Now, Practically Everybody Is A Customer
“In the last two centuries, our traditional culture has been under increasing pressure from mass culture, a conflict which has reached its greatest intensity in this country. The market for cultural products has steadily broadened until by now practically everybody is a customer. This is something new in history and it has had novel effects. As the masses have become more and more educated, prosperous and politically influential, the cultural question has moved into the foreground. Up to about 1750, art and thought were pretty much the exclusive province of an educated minority. Now that the masses-that is, everybody-are getting into the act and making the scene, the problem of vulgarization has become acute. I see only two logical solutions: (a) an attempt to integrate the masses into high culture; or (b) a contrary attempt to define two cultures, one for the masses and the other for the classes. I am for the latter.” - Dwight Macdonald, Against the American Grain.
In some ways, I concur with Macdonald especially in his observation on vulgarity. However, he takes no steps to unpack “our” and “traditional”. When I hear social philosophers making grand sweeping statements like these, I get a bit nervous as historically, “our” has seldom included “me”, if “me” happens to be black or some other non-white category.
