Right, my point goes more along what patchworkmind wrote below.
* If we grant the "PC crowd" the status of elites, because of their occupation - so we treat the word descripively - then there is no way, why we should not call them also "cultural", also treating the word descriptively. * If we treat the word "culture" in an evaluative way, than first we must give the scale for evaluation. You propose two: artistic excellence (which can be operationalised and measured and let's not discuss the problems of meausurment right now); or retlation to the - predominantly Christian in the case of Europe - heritage. In such case, the PC people, because of their shallowness of mind, either "natural" or, for PC reasons, self-induced, fail to score. Therefore should be denied the name of "elites".
Granting them the status of elites, but denying the status of being "cultural", as you did, seems to me a deliberate confusion of the terms, for the sake of persuasive argument. Very nicely written argument, BTW.
Which doesn't change the fact that we agree on the more basic level: that the great artist is usually well versed in his/her heritage, even - or sometimes more so - if appears to battle it. Also, the great artist/philosopher/etc will not necessary be a "part of the cultural crowd". Only in such case the additional clarification of "our" or "European" would be necessary; otherwise we might end denying the status of greatness to a (hypothethical) case of person, who achieved very high level of excellence, but did not operate within (Judeo)-Christian framework. If we had such case, we'd need to decide that such person is a "foreign intrusion" - and despite his/her objective/claimed ethnicity is not an European. Or we'd have to agree that European culture changes.
I took a Buddhist as an example. If the European Buddhists produce great artists, we'll see (or possibly it will be to our grandchildren to look back and decide). And I meant real Buddhists, not the "elite" ones, who are no more Buddhists than they are self-proclaimed Catholics/Mormons/Anglicans/Atheists/Insert-whatever, but fail to adhere even to the most basic principles of their faith/philosophy.
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Re: Continued...
Date: 2006-04-22 08:47 am (UTC)* If we grant the "PC crowd" the status of elites, because of their occupation - so we treat the word descripively - then there is no way, why we should not call them also "cultural", also treating the word descriptively.
* If we treat the word "culture" in an evaluative way, than first we must give the scale for evaluation. You propose two: artistic excellence (which can be operationalised and measured and let's not discuss the problems of meausurment right now); or retlation to the - predominantly Christian in the case of Europe - heritage. In such case, the PC people, because of their shallowness of mind, either "natural" or, for PC reasons, self-induced, fail to score.
Therefore should be denied the name of "elites".
Granting them the status of elites, but denying the status of being "cultural", as you did, seems to me a deliberate confusion of the terms, for the sake of persuasive argument. Very nicely written argument, BTW.
Which doesn't change the fact that we agree on the more basic level: that the great artist is usually well versed in his/her heritage, even - or sometimes more so - if appears to battle it. Also, the great artist/philosopher/etc will not necessary be a "part of the cultural crowd".
Only in such case the additional clarification of "our" or "European" would be necessary; otherwise we might end denying the status of greatness to a (hypothethical) case of person, who achieved very high level of excellence, but did not operate within (Judeo)-Christian framework. If we had such case, we'd need to decide that such person is a "foreign intrusion" - and despite his/her objective/claimed ethnicity is not an European. Or we'd have to agree that European culture changes.
I took a Buddhist as an example. If the European Buddhists produce great artists, we'll see (or possibly it will be to our grandchildren to look back and decide). And I meant real Buddhists, not the "elite" ones, who are no more Buddhists than they are self-proclaimed Catholics/Mormons/Anglicans/Atheists/Insert-whatever, but fail to adhere even to the most basic principles of their faith/philosophy.