[New-Poetry] 2cents from Francypants

[Jason Quackenbush]

This has got me thinking if perhaps the trend i've been noticing and arguing for is maybe a fairly recent cultural development. Certainly almost 
everyone in my social circle on whom I'm basing my arguments are people who came of age and formed their opinions about things in a counterculture 
that placed a heavy value on otherness and difficulty. I don't know what or when that shift happened, but my impression is that there has been a 
leveling of access to counterculture values over the last 20 years in that it's now possible for anyone to be involved in that system of counter 
values, regardless of socio-economic status. I wonder if that might be coloring my opinion in a way that it isn't coloring the opinions of others 
involved in this discussion?

Alexander Dickow wrote:
> All,
> Not taking sides here, as it's not a debate I find
> particularly useful for anybody, in the final analysis
> (I've rarely seen anyone cast the issue in a very
> original light, to say the least). Just pointing out a
> disturbing famous book on the subject: Bourdieu's
> _Distinction_. 
> Please note that this book has been abundantly
> criticized, but I'm not familiar with the objections
> (maybe someone else is). For starters, things may be
> different in the US and in France, and between 1979ish
> and 2007. In any event, his work does NOT reflect my
> own opinions, on the contrary, I desperately hope he's
> wrong, and I think it's a much better idea to assume
> he is, and to hunt for counter-evidence.
> This French empirical sociologist sought to establish
> -- through statistics and case studies -- that there
> is indeed a link between esthetic taste and
> socioeconomic strata. Ie, to some extent, that the
> "bourgeois" *tend* to listen to MusicianX, and the
> "lower class" to MusicianY. The distinction doesn't
> have anything to do with levels of sophistication of
> the art consumed by given groups, and Bourdieu's
> division of the population is considerably more
> sophisticated than this old bourgeois/proletariat
> dichotomy (it has to do with horizontal distinctions
> of milieu much finer than white vs. blue collars). 
> Much more disturbing than his observation of
> socioeconomic differences in artistic taste and
> frequency of art-consumption, is his contention that
> you can't *learn* to appreciate art different than the
> kind you've been exposed to as a youth. This is based
> on observations that statistically, radical shifts in
> individuals' art-consumption seem to be extremely
> rare. Ie, the bourgeois doesn't seem to start
> listening to MusicianY very often, nor the proletarian
> to MusicianX. According to Bourdieu, the Amy Kings and
> Jason Quackenbushes of the world are few and far
> between.
> I can't post this without cringing in fear of
> retribution, but I'm very much hoping people will
> bring some antiBourdieu scholarship to the table, and
> maybe shift discussion away from anger. For my part, I
> don't think James meant anything so offensive --
> email's a treacherous medium -- but in any event I'd
> agree with Amy and Jason where the ideological problem
> of class prejudice is concerned, and then some.
> Amicalement,
> Alex
> 
> www.alexdickow.net/blog/
>    
>   les mots! ah quel désert à la fin
>   merveilleux. -- Henri Droguet
> 
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