The cultural dilemma of modernity is
very real; this we must not deny. However, culture itself being necessarily a
subjective metaphenomenon, most proposals for solving this crisis, and indeed
almost every argument framing the question has proceeded from a narrow and
exclusionary idea of what constitutes culture and which aspects or values must
be preserved and why. This is understandable, if no less lamentable.
But the existential threat to the
preservation of humanity’s greatest collective asset, culture, is not to be
found in some particular group of people; not in a particular race or ethnic
group — when Western music was showing serious signs of decadence in the early
twentieth century, African Americans and (largely Jewish) European immigrants
to the United States revitalized that tradition and extended its influence
unimaginably—nor in a particular religion different from that which shapes and
determines our own cultural values — the historical mutual influence between
the Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, is the foundation of our
common heritage, while fascination with the unique religions native to India
has inspired Western philosophy and literature (to say nothing of philology)
since the Enlightenment—nor even is it to be found in a particular social or
economic class — while it is true that the great bishops and lords of the
Renaissance had terrific taste, in time new markets, from the rising
bourgeoisie down to today’s consumer society have brought demand for new forms
of cultural product when past perfections became formulaic and stale.
No, these prejudiced arguments will not
do. Which should not lead us to adopt a blind, dogmatic faith that democracy
and pluralism will ensure the integrity of our cultural traditions, for in this
is concealed a lurking danger. Out of an abundance of often conflicting values,
esthetic, moral, and social, the threat is not any particular culture but the
emergence of relativism, skepticism and a growing, if still unformulated and
unconscious belief that culture itself has
no value.
Music matters, for one thing. I
remember when I was a high school student at the dawn of the millennium in
Cambridge, and Harvard Square had three major record stores, in addition to
several mom-and-pop’s used-record stores. HMV stands out in my memory; not only
could I find CDs by my favorite death metal bands, or purchase VHS tapes of
Stanley Kubrick films that no self-respecting adult would ever watch again,
there was also a closed-off classical section where one could enjoy baroque
concerti in a soundproofed room while browsing through these great works by
composers who were largely unfamiliar names to me at the time. That these
seemingly disparate strains of culture can coexist in the digital capitalist
world may seem strange, and to some may be discomfiting. Truly, this was a
cultural buffet; and too many listeners were starving. Even Britney Spears said
in a Rolling Stone interview around
that time, “If you only listen to one type of music, I think you’re kind of a boring
person.”
At least the options were there. Now,
HMV and Tower Records are gone and only Newbury Comics remains. And while vinyl
is making a comeback, CDs are left in a cardboard box on the sidewalk. With
Spotify, Youtube and other online sources of music streaming, the options seem
greater than e’er before. And yet, these services tend to reinforce and curate
a certain aesthetic homogeneity, while at the same time removing the more
positive aspects of cultural identification that musical genres gave to
different groups throughout the last few decades of the twentieth century.
Far more lamentable are the atrophy of
literary and historical standards. To these regards, Boston was
once-upon-a-time the cultural centre of America. Some say the decline of New
England was due to the influx of immigration that weakened the spiritual
dominion of the Protestant Brahmins. In truth the WASP abdicated his tenuous
hold on letters in the pursuit of wealth as the financial industrial apparatus
set up shop. Immigration itself seems rather to have strengthened New York’s
cultural foothold. Still, with so much rich history here in our own
neighborhoods in Cambridge, Boston and Concord, it would serve us well to keep
that tradition in mind, even as we could do more to celebrate ethnic
communities and their rich heritage, for example in Cambridge, the Ethiopian
and Chinese communities that descend from two of the oldest civilizations on
Earth.
Above all, our city must expand our
commitment to the underserved and marginalized beyond the narrow focus of
sociology and political science, to embrace the seminal impact of African
Americans, West Indians, Hispanics, Jews, the working class, and others upon
the fabric of American society. We see a great insistence on the importance of
science, technology and maths; indeed, they are useful. But Nietzsche said of
gold that it was valuable because it was rare, and useless. The value of the
arts and humanities cannot be measured, and though they are of great use to
man, they are not easily subordinated to an utilitarian function. Therefore
does the builder of cosmopolitan neoliberalism refuse them; or at most
appropriates their vestige superficially as trappings for the abomination of
desolation.
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