I've been thinking quite a bit about the dumbing down problem - very
discernible in our so-called quality press. And they used to be called
"heavies"! It also crosses some thoughts about hegemonies. It's heresy but I
don't subscribe to the idea that the ruling group is necessarily the one
with the prevailing power on ideas.
    I think dumbing down has got its tortuous roots in our society as a
strange hybrid offshoot from a populist Hard Left (British) line of thirty
years ago. Then battles were being fought in education wherein working class
culture was being given status. The distortion arose when this culture
became praised in comparison with so-called middle class culture: by its
terms, anything educated became "middle class" and anything uneducated
"working class".
    Later, so-called revolutionaries became enamoured of the literary ideas
of the period that all texts were equal. I can remember having a lively
argument in the Oxford Union bar with another Ruskin student (we were both
at the trade union college) who maintained that Shakespeare and a shopping
list had the same literary value (you know the sort of thing).
    Then there were the Sixties of course with its love of anything
spontaneous, anarchic and experimental. Heady days after the post-war blues.
Many marvellous things, and as Geraldine says, there is something so
attractive and fresh about something not too thought over and considered and
pulled off with a lot of energy and panache.
    But it all slowly led to the overthrow of the Fifties' deep
intellectualism, except in pockets of rebellious eggheads! And whereas in
the Fifties there was still this deep hunger for education in the working
class, it became eroded. After all they were being told they had everything
they needed and even that they were better off uneducated with their own
culture.
    On the Communist Left this was regarded with deep suspicion. It smacked
too much of creating a working class cultural ghetto, a culture of
deprivation: working class culture seen more as the crumbs allowed from the
table. (Perhaps the Americans might not know that the Hard Left regarded the
Communists as revisionists and softies).
    How does this effect the arts and poetry? Well, they were part of the
"educated" agenda, and "educated" in the 80s and 90s came to mean "elite" by
the same tortuous process. And poetry and the arts became "elitist".
Theatre, opera, classical music, modern classical music, ballet, sculpture,
painting etc. etc. in the same category.
    I agree with Alison that this has led to a counter response of
hyper-intellectualism in some quarters.
    However the mess we see around us - kids spurning "education" as
so-called middle class and uncool - is an on-going tragedy of unwitting
collusion between the Hard Left and the Right which are united in believing
that the general population would be better off learning about popular and
work-related culture (learning what they already know), while a minority
pursue "elitist" subjects.
    Fighting the ground for poetry is becoming harder and harder. Teaching
on an MA in Creative Writing I was told by some students that poetry was
"difficult" and therefore "elitist".
    When I countered that chess was a "difficult" game, yet freely available
for anyone to play anywhere in the country (clubs in every small town etc.),
so hardly "elitist", and by the same token poetry wasn't banned or
prohibited to the general public and that it was freely available in books,
pamphlets, and could be heard at local readings etc. It may take a little
industry to understand, but then so does our national game, cricket. (Or any
computer programme).
    I would like to see some of the de-skilling brigade try their hands on a
computer. Why is it Ok to learn how to use software packages, but not to
learn to play music?
    Another result of all this is that amateurs despise professionals and
professionalism of any kind. But would you like an amateur plumber let loose
on your house? (Rant. Rant.)
    It's serious tho' and its Theft. Our culture, our poetry, our arts are
being stolen. Yes, that Warwickshire lad, Shakespeare, is part of the stolen
booty. For God's sake he, and the rest, belong to everybody! But we're going
to have to fight ideologically for poetry, otherwise see it disappear.

Jackie