Product Description

What do we mean by 'culture'? This word, purloined by journalists to denote every kind of collective habit, lies at the centre of contemporary debates about the past and future of society. In this thought-provoking book, Roger Scruton argues for the religious origin of culture in all its forms, and mounts a defence of the 'high culture' of our civilization against its radical and 'deconstructionist' critics. He offers a theory of pop culture, a panegyric to Baudelaire, a few reasons why Wagner is just as great as his critics fear him to be, and a raspberry to Cool Britannia. This book is a must for all people who are fed up to their tightly clenched front teeth with Derrida, Foucault, Oasis and Richard Rogers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #61031 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 173 pages

About the Author
Roger Scruton is a philosopher and writer. Formerly Professor of Aesthetics at Birkbeck College, London and Visiting Professor at Boston College, USA. He now lives as a freelance writer in Wiltshire. He has published The West and the Rest, News from Somewhere and Gentle Regrets with Continuum.

Customer Reviews

A defence of the high culture
The author starts by giving a definition of the concept of culture and states his intention to pursue an "archaeological" method in studying his subject. He then discusses the difference between cult and culture in which he sees religion as the guarantee of social knowledge and asserts that there can be no scientific culture because culture addresses the question of what we feel. Mr Scruton then proceeds by defining the Romantic movement in art and literature and linking it to the decline of Christian faith and the Enlightenment, the aesthetic thus replacing the religious. And so art and literature ceased to be recreation and became studies. Since the aesthetic is the realm of value, the question of taste arises. He underlines the importance of fiction in high culture because it is the product of the imagination. Art being the product of the human spirit, it is higher than nature and apart from it.
Mr Scruton then concentrates on Romanticism which had nature, erotic love and the world before Enlightenment as its dominant themes. Works of art also pose the question of the importance of fantasy and imagination. Modernism is also discussed with the example of Baudelaire, then avant-garde and the concept of kitsch in which advertising is important because it creates a fantasy in which value can be purchased so that price and value are one and the same.
The author then discusses the issue that the relationship between a painting or a novel and its subject is an intentional one, not a material one as opposed to photography.
A further topic is modern music in which it is not the music that is the focus of attention but the singer himself. In the music of youth, the music is at the service of the performer and not the other way round.
Finally the author concludes that culture is rooted in religion and that the role of modern high culture is to perpetrate the common culture not as a religion but as art.
An interesting study of modern values and of the importance of aesthetic principles which shows that "culture" does not merely denote every kind of collective habit.

A sad, but true reflection of the society we live in
This book tells it like it is, although perhaps a bit too nostalgic in parts. It is however a fair and accurate analysis of the society we live in. It probes deep into the problems of modern society, and addresses fundamental issues that are often overlooked by both the media and policy makers.

I found the section on youth culture particularly interesting since it offers a partial explaination as to why the youth of today lack direction and act as they do.

However, I do feel that the book will not appeal to the masses, which is a shame really.

An amawingly accurate analysis -- spot-on!
This book is a wonderful clarion call to common sense that, all of a sudden, helps trends and modern nonsense fall into perspective! I cannot recommend it too highly. It is written in a style that is easily accessible to all and manages to put the finger on what is really happening in our culture at the moment.