Discuss the nature of the relationship between Essay Example

Discuss the nature of the relationship between Essay Example Discuss the nature of the relationship between Essay Discuss the nature of the relationship between Essay Discuss the nature of the relationship between cultural policy and national individuality. Introduction Culture is the whole of the manner of life of a given society and includes the thoughts and wonts which they learn and which are transmitted from one coevals to another ( Linton, 1945 ) . Human behavior is based on guidelines that are shared by a group and in order for that group/society to work efficaciously the guidelines must use to all its members. Thus civilization is learned and shared and without it members of a society would be unable to pass on efficaciously and pandemonium would ensue. Cultural policy relates to the cultural capital of a state, its humanistic disciplines and memorials etc. Since the Conservative Government came to power in the late 19 1970ss Britain has had a continually shifting cultural policy. Some observers argued in the early 19990s that the elitist intensions associated with cultural policy were going less apparent in Britain. The coming of New Labour and their statute law sing cultural policy, nevertheless, may look to be a return to elitist cultural policy. The construct of individuality is highly of import in sociological thought. In Britain, for illustration, societal category was frequently seen as cardinal to a person’s thought of who they were and Bordieu’s work on cultural capital tends to back up this position. Constructions of individuality are besides closely linked to civilization and people’s individualities are reflected in the civilizations and sub-cultures to which they belong. Therefore Willis’ ( 1967 in Haralambos and Holborn, 2000 ) work put forth the position that working category young person had developed their ain sub-cultures with the instruction system. Modern theories of civilization tend to back up the position that individuality and civilization are really closely linked. British people would, for illustration, tend to hold a really clear sense of what it might intend to be British. Post-modernist minds have criticised this position because they argue that the multi-cultural nature o f modern-day Britain indicate that the ways in which people express their Britishness are rather diverse. Frosh ( 1999 ) maintains that although individuality draws on civilization there are besides a figure of other factors at work in individuality formation. Recent sociological and psychological theory has stressed that a person’s individuality is in fact something multiple and potentially unstable, constructed through experience and linguistically coded. In developing their individualities people draw upon culturally available resources in their immediate societal webs and in society as a whole. The procedure of individuality building is hence one upon which the contradictions and temperaments of the environing socio-cultural environment have a profound impact( Frosh, 1999:413 ) . This paper will look into the alterations in cultural policy in Britain. It will get down with theories of civilization and recent cultural policy. It will so look at positions on national individuality and discourse the relationship between cultural policy and national individuality. Theories of civilization British cultural policy has its roots in the 19th century when the businessperson elite were deriving power and there was general concern over turning unrest among the working categories. It was at this clip that a big organic structure of work grew up to set up the nature of civilization and what was culturally acceptable and what was non. A shared civilization and a shared belief system are necessary if a society is traveling to run swimmingly, it has power over the picks of persons and operates to restrain their behavior ( Durkheim, 1961 foremost published 1912 cited in Haralambos and Holborn, 2000 ) . Durkheim believed that societies were possessed of a corporate scruples which connected consecutive coevalss together and those who do non conform are punished by society. The rapid alterations that take topographic point in industrial societies place them under menace and a shared civilization needs to be reinforced in order to back up society. Parsons ( 1955 ) maintained that civi lization was passed on to consecutive coevalss through the socialization procedure. Culture can alter but most people in a given civilization must portion most of its values or that society will fall in. Contemporary civilizations are, nevertheless, really different and it may non be the instance that people feel the demand for a shared civilization, or that society would fall apart without it. Marx’s work concentrated on category stratification and he argued that in category stratified societies civilization was, in fact, a contemplation of the political orientation of the opinion categories. Culture is shaped by category to such an extent that governing category political orientation becomes the dominant political orientation ( Abercrombie et al, 1983 ) . Marx, and his co-worker Engels, believed that finally the civilization of society would alter through the development of consciousness by the on the job category who would come to see the falsity of the dominant political orientation. Marx’s statement has been extremely influential in theories of civilization but Numberss of minds have pointed to its failings. Storey ( 1993 cited in Haralambos and Holborn, 2000 ) has argued that the alterations that came with the Industrial Revolution led to concerns that better facets of civilization were being undermined. The outgrowth of other categories was a beginning of concern because the industrial working category was able to develop: †¦an independent civilization at some remove from the direct intercession of the dominant categories. Industrialization and urbanization had redrawn the cultural boundaries. No longer was there a shared common civilization, with an extra civilization of the powerful. Now for the first clip in history there was a separate civilization of the subsidiary categories of the urban and industrial Centres( Storey, 1993:20-21 ) . Matthew Arnold ( 1822-1888 ) maintained that civilization was the survey of flawlessness but in 19th century England people were going excessively mercenary and excessively interested in the new machinery and the production of goods. He was concerned about the fact that civilization was going confused with material wealth. Peoples would develop their humanity through the acquisition of cognition and reading literature and poesy in this manner people could develop society. Arnold maintained that the key to going cultured was larning to read and reading the right sort of stuff. The turning ‘popular’ civilization and reading stuff of the urban working category was non cultured and Arnold saw them as a unsafe group, therefore he warned that there was a, †¦organic structure of work forces, all over the country†¦beginning to asseverate and set in pattern an Englishman’s right to make what he likes ; his right to process where he likes, run into where he likes, enter where he likes, hoot as he likes, threaten as he likes, knock as he likes( Arnold, 1960:76 foremost published in 1869 ) . The working categories needed educating in order to go civilized and to be a constructive instead than a destructive force in society. Story ( 1993 ) has argued that Arnold’s concern was less with civilization and more about maintaining people in their topographic point and keeping order. Arnold had an elietist position of civilization which has been progressively challenged in recent old ages. Thompson ( 1963 cited in Haralambos and Holborn, 2000 ) has argued that during the industrial revolution working category civilization was non destructive but originative and as worthy of note as the civilization of the higher elect categories. More late the accent has been on what has come to be known as mass civilization. Theories of mass civilization developed in America in the work of theoreticians such as Macdonald ( 1957 ) . Macdonald saw aggregate civilization as a menace to high civilization and capable of making a totalitarian society. The thought that aggregate civilization was harmful has been attacked by Shils ( 1978 ) he did non see mass civilization as peculiarly worthy of note but thought it preferred to the harsh being that the working category had antecedently experienced. Contemporary theoreticians of civilization criticise the impression that one signifier of civilization is superior to another. Strinati ( 1995 ) maintains that what was one time seen as aggregate civilization may, over clip, come to be seen as serious art. Mass civilization, he argues, gives people a pick with respect to art, music, and books and this undermines the power of intellectuals over what constitutes good gustatory sensation. St rinati is of the sentiment that unfavorable judgments of aggregate civilization consequences from intellectuals trying to support their cultural power. Hall ( 1995 ) argues that the different signifiers of civilization in a society have their ain ways of sorting the universe. All of the ways in which a civilization is communicated contain facets of that universe position and events can be given different significances, therefore he maintains: In order for one significance to be on a regular basis produced, it had to win a sort of†¦taken –for-grantedness for itself. That involved marginalizing, downgrading or delegitimating alternate buildings. Indeed there were certain sorts of account which, given the power of credibleness acquired by the preferable scope of significances, were literally unthinkable or unsayable( Hall, 1995:355 ) . State States, Nationalism and British Identity Anderson ( 1983 ) says that a state is an imagined political community, imagined as both inherently limited and at the same clip crowned head. It is imagined because although its members may experience that they belong to the same community yet they may neer run into. The state is limited because some are seen as belonging to it while others are excluded, and it is autonomous because it seeks to observe self-determination for a peculiar group of people. Nationalism is an bridal of the cultural heritage and patterns of a peculiar state province. Smith ( 1986 ) maintains that state provinces are characterised by mass instruction, by economic integrating and legal rights and responsibilities for all members of that province. Hall ( 1992 ) argues that the state province and patriotism are creative activities of capitalist economy. In recent times nevertheless, capitalist economy has generated forces which have served to sabotage the sovereignity of the state province and of patriotism. He regards efforts to advance patriotism in the modern universe as unsafe because most state provinces are culturally, ethnically and sacredly assorted and when groups attempt to advance peculiar involvements within a state province force and struggle can ensue. Hall maintains that these forces result in people holding a baffled sense of national individuality the ethnically diverse nature of Britain for case agencies that many people have a figure of different individualities because they see themselves as members of different groups. Cohen ( 1994 ) demonstrates the force of Hall’s statement when he argues that presents there is no clear cut thought of what it means to be British. British individuality is blurred in a figure of ways. Cohen investigates the complex and altering nature of British individuality as it has been affected by a figure of factors. Societies across the Earth have been influenced by colonialism and deconolisation, by migration, travel and by political alteration. Colley ( 1996 ) maintains that ‘Britishness’ is an innovation of elitist provinces to antagonize the dissentious consequences of capitalist economy and industrialization and that the thought of British nationalism was invented in the 18th century. However, Langlands ( 1999 ) inquiries Colley’s position of Britishness as merely an innovation, she maintains that Britishness is more complex than Colley would hold us believe. Smith ( 1986a ) maintains that states are ethno-symbolic communities made up of share d history and district and shared myths of beginnings. Smith’s work implies that ‘Britishness’ therefore operates on both a cultural and political degree. While many modern provinces are poly-ethnic, but based around a dominant cultural nucleus that produced its name and cultural charter. Smith ( 1991 ) says that it isreally frequently on the footing of such a nucleus that states coalesce to organize states( Smith, 1991:39 ) . Therefore, historically, modern state provinces are the consequence of a province elect edifice on these nucleus foundations. Smith claims that in Britain, by the 15th century, there was a reasonably homogeneous cultural, blue sense of Britishness. The British state province, hence, is basically English with elements taken from Wales and Scotland. On the footing of this, Langlands ( 1999 ) maintains that provinces with a stable dominant cultural nucleus are less likely to be susceptible to the effects of cultural struggle originating from j obs between the province and multiple ethnicities. Langlands maintains that: As it is true of all national individualities, the significances and salience attached to Englishness are unstable and have varied well ; it has at some times drawn upon Celtic beginnings ; and at other times it has been conflated with Britishness ( the myth of our island race for case )( Langlands, 1999:60 ) . Cultural Policy and National Identity British Cultural policy remained based on the elitist positions of the 19th century until good into the 20th century and re-emerged after the Second World War as portion of the public assistance province. In 1947 the Arts Council was established in an effort to convey art to as many people as possible. Ballet, Opera and the theater were given much promotion as theoretical accounts of British cultural life. As the National Heritage site maintains, cultural heritage is of great importance. It is besides important to the building of individualities and to societal behavior ( Turnpenny, 2004 ) . The policies which promoted what has been termed ‘high’ civilization remained stable until the late 19 1960ss and 1970ss. During the 1950s leftist policies were pursued which resulted in cultural stableness. By the 1970s the state of affairs was less stable and the far left began to deride it as all cultural values were regarded as reflecting the involvements of white in-between cate gory males. It was necessary to make away with value opinions so that civilization would accommodate the demands of everyone. In the 19 1880ss ‘high’ civilization was once more undermined by the market rules of Margaret Thatcher’s Government. Art had to warrant its continued being on the footing of its marketability. In 1986 the cultural policy advisers to the Greater London Council wrote: In an age when we know longer expect to happen a individual all- embracing truth, the best schemes for endurance frequently involve making option, sole kingdom, which reject dominant manners( Mulgan and Worpole, 1986:32 ) When New Labour came to power in the 1990s it took over elements of the left and the right in an effort to advance a more diverse and inclusive position of civilization and cultural heritage. Pearce ( 2000 ) contends that: Cultural heritage is something that can be inherited, which enables the heirs to come in into their rightful provinces and be their true egos( Pearce, 2000:59 ) . This heritage is expressed in a figure of different ways some of which are stuff and some symbolic. Thus a cultural heritage consists of artifacts, patterns, objects and cultural infinites which persons recognise as portion of their cultural heritage. Among the symbolic facets are unwritten tradition, the acting humanistic disciplines, and societal patterns. Therefore cultural heritage can associate to all facets of life ( Turnpenny, 2004 ) . Current cultural policy dressed ores on the material facets of heritage such as edifices or memorials. This means that heritage is really tightly defined within an academic context and denies wider cultural reading ( Turnpenny, ibid ) . So although current cultural policy provinces an purpose of inclusivity its actions with respect to cultural heritage and this can take to people going alienated from their cultural heritage. Pearce ( 2000 ) argues that these physical facets of heritage are associated with certain values and emotions, without thi s association the material civilization would lose its value. Cultural sites, topographic points and artifacts can, hence be considered to be physical representations of perceptual experiences of ego, community, and belonging, and their associated cultural values( Smith and Vandermeer, 2001:51 ) Social patterns have been omitted from Government statute law on cultural heritage yet these are frequently related to peculiar societal groups and are an look of traditional societal values. These patterns are a beginning of group individuality and have historical, traditional, and cultural significance and should hence be considered as portion of our cultural heritage ( Jones, 1996 ) . Turnpenny ( 2004 ) argues that the current manner in which the province legislates with respect to cultural heritage is oppressive as it does non take into history community values and the communities’ perceptual experiences of their cultural heritage and it therefore contributes to societal exclusion. Current cultural policy, in its disregard of the intangible, offprints fact from value. In making so it imposes a signifier of national individuality that does non truly reflect the individuality of community groups in Britain. Turnpenny maintains that cultural policy, in its disregard of the wi der cultural heritage that is espoused by communities, consequences in communities non being able to associate to Government definitions of cultural heritage ( which is why less people visit museums now ) and this leads to tie in jobs of disempowerment and exclusion. Decision This paper has looked at cultural policy and its relationship to national individuality. It is arguably the instance that current Government cultural policy has reverberations of 19th century elitism in another signifier. Buildings and artifacts are regarded as portion of British cultural heritage and are hence to be espoused. The broad cultural heritage of communities, e.g. the pattern of good dressing, balefire dark, Dwali etc are neglected because they are regarded as the civilization of the multitudes. 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