Gadianton wrote:I see that I haven't explained myself very well. That's the trouble with trying to reply without thinking through an answer adequately. Maybe the whole issue of "political" isn't clear (I mean something more along the lines of ideological, which on one level I would use interchangeably with "politcal" while on another, I would use the two terms for different purposes). Or maybe I really do agree that the whole enterprise of "high culture"is questionable---at this juncture I would say yes and no, an answer that sure doesn't sound like anything useful at all!
The mistake is mine, actually. I was skipping steps that maybe I shouldn't take for granted. It was my understanding that you meant something along the lines of ideology which I belive Scratch does too. And I just jumped to "high culture" on the "no private language" assumption that ideology is a group phenomena, and the implementation per Scratch's Aristotelian explanation would seem to leave it as somewhat of a tautology --- a society that captured the teleos just right would by definition be a "high culture". Eastern Marxists and the roots of western Marxism, e.g, George Lukacs, were quite taken with teleology per Marx and Hegel, but as I understand it, Western Marxists generally, the Frankfurt School notably, became very skeptical of the teleological approach which seemed rigid and naturally fit for totalitarianism which they resisted.
There are several ways "high culture" is used in these debates, too, so that's where I was confused/confusing. For example, in FS thought--Adorno in particular---a "high culture" (modernism) has a cultural distance from the popular necessary for critical practice. While this is correct on a conceptual level---one needs a "place" from which to "draw back" from and thus critique society (a place of "abstraction" both ideologically and in terms of modernist visual arts stylistically), it can collapse in practice into a mandarinism that is blind to nuances in the popular--like the "counter culture" for example, or popular work produced by marginal groups. Both of these weaknesses were eventually present in my beloved Adorno's work: his notorious "not getting it" in reaction to the European student culture of the late 60's, as well as his false dichotomy between "high" avant garde music (Schoenberg) and "jazz." He would have been incapable of making sense of terrain of contemporary popular music...
On Lukacs: while he takes a "party line," I can't totally dismiss some of his work on realism, either. For example it was liberatingly enlightening to me to first encounter a critique of modernist individualism---this really changed how I saw "Ulysses" for example. And it was so obvious once I saw it! Of course such insight need not result in some "bashing" dismissal of Joyce's work (criticism is not equal to personal arrogance and meaness, and a purely negative critique is of course entirely postive in its effects--eminient cultural theorist Boyd K Packer to the contrary). But it does provide a head-spinning readjustment of one's line of vision.
But, the real gold in Lukacs is his work on reification. That $hit is da bomb and still very underused and worked with by contemporary theorists. I recommend it to you highly, though, not necessarily in relation to this project.
...It's multifacited, the authority complex of the church, the roots in western art which draw similar criticisms, the need to connect with Mormon status quo. And that last one is significant in many ways from the fact that Utah residence have no demand or appreciation of art to a strange phenomena within Mormonism to prove their humility to each other by dumbing things down. This is the Meridian effect I have yet to flesh out.
The Meridian effect---bon mot par excellence! Of course even here we see how even the most monolithic of cultural levels contains fissures and differance: I'm thinking of the John P. Pratt work of which I am very fond. Its such a throw-back to earlier mormonism---I nearly expect to see him draw the culture of rodsmen and magic caines into the realm of calendarical significance. And why not? The "folk culture" realm of Mormonism is fascinating and human and entirely non-brethern approved. I just might be giving away one of my own working ideas, but I can see a case to made for Bishop Koyle as modernist Mormon architect. How can you see his mine works and not be transported to the Bauhaus?
