By definition, culture is a disctinctive group of people that share common meanings about affective and cognitive responses (feelings, attitudes, beliefs), behaviors (customs, rituals behavior norms), and the environment (living conditiongs, geographic locations, important objects). It also provides people with a sense of identity and an understanding of acceptable and desirable behavior within society. Culture, although valuable, changes over time.
Our preoccupation with celebrity is evidence that celebrity culture is a function of human culture.
Celebrity culture has a set of social functions that human culture clings to strongly. As Dr. Bob pointed out in class, the social functions of celebrity culture are as follows...
1. to celebrate the idea of consumption itself
2. to distract us from paying attention to more important issues, particularly economic ones and the power of the ruling class
The social functions of celebrity culture, therefore, are heavily aligned with the views of Marx. Marx strongly believed that economics determined what happens in the cultural sphere (news and entertainment), and the social functions of celebrity further argue that point.
One cannot flip through the pages of a magazine without reading stories about "What stars are buying" or "Who stars are dating". Media numbs human culture with its stories related to consumption, or by distracting us from the bigger issues (ie: power of the ruling class).
Marx makes a good case, but I can't help but play Devil's advocate here: Is it the cultural sphere that, in fact influences the economic domain instead?
I think the question you're posing is very similar to the chicken-and-the-egg scenario. Does culture influence economics or does economics influence culture?
ReplyDeleteI strongly believe that both are occuring at the same time. Consider the example we discussed in class about Vampire novels/TV shows/movies. While you might think that our obsession with Vampires has influenced media production companies to jump on the bandwagon, but what created this obsession in the first place? Twilight didn't become massively popular until the fourth book in the series came out and there was talk of a movie. It is hard to pinpoint the exact beginnings, but an idea sparked production which created consumption which created an obsession which created mass production which created even more consumption, and so on.
Consumption and culture really go hand in hand, and whether Marx's idea of distracting the proletariat is intentional or not, it certainly exists. And we, as consumers, perpetuate it.
The sociologist Max Weber, writing about 20 years after Marx, agreed that the economic structure of a society was crucial to understanding other aspects of social development. But he also felt, like the two of you, that there was probably a mutual influence of culture and economics. The causal direction was both ways. People are still arguing about this and putting forth examples on both sides!
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