As I shared on LinkedIn and Twitter, sorry X, sometime ago, I am busy reading Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace these days, that my aged father gifted me in Goa for my birthday this year. I am on the second volume of the three-volume set, and since I don’t have a book to write about or review this month, I thought I’d write about a subject that I have long thought about and experienced first-hand the past couple of decades.
Plenty has been written about the post-truth world, that we live in. A world of alternate facts, conspiracy theories and vitriol that is largely fuelled by social media that often also passes for news, depending on where one gets one’s news from. A lot of misinformation and even disinformation generated as a result are sometimes even led by state actors such as autocratic regimes that wish to sow discord and destroy people’s faith in democracy.
Further, we now have culture wars in this millennium, the kind we have never seen or known before. Thanks to extreme political polarization and discord sown in the hearts and minds of disillusioned citizens, there is cancel-culture, that has also been written about, including by me in one of my older blog posts.
All this is no doubt taking place in the age of social and digital media, an invention of the 21st century. Things have become so weird that in the first presidency of Donald Trump, traditional and well-established media was being criticised as fake news, while social media channels as well as Fox News was hailed as the real news! Now, of course, Trump has his own media company and guess what it is called: Truth Social!
Enough has been written about all the ills of social media, about cultural wars, cancel-culture, and the like. Nobody seems to have written about the cultural poverty that I think the world is facing today, or at least I haven’t had the chance to read any sensible and insightful piece on it. And when I say cultural poverty, I must clarify that I don’t mean popular culture, but culture of the real kind. Popular culture is always a product of the times, shaped by people’s experiences, views and current social and political mores. And because so much of the world is changing rapidly before our own eyes, popular culture is making rapid progress and even thriving. However, even popular culture has elements that are more enduring and last beyond the times they were created in. Think of all the great music that was produced in the west during the 1960s and how they captured the spirit of a generation, outlasted them and continue to captivate us today. To this extent, perhaps popular culture too is not able to rise above today’s technological pace and change, political partisanship and polarization and cultural chauvinism that defines this century so far.
If things are not going well in the popular culture front, we do not react against it or complain, because it is inherent in popular culture that it is shaped by today’s political, social and cultural developments. What I am most concerned about in the context of cultural poverty is what is being done to higher culture, for want of a better word. Higher culture, or culture in the true sense of the word, comes down to us from ancient classical traditions that have enlightened and edified our lives. Higher culture is passed down to us through reading, learning, listening and appreciating some of the finest works of man and in the process of our education and learning, realise some of the greatest values and eternal truths about humankind and our civilisation. It is why Italo Calvino urges us to read the classics.
Culture of this kind is the mountain of a rock upon which all future civilisation is built. It might not always be a shining city on the hill, but at least it is a citadel of wisdom, light, understanding and true enlightenment. Its greatest quality is that it stands the test of time. Which is not to say that it is static or frozen in stone or indeed, in time. Rather, higher culture, because it offers so many possibilities for interpretation and expression, always inspires more cultural ferment and creation for our changing times, all the while providing the superstructure if you like, for solidity and stability.
It has sadly been my experience and observation for the past many years that this type of culture is deteriorating, either because of neglect or a lack of respect for it. Whether it is in literature, visual arts, music, cinema or any other artistic cultural endeavour, there is very little being produced that can compare or even compete with the immortals, to quote David Ogilvy. I am not sure what the reasons are, but it is not only due to our obsession with technology. If anything, technology ought to be a tool to create better, more eloquent and enduring works of culture. However, cultural degeneration could be due to a combination of factors in which technology might play some part.
Let me explain. I said technology can be a tool to create works of great cultural value, but only if the creators are themselves steeped and well-versed in the knowledge and skill that is required of them. I am afraid that in the days of generative AI, where anybody with no knowledge of the field or skill sets whatsoever, can go about creating content, we are sure to end up with poor, even substandard content. Great for social media posts maybe, but little else. Therefore, technology can have a negative impact as well, depending on how it is used and by whom.
There is also the commercialisation aspect to consider. Cultural works are not considered of great value, if they don’t also command a great commercial value, or price. This can have such a dreadful impact on intellectual and artistic work, as to help mediocrity mushroom all over the cultural landscape. Again, I bring a technological and commercial angle to this argument. In the old days, good publishing houses prided themselves on having the most erudite and skillful of editors who would also commission works from certain well-regarded authors. These days, writers go chasing publishing houses or literary agents and even worse, can get their works self-published or published as an e-book, etc.
When culture becomes an industry, there is every reason to be concerned. There is no artistic or skill benchmark or standard to be applied anymore and anything goes. When I read the works of people like André Gide, who along with close friends such as Roger Martin du Gard, Gaston Gallimard (of Gallimard publisher fame) and others set up the Nouvelle Revue Francaise in 1909 in Paris, it worked as a hallmark of great artistic and literary accomplishment for thousands of writers who would want to get their works approved by the Nouvelle Revue and published. Now, when I read even good literary publications such as the New York Review of Books, The Paris Review, The London Review of Books and The New Yorker, I find the content to be terribly disappointing, most of the time.
It is the same dreadful situation in cinema. Thanks to the outsized influence of Hollywood on all the cinema-going world, we have narrowed our idea of what constitutes good cinema in the first place. Not realising that Hollywood, like all American institutions, only appreciates content that works at the Box-Office and gets the cash registers ringing, and that it produces nothing other than commercial cinema. Only the slightly better fare amongst what is unabashedly commercial cinema wins Academy Awards, and I suppose we ought to be glad for it.
Ditto for the art world that is now also serious investment, from what little I have been reading. In the old days, most painters lived, worked and died in penury, and I am not being facile when I say that much of their greatness was also owed to this. We visit museums to understand, admire, and think about their creations which are truly immortal. Nowadays, painters sell their works of art for big money, put on exhibitions and shows around the world and are feted in art capitals of the world. Nobody ought to grudge them this, but there ought to be a high mark that has to be met. There is no well-defined art period or movement after the post-modern, which was over a century ago. Just think about it.
One can go on, with such examples. I am not one who believes that ancient wisdom is the last word on everything, nor am I a follower of ancientism or classicism. What I am arguing for is the restoration and perpetuation of culture in the true and classical sense of the term. Without it, we shall be doomed to a life adrift in a morass of low cultural and moral values, low standards of human creative expression and endeavour, and terribly directionless and lost in the world of ideas and everything else that is life-sustaining. As an advertising professional and a writer, I live in the world of higher, true culture as well as popular culture, since my trade requires this of us, if we are to create meaningful communication for consumers. That is why I sense the lack of appreciation for culture in this century, particularly. If you ask me, we are already catering to the lowest common denominator.
Whose responsibility is it, to restore culture to its rightful place? In the old days cultural endeavour was encouraged and commissioned by kings and queens, by the royal court, without whose patronage no artistic or cultural activity would have been possible. Aristocratic families as well as wealthy bankers and merchants came next. Italy and the world wouldn’t have had the Renaissance if it wasn’t for the Medicis. In the contemporary world, this responsibility has, rightly, shifted to governments the world over. They hold the highest and ultimate responsibility for the preservation and promotion of culture, and are also accompanied by generous corporations who donate and support a wide variety of artistic and cultural activity of the highest standards. The latter might usually come out of CSR budgets in many countries, but in many others, companies actually integrate it with their corporate brand-building and in still others there are wealthy companies and their foundations that provide grants for higher level cultural studies as also donations to museums, such as Guggenheim. Rolex of Switzerland, for example, has been doing such a fine job of promoting western classical music and supporting The Vienna Philharmonic consistently for several decades. In India, ITC has been doing fabulous work of promoting the study and appreciation of Hindustani Classical Music through their ITC Sangeet Research Academy in Kolkata for decades, a fact that is little-known and the company ought to market this initiative better.
There are prestigious awards as well in the cultural and artistic field that help preserve, promote and inspire generations of talent. However, I have noticed that in recent years, many awards have been lowering their standards as well and it seems to be part of the general cultural degeneration that is taking place across society. The Nobel Prize is no exception, sad to say. As an avid and voracious reader, I can say that the Nobel Prize for Literature has surely suffered a terrible fall in standards; writers without a vast body of work, that can also seriously claim to be a study in, or of something in particular, without making significant contributions to literature and other related disciplines, are being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.
At any rate, what is obvious is that it is the world’s elites who are expected to protect and preserve culture and maintain the highest standards. Then, why is it that it is the elites themselves who are going around lowering the level of public discourse, interfering in awards in order to widen their appeal, stooping to low and base instincts even in the artistic and cultural world, and the like? Is it because the ruling and privileged elites nowadays lack the knowledge and cultural nous to be true arbiters of higher culture and good judges of it? Or is it because elites these days are under attack and under so much pressure from lower classes of disenchanted and disillusioned citizens everywhere, that to be dwelling on matters of art and culture is seen as a waste of time? The political far-right that is on the rise in so many countries around the world wouldn’t want any part in an endeavour that is seen as elitist, international, humanist and appeals to the better part of ourselves, since it represents everything that is the opposite of what they stand for.
Having recently read all six volumes of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon – e-book downloads from Project Gutenberg, so one isn’t sure if these are the genuine article – one realises the damage that hubris can bring even to great empires and their emperors. It is tempting to use this analogy to describe what is happening in the cultural sphere today that seems to be under attack from the Barbarians, but this would be too crude a metaphor.
I am not sure if these are the only reasons for the general apathy and lack of interest in, and appreciation of, the finer ideals of life. From my own experience, I have had part of the same elite – a few self-important and pompous corporate bosses – wreck my professional career and then proceed to hijack it, along with all of my personal possessions such as my collection of books and music and do the same with even my father’s and grandfather’s books. Idiots who go around getting nonsense written and published, and then lobby and pull strings with the Nobel Prize Committee – no less – to award the author of one of these stupid books that I made the mistake of buying decades ago in Delhi, the Nobel Prize for Literature. I am talking of Alice Munroe who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2015. So-called elites who interfere in music, movies and of course, the news. People who have ruined publications such as The Economist, The New Yorker and so many others that I have mentioned earlier in this article.
These are not elites in my reckoning. They are not people with an understanding or appreciation of culture in the real sense. In my book, they are as terrible as the Taliban who destroyed the Bamiyan statues of the Buddha in Afghanistan. They are simply the high and mighty with low-brow tastes and lowly instincts who indulge in cultural vandalism. Even the Everyman’s Library Edition from Alfred Knopf, of War and Peace that I am reading, isn’t free from these unprofessional PR agency idiots’ and their cronies’ mischief, as will be evident when I write about the book on my blog.
Peripatetic Perch 