When I was going through numerous complicated good for nothing (nothing that matters) subjects, I came across social sciences and cultural studies.
It was a relief to study a subject that has direct relevance to life. It was talking about things which matter to us not talking about models and methods and procedures that make no sense.
However as I began exploring more, I realized a strange thing. I got disillusioned. I expected cultural studies to be the most sacred study in professional and academic world while it turned out to be quite similar to other subjects.
I'd agree for sure that it has lot of significance in life and cultural studies is quite interesting but it is not a life subject. For me, a subject worth reading is something that allows me to live my life better.
It could be time managements, yoga, methods of relaxation, love relationships etc... but it has to add value to my life.
Cultural studies as per my very limited knowledge ( so limited that my comments can be well taken as offensive and ill-equipped.) is complicating life. Cultural theorists have come up with concepts and terms that have little relevance in life.
For instance, the whole study of subcultures seems flawed. In real life, the distinction is quite redundant between parent culture and subculture. It has to be studied in totality, not in isolation.
Similarly, the over emphasis on terms like modernity, post modernity, structuralism and zillion other complicated terms just leaves reader confused.
In fact there exists no consesus on the definition of word "Culture" itself. All that exists is one side and the opposition to it. One authors defines, others refute, modify or support.
I think cultural studies need to be done very closely to life itself than to books. Let go of what has been done and said, one should focus on more first hand life experience - something like ethnography.
At this point, I must apologize for being over critical without being an subject expert but I think we need to keep cultural studies closer to culture and life itself than letting it being lost in the dense forest of terms and theories. (which is quite the case today.)
Monday, 2 November 2009
Sunday, 20 September 2009
Capitalism, Culturalism and Structuralism
It was the first time that I was reading Marx from a reliable source. Earlier my study was limited to wiki or some random blog, or discussion with a friend and I was amazed at the imagination.
Most striking for me was the way Marx described the problems with Capitalism -
- A falling rate of profit - ( TRUE !!! WE HAVE SEEN IT )
- Cycles of boom and bust - ( Second recession is not yet over !!!)
- Increasing Monopoly - ( Think of any other cola brand apart from Coke/Pepsi ? )
- the creation of a proletariat which is set to become system's grave digger.
Marxism has been critiques for its teleology that - demise of capitalism and arrival of a classless society.However , we are yet to find its validity.
I'd not spend much time on capitalism, as we all are quite aware of it.
Culturalism and Structuralism
Culturalism doesn't even has a wiki ! Such neglect of this term !
We can understand it in comparison with Structuralism. Structuralism stressed on systems, structures for all cause and affects.
Everything is outcome of a system or structure. For e.g. The acts of individuals are just the outcome of our social structure.
Culturalism on the other hand, stressed on individual's activity in all aspects. So, act of individuals are not merely outcome of social structure but also own a quality of that individual. The individual in culturalism is an active agent while in structuralism is merely inactive recipient of structural phenomenons.
Further Culturalism stresses history and claims that history has an impact on individual not the structure.
Post - Structuralism
Post structuralism rejects the idea of underlying stable structure that founds meanings. Rather, it states, meaning is unstable, being always in process of making through relationships between text and contexts.
To note is the fact, that post structuralism is still anti-humanist as it still does not involve human into interpretation of meanings.
Most striking for me was the way Marx described the problems with Capitalism -
- A falling rate of profit - ( TRUE !!! WE HAVE SEEN IT )
- Cycles of boom and bust - ( Second recession is not yet over !!!)
- Increasing Monopoly - ( Think of any other cola brand apart from Coke/Pepsi ? )
- the creation of a proletariat which is set to become system's grave digger.
Marxism has been critiques for its teleology that - demise of capitalism and arrival of a classless society.However , we are yet to find its validity.
I'd not spend much time on capitalism, as we all are quite aware of it.
Culturalism and Structuralism
Culturalism doesn't even has a wiki ! Such neglect of this term !
We can understand it in comparison with Structuralism. Structuralism stressed on systems, structures for all cause and affects.
Everything is outcome of a system or structure. For e.g. The acts of individuals are just the outcome of our social structure.
Culturalism on the other hand, stressed on individual's activity in all aspects. So, act of individuals are not merely outcome of social structure but also own a quality of that individual. The individual in culturalism is an active agent while in structuralism is merely inactive recipient of structural phenomenons.
Further Culturalism stresses history and claims that history has an impact on individual not the structure.
Post - Structuralism
Post structuralism rejects the idea of underlying stable structure that founds meanings. Rather, it states, meaning is unstable, being always in process of making through relationships between text and contexts.
To note is the fact, that post structuralism is still anti-humanist as it still does not involve human into interpretation of meanings.
Man's Blame Game
While reading through various texts, articles along cultural studies - I was amazed at some of the statements -
"Knowledge is never neutral"
" Cultural studies can not be purely rational."
" Meanings are never unbiased"
and so on...
What is interesting to see here is how many is shifting all of his own biases on to something that is non-living !
Knowledge is by very nature - neutral - unless it comes in touch with a human !
Meanings are absolute, but they become relative as they come in tough with human !
So to be blamed is human and not the object itself.
Just because, we the human are incapable of keeping our biases aside, incapable of seeing things as they are - we generalize the whole idea itself.
This phenomenon is more evident in so called "Post-modern" scenario where most thinkers have agreed to the fact that knowledge is never neutral and meanings are never constant.
I'd better reframe it as - Man is never neutral.
"Knowledge is never neutral"
" Cultural studies can not be purely rational."
" Meanings are never unbiased"
and so on...
What is interesting to see here is how many is shifting all of his own biases on to something that is non-living !
Knowledge is by very nature - neutral - unless it comes in touch with a human !
Meanings are absolute, but they become relative as they come in tough with human !
So to be blamed is human and not the object itself.
Just because, we the human are incapable of keeping our biases aside, incapable of seeing things as they are - we generalize the whole idea itself.
This phenomenon is more evident in so called "Post-modern" scenario where most thinkers have agreed to the fact that knowledge is never neutral and meanings are never constant.
I'd better reframe it as - Man is never neutral.
Understanding Some Jargons
Jargons are always part of any subject especially if the subject is purely technical or purely subjective like cultural studies. Every new author loves to coin a new word for it to be used by later author referring back to him.
Lets see some of the jargon I've come across so far -
Culture - No idea
Cultural Politics - Still no idea
Cultural Materialism :
Materialism stands for specific like for the "material" like money, physical comforts. This word suffers from negative connotations. Being materialistic is not being divine.
Cultural materialism, takes a similar form. It tries to denote the part of materialism that exists in cultural studies.
Cultural studies are not unbiased as for long they have been driven by corporations who are in turn driven by profit motives. Hence, cultural materialism is using cultural studies for good of materialistic.
May be following excerpts from another website help -
Cultural Materialism is a theoretical paradigm that stresses the empirical study of sociocultural systems within a materialist infrastructure-structure-superstructure framework. The term cultural materialism was coined by Marvin Harris in his foundational text, The Rise of Anthropological Theory (1968). The aim of cultural materialism is best described by Harris who wrote that "[t]he task of cultural materialism is to create a pan-human science of society whose findings can be accepted on logical and evidentiary grounds by the pan-human community"
SOURCE : http://www.as.ua.edu/ant/Faculty/murphy/cultmat.htm
Non - Reductionism
Reductionism is a belief or system where each concept is believed to be explained by breaking it into simpler concepts. Non-Reductionism would mean then, explaining thing as they are without breaking them up.
Culture is believed to take up non-reductionist approach.
Although doesn't look completely correct to me. Human mind by it very nature thinks in terms of reductions. We understand things by breaking them into simpler pieces.
We understand sentences from words, words from alphabets. It might become quite in evident now due to practice but the process inside our mind is still the same !
Cultural Hegemony
This term refers to domination of one culture by other. Example usually cited is that of colonial system where colonial culture exercises social authority and leadership over subordinate groups through winning or forcing of consent.
However, this seems to be misleading as hegemony is never absolute. There will always be a anti-group, anti-culture prevailing which would affect the overall culture of the system, denying the very act of hegemony.
Lets see some of the jargon I've come across so far -
Culture - No idea
Cultural Politics - Still no idea
Cultural Materialism :
Materialism stands for specific like for the "material" like money, physical comforts. This word suffers from negative connotations. Being materialistic is not being divine.
Cultural materialism, takes a similar form. It tries to denote the part of materialism that exists in cultural studies.
Cultural studies are not unbiased as for long they have been driven by corporations who are in turn driven by profit motives. Hence, cultural materialism is using cultural studies for good of materialistic.
May be following excerpts from another website help -
Cultural Materialism is a theoretical paradigm that stresses the empirical study of sociocultural systems within a materialist infrastructure-structure-superstructure framework. The term cultural materialism was coined by Marvin Harris in his foundational text, The Rise of Anthropological Theory (1968). The aim of cultural materialism is best described by Harris who wrote that "[t]he task of cultural materialism is to create a pan-human science of society whose findings can be accepted on logical and evidentiary grounds by the pan-human community"
SOURCE : http://www.as.ua.edu/ant/Faculty/murphy/cultmat.htm
Non - Reductionism
Reductionism is a belief or system where each concept is believed to be explained by breaking it into simpler concepts. Non-Reductionism would mean then, explaining thing as they are without breaking them up.
Culture is believed to take up non-reductionist approach.
Although doesn't look completely correct to me. Human mind by it very nature thinks in terms of reductions. We understand things by breaking them into simpler pieces.
We understand sentences from words, words from alphabets. It might become quite in evident now due to practice but the process inside our mind is still the same !
Cultural Hegemony
This term refers to domination of one culture by other. Example usually cited is that of colonial system where colonial culture exercises social authority and leadership over subordinate groups through winning or forcing of consent.
However, this seems to be misleading as hegemony is never absolute. There will always be a anti-group, anti-culture prevailing which would affect the overall culture of the system, denying the very act of hegemony.
Meaning of Culture
It was quite confusing to see that experts are still not even able to define "Culture". It has been awarded as one of the 3 most complex words in English language. ( don't ask me the other two ! )
If you look at Oxford - it also appears quite confused. See what is in oxfords' advanced learners dictionary. ( In above picture). It encompasses everything.
Perhaps , culture is a complex phenomenon !
But I liked the simplicity of following statement by Chris Barker -
" Culture is concerned with question of shared social meanings that is, the various ways we make sense of the world."
In contract look at this statement by Stuart Hall -
" By culture, here I mean the actual grounded terrain of practices, representations, languages and customs of any specific society. I also mean the contradictory forms of common sense which have taken root in and helped to share popular life."
With all respect to Mr. Hall, above definition doesn't help a normal reader. May be its meant only for cultural experts. Look at the use of words - "Grounded terrain of practices", "any specific society", "I also mean contradictory forms of common sense" and finally " popular life". Too much to decipher for me.
I personally believe in wasting no time in defining abstract things. Culture means different things to different people in different part of the globe. So, let it be.
Why do we need to define it in a universal way. Just for the sake of it ?
Each definition is subject to criticism for no definition could ever encompass all the meanings people make out of it.
For the current understanding, I'd stay with the definition of culture as "shared meaning".
Lets see if I'd be able to give a better definition sometime in future !
Introduction
I got interested in cultural studies while doing my PGPCME at Mudra institute of Communications, Ahmedabad.
It was a fortune to meet professors like A F Mathew and Rita Kothari at MICA who pushed my interest further. There were several other professors ( of Semiotics, Market Research etc..) who were not directly talking about cultural studies but certainly hinting to it.
I've always been fascinated by the strength of questioning, the power of skepticism. Cultural studies allowed me to look at things from one more perspective, question them and doubt something that I always trusted.
I started enjoying deciphering the meaning behind advertisements, movies, songs, pictures taking into consideration the cultural background, biases and stereotypes.
Finally, I thought that I should give some serious reading to cultural studies to be able to understand things better.
Thankfully, my dissertation mentor - Prof Rita Kothari recommended me this book by Chris Barker ( Cultural Studies - Theory and Practice) which kinda provides a good overview of cultural studies, suited for a beginner like me !
This blog is about my journey, my reflections, as I read the book and absorb cultural studies.
This blog is more about my reflections, less about the book itself !
I hope some readers might find it useful !
It was a fortune to meet professors like A F Mathew and Rita Kothari at MICA who pushed my interest further. There were several other professors ( of Semiotics, Market Research etc..) who were not directly talking about cultural studies but certainly hinting to it.
I've always been fascinated by the strength of questioning, the power of skepticism. Cultural studies allowed me to look at things from one more perspective, question them and doubt something that I always trusted.
I started enjoying deciphering the meaning behind advertisements, movies, songs, pictures taking into consideration the cultural background, biases and stereotypes.
Finally, I thought that I should give some serious reading to cultural studies to be able to understand things better.
Thankfully, my dissertation mentor - Prof Rita Kothari recommended me this book by Chris Barker ( Cultural Studies - Theory and Practice) which kinda provides a good overview of cultural studies, suited for a beginner like me !
This blog is about my journey, my reflections, as I read the book and absorb cultural studies.
This blog is more about my reflections, less about the book itself !
I hope some readers might find it useful !
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