Similarities Between Matthew Arnold’s And Frankfurt Theory
The English Writer, Matthew Arnold, tends to define ‘Culture’ based on his advocating towards ‘high culture’. In his point of view, what could be defined as culture must be well created based on thoughtful process and creativity like a piece of refined ‘Art’ as it must contains the sense of Aesthetic, superiority and perfection. (i.e. Classical music, painting). Moreover, he tends to reject the term ‘commonality’, ‘ordinary or ‘banality’ or what could be found generally and easily created in everyday life. Apart from this notion of Matthew Arnold, F.R. Leavis have pretty much the same idea of ‘high culture’ that he tends to maintain what’s believed to be the perfect version of culture, make a clear distinction between good and bad culture and make a critic towards the mass culture in contemporary era such as film and advertisement. Due to the rejection of banality, the notion of high culture is apparently limit among the elites and high-class people while the lower class or labor class can hardly understand and approach. However, there ideas have been challenged when British reached the era of ‘Industrial Revolution’ where people starting to form uncultivated mass production with the concern of economic benefit and demand rather than focusing on the sense of aesthetic. This incidence provokes the discourse that ‘Does the definition of ‘aesthetic’ in the discerning between high and low culture is ‘universal’? which the notion of ‘British Cultural studies’ seems to against the ‘high Culture’ idea of Arnold and Leavis.
Due to the influence of Arnold and Leavis notion of high culture, the British society seems systemize in a way that support the elites and high-class group. However, as it comes to an end of pre-industrial culture that where ‘mass production’ has become prior to sense of ‘aesthetic’ along with the ‘working class’ got to play importance roles as they are the key to the achievement of ‘economic demand’ of ‘mass culture’. Altogether with the fact that there are different classes coexist and living together in one society either the high class, middle class or labor class. Different from Arnold and Leavis idea that culture is the best form of civilization that should be suppress and limit among the elites, the British Cultural studies sees that culture could be applied to every classes and being defined as either as ‘Refined Art’ or ‘Ordinary Way of life’. While Arnold and Leavis, tends to make a clear separation between high and low culture, good and bad culture, Raymond William instead demolish such hierarchy by emphasize on the study of everyday life culture which it helps promoting ‘Popular culture’. Hence, the discourse of British cultural studies against the notion of Arnold and leavis has proven that the distinguish between high and low or good and bad culture can never be universal as such judgement is from individual point of view based on their life experience and cultural society they have lived through. Same as the influence of ‘high cultural’ of the in British society that reflects way of thinking and living of group of English elites. Moreover, it also proven that fined arts or high culture cannot be separated from everyday life especially in this contemporary era as the production of arts is now conducted by labor force with the purpose of profit making.
To mentioned about the untruth universal judgement of high and low culture of Arnold and Leavis, it’s impossible to use cultural taste and perspective of one group to make judgement of good and bad as each group or class might view things differently. With the support of Pierre Bourdieu, he shares quite the same idea with Raymond William as he mentioned that cultural judgement is rather an expression of cultural taste of certain classes which their taste and point of view is mainly binding with culture, norms and society they lived in not biologically given. One of the obvious examples of the differentiation of cultural taste is ‘beauty’ as this word is obviously a subjective term as people has a sense of beauty differently. In the past, Chinese used to have a sense of beauty of having feet or in other term know as ‘Foot binding Culture’ or ‘Lotus Feet’ which at the age of 5 women will start binding their feet with silk or cotton to bind their feet to make it small. Chinese women in the past had feet with just 3-4 feet long as they believed that women who has small feet is beautiful and being wanted by a rich guy. Mostly women with small feet would be married to rich family or being a personal prostitute of a baron. However, the popularity of foot binding practice was mainly limit among the rich family as the role of the daughter is to keep themselves beautiful, get marry and please their husband while the women in working class such as farmer refuse to bind their feet as it much easier and flexible to do the work. The feet size to Chinese people is not just a symbol of beauty but the symbol to distinguish classes as well which they mentioned women with small feet is rich and beautiful while the women with big feet is poor and ugly. Hence, the cultural taste or sense of beauty (Lotus feet) of Chinese is differently depends on their life style and occupation. Another example is cultural value, Asian women tends to cherish the value of ‘virginity’ more than western women as they perceive it as a judgment of their pride, value and morality. That’s reason why women who move in with a man before marriage or pregnant before marriage will be judge and view badly by the society especially in Thailand. Different from western culture that women ‘s value does not depend on her virginity as there are a lot of women living together with her boyfriend without getting married or pregnant before marriage. Even this kind has become more flexible in Asian society, but some group of people stick it especially the elders.
Furthermore, Bourdieu categorized cultural taste and classes into three categories which are working class, lower middle class and upper middle class which each class has their own taste and perspective which reflect to their lifestyle and daily activities. He come up with the so-called idea of ‘cultural capital’ which is a knowledge of whatever counted as a ‘high culture’ in society. For example, Thailand would perceive culture or practice that related to ‘royal family’ as a high culture. For example, ‘Khon’ (โขน) which is a high-class Thai performance that which the culture or practice that’s related to royal family as a high culture as it’s used to be untouchable by the working class as it was performed solely in the palace and the audience was limit among the royal family and noble man. Even nowadays, Khon is widely introduce to people in all social class and perform in many occasions. Moreover, this example could be used to extend the fact that fine art can never be separated from everyday life as what Thai people use to perceive as a fined art in the past was now exhibiting and re-creating over and over for the sake of business and benefit not cultural aesthetic. As ‘Khon’ used to be performed just to the high class people in just special occasion but nowadays ‘Khon’ is being used a beneficial tool for tourist attraction and the actor and actress doesn’t have to be well train or professional just like in the past as it has been widely taught and introduced to people with different class or age. There are even a ‘Khon’ performance in school in the present. Thus, it seems like the production of arts in this contemporary era is focus on the quantity rather the quality of the art itself which it’s related to the idea of ‘popular culture’ of ‘Frankfurt Critical Theory’.
Frankfurt Critical Theorists including ‘Adorno’ and ‘Horkheimer’ share the same point of view with Arnold and Leavis that they against and suppress pop culture as it solely concerns on quantity of mass production rather the quality, value and aesthetic of an object. While Raymond William and Pierre Bordieu view popular culture as something that need to be learn and understand as it unavoidably coexists with high culture. Frankfurt criticize that ‘mass culture’ is designed to gain profit from the consumer by feed them with their ideology which make the consumer become a ‘mass’ they are being brain washed, losing the ability to think and being replaced with an ideology of the mass culture rather their own thinking. The Frankfurt theory also introduce the idea of ‘Culture industry’ as whatever are producing, selling and advertising to us is mainly for profit which the medium comes in many forms including magazine, Internet, television and newspaper. Moreover, each of the items of mass production is rationalized and standardized equally which make them have pretty much the same quality but on the other hand it lacks identity and uniqueness. Sarcastically, people tend to consume such product in order to create their own identity and make themselves become unique without consider that their mass cultural product they are consuming has no either sense of identity or uniqueness and the people themselves also being seduce by the ideology of mass culture and abandon their own thinking which this case is known as ‘Pseudo individuality’. Nowadays there are many series and soap opera that have been remake repeatedly both Internationally and domestically. For example, Thailand has many version of remaking soap opera which the most classical one would be ‘Khu Khum’ or in English, ‘Sunset at Chaopraya’ which it was created based on historical love novel written by Thommayanti based on her true experience in World War 2 which the story is about forbidden love between Japanese soldier ‘Kobori’ and Thai women ‘Aungsumalin’. The first Khu kum soap opera was on air in 1970 which it has been remake six times already. Moreover, it has been remaking in many other forms as well including four versions as a movie, theatre while the book itself has been republished repeatedly.
In conclusion, Matthew Arnold’s notion and Frankfurt critical Theory share the same idea advocate towards high culture that culture is the best version of civilization so, it must be define as superiority and perfection like a piece of refined art which it should be suppressed from everyday life culture or low culture that considered as banality and ordinary and should be use as a universal judgment of what is good and bad while the early thinker of British cultural studies sees that everyday life culture and high culture cannot be separate from each other due to the mass production in the contemporary era, that art is creating over and over to answer the economic demand without consider of the value and sense of aesthetic. Moreover, they claim that ‘high culture’ is no universal truth but the reflection of cultural taste of certain group or society. Hence, there’s no clear separation between high and low culture which the aesthetic judgement could not be universal as people perceive thing different based on the experience from society they lived in.
