“The countercultures obliterated the obsolete high/pop distinction.”
Isn’t this distinction still valuable?
For example, as a comparison between art and entertainment. The criterion can be the function, rather than a socio-economic class marker. Tentatively: high art is designed to elevate one morally and intellectually; entertainment (“low” or “pop”) is primarily a diversion or just experience of pleasure.
Of course, those categories can overlap and co-exist to varying degrees in the same work; nevertheless I believe they are critically important categories (in the Wittgenstein sense of “family resemblance” concepts, not definable with precise boundaries).
High/Pop
“The countercultures obliterated the obsolete high/pop distinction.”
Isn’t this distinction still valuable?
For example, as a comparison between art and entertainment. The criterion can be the function, rather than a socio-economic class marker. Tentatively: high art is designed to elevate one morally and intellectually; entertainment (“low” or “pop”) is primarily a diversion or just experience of pleasure.
Of course, those categories can overlap and co-exist to varying degrees in the same work; nevertheless I believe they are critically important categories (in the Wittgenstein sense of “family resemblance” concepts, not definable with precise boundaries).