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Edited on Mon Jan-05-04 08:37 PM by markses
1. There is no “American Culture” as a unified phenomenon. There are, rather, competing cultural traditions, strategies, and struggles. Only by an effort of severe abstraction can we think of “American culture” (or “French culture,” or “Mexican culture,” for that matter). There are dominant cultural traditions, countercultural traditions, residual cultural traditions, and emergent cultural practices. (Apologies to Raymond Williams) Cultures are not THINGS that have essences, but practices that intersect with and mix with other practices. In traditional analysis, economic practices were distinguished from cultural practices. This distinction no longer holds. The economic collapses into the cultural – McDonald’s is an economic and cultural phenomenon; Las Vegas is of course the exemplar of this merging – gambling as an economic/cultural phenomenon, the end of the work/leisure distinction. On the other side, Open Source could be seen as much the same, to the extent that it collapses the work/leisure split.
2. No cultural phenomenon is good or bad in itself. Rather, cultural phenomena are used in a variety of ways and produce a variety of effects. The “same” cultural practice can be used in a variety of ways by different groups for different purposes. This is the main problem of “lefty” elitism: it analyzes cultural practices as if they were unified – one thing. In this mistaken perspective, the strip-mall-ization of America is necessarily bad, certain musical trends are necessarily bad. At best, this perspective is traditional elitism; worse (such as many of the critiques of hip hop I’ve seen on this board), it can function as reactionary and racist. But the worst part about it: it fuels the very faux populism that reactionary forces have made their own. So, you’ll get no end of arguments that “just plain folks” like shopping at Wal-Mart, or eating triple Quarter Pounders, or any other combination of cultural practices, and why don’t you take your elitist bushwa elsewhere and leave people be. In one sense, this faux populism is correct to field these arguments. In another sense, they fail to see the power at work on the very “plain folks” they claim to defend.
3. Culture is a scene of power in operation – perhaps the most important scene. For this reason, one does not forfeit ones capacity to evaluate simply because one has given up on elitism. That’s the main fallacy of the faux populism: It makes any negative evaluation of cultural phenomena into elitism, tout court. One can negatively evaluate the cultural phenomena of McDonald’s in any number of ways, and such critique is not “elitist” simply because it is a negative evaluation of a popular form. In fact, one could argue that many of the uses and effects of McDonald’s are not “popular” at all, but forces of elite power themselves. Faux populism says “I like McDonald’s and my SUV. What’s it to ya?” Because many liberals and lefty’s fall into trap #2, this argument seems to have some force. But it would only retain its force if 1) The critique was premised solely on what constitutes good taste, rather than on the ethics of use; 2) The phenomena in question DID NOT have negative effects or consequences that far outweighed any individual’s personal tastes; and 3) The production of personal tastes was not itself implicated in a field of power.
4. The production of personal tastes is itself a cultural phenomena, and is itself implicated in a field of power, and that transcends the will of individuals. The argument that “people shop” or even “like to shop” at Wal-Mart is often little more than a fatuous appeal to “personal freedom,” so well cultivated by the most reactionary and oppressive forces. People’s desire to shop at X, or enjoyment of X, is as much produced as the products they buy there. This is the hardest pill to swallow in our culture, which believes that the personal will is wholly free, and that desire (even for the most seemingly produced items) springs full blown from the mysterious interior realm of the individual. The questions – if one were to critique, say, Wal-Mart – are not “Is Wal-Mart good or bad?” or “Do people like Wal-Mart, and if so, why can’t you let them be?,” but rather, What are the operations of power that produce a phenomenon like Wal-Mart? What kinds of use is it put to, and how can we discuss the ethics of these uses? What kinds of life does Wal-Mart (or any configuration of cultural phenomena in combination) make possible, and what kinds of life does it foreclose? What are the effects and consequences of these cultural phenomena?
In this sense, I agree with those who say “If you don’t like my Happy Meal or cigar simply as a matter of taste, you’re elitist?”
But I disagree with those who say “If you don’t like my Happy Meal or cigar, you’re elitist.”
At the same time, it might be worthwhile pointing out some uses of popular cultural phenomena that we do like. Contrary to the faux populists, who have made driving an SUV into an instance of “sticking it to the man,” we know that popular uses – often completely contrary to the prescribed uses designed in a system of power – very often do transform cultural phenomena. What allows new practices to develop, and what closes off new practices? That’s my question. In the end, I give a shout out to Method Man, who says, profoundly, I should add:
It ain’t easy bein’ greasy
In this world full of cleanliness and, y’know
All that other madness.
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