rather it is the unified social reality in view of the individual reality.

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