> By the same token, what's so "unfortunate" about "anti-elitism's"
> progressive or democratic connotation for the Right and the Left alike,
> especially if it creates a common ground for productive dialog? And why is
> the Right assumed to be "parroting" the Left on anti-elitism when it
affirms
> that progressive, democratic connotation as one of its own values? Is that
> value automatically degraded for the Left by the Right's affirmation of
it?
> And is the Left somehow contaminated in its cultstud mode by the very
> cultural commodification it takes as its object of study simply because
> "commodification" implies "market," which implies "the Right" and renders
> its principled anti-elitism suspect? This would seem to be the truly
> peculiar intersection of Left and Right, not least by being implicit,
> presumptive, and unacknowledged.
>
> Thoughts? Reactions?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Candice
>
Yeah, Candice, how about, as a thought and reaction: you've lost me
completely.
I think it pertinent to point that social elitism does not equate to, what
phrase can I use, 'high culture'? I didn't want to use 'intellectual or
artistic elitism' but I'm no more satisfied with the former phrase
either. I see no reason to defend the Right, nor do I find any love for a
'pseudo-Left', one which is, to my mind, the Right in drag.
And productive dialogue is the last thing one finds from these parties.
Best
Dave
David Bircumshaw
Leicester, England
Home Page
A Chide's Alphabet
Painting Without Numbers
www.paintstuff.20m.com/index.htm
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm
----- Original Message -----
From: "Candice Ward" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 3:24 AM
Subject: Re: What was the point?
> on 12/18/01 12:34 AM, Jeremy Green at [log in to unmask] wrote:
>
> > But here's where things get tricky - both multiculturalism and
> > cultural studies, with their emphasis on the popular (and perhaps also
the
> > putative organic relation between cultural practice and identity), have
> > also traded on versions of anti-elitism. The peculiar intersection of
> > these otherwise antipathetic lines of thought (meaning the right-wing
> > populism and cultstuds/multicult) seems to have given the
> > charge of elitism an apparently unimpeachable status, as if the charge
> > automatically has a progressive, "democratic" connotation. This is
> > unfortunate. The academic left thus finds itself parroted and gives up
> > ground to a refusal of critical thought, since the "real meaning" of the
> > spuriously democratic anti-elitist product implied is nothing but the
> > marketplace, the ever smoother peristalsis of cultural commodities.
>
> Hi, Jeremy,
>
> I appreciated your thoughtful post, but would quibble with the value-load
> some of your terms are made to bear. What's so "peculiar" about these
> intersecting lines at the anti-elitist crossroads, for example? Both are
> driven by an emphasis on the popular/ist that would correct a
> social/intellectual balance created by elitism as the (by)product of a
> down-classing system, and one so insidious as to still be evading total
> eradication. I'd say--contra those who tend to revile the word--that
> "elitism," in being culturally-relativistically flexible enough to bear on
> both lines, has proved eminently useful in bringing them to the point of
> intersection.
>
> By the same token, what's so "unfortunate" about "anti-elitism's"
> progressive or democratic connotation for the Right and the Left alike,
> especially if it creates a common ground for productive dialog? And why is
> the Right assumed to be "parroting" the Left on anti-elitism when it
affirms
> that progressive, democratic connotation as one of its own values? Is that
> value automatically degraded for the Left by the Right's affirmation of
it?
> And is the Left somehow contaminated in its cultstud mode by the very
> cultural commodification it takes as its object of study simply because
> "commodification" implies "market," which implies "the Right" and renders
> its principled anti-elitism suspect? This would seem to be the truly
> peculiar intersection of Left and Right, not least by being implicit,
> presumptive, and unacknowledged.
>
> Thoughts? Reactions?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Candice
>
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