I'm not going to debate every point, as we will quickly find ourselves talking past, or over, one another. However, I'll just toss out a few quick things, and hope IE does not attack me again.

Luckily, it didn't. Did you experience the 20 minute logout bit that goes on at this site? If so, might want to do what I do and log into chat and just idle.

You say we speak of different definitions, and then toss a few examples, such as people shying away from AIDS infected persons, blacks, gays. Popular culture is not something that is difficult to define. It refers to things which are popularly accepted by a nation ,though one could make the argument for races, religions, etc.; here we speak of the US, so we will use the term nation. By popularly, I mean the majority of people accept it, or do it, or participate in it. I am sure you would not dispute this. Next, we must look at the nature of Chomsky's statement:

I gave those extreme examples as just a way to catch attention. The problem with defining "popular culture" is what you include and what you don't. I was trained as a cultural historian, and for us "popular culture" included those things that made the majority of a populace different from their elitist overlords. They included certain attitudes, customs, traditions, ways of speaking a language, paralanguage, rituals, etc. Many of these elements extend back to half-forgotten beliefs on how the world should run. So when I say "popular culture", I'm referring to something grounded in a historical past and deals with how people relate to the world around them. I don't separate the State from the Popular beliefs here as it deals with the United States, because many of the laws and political actions are based on popular beliefs/attitudes, unlike many of the other governments in the world, past and present. So when a State's law or action might fall within expectations of popular demand and may be based on those attitudes of the populace, then it has to be included.

"The US, in fact, is one of the most fundamentalist cultures in the world; not in the state, but in the popular culture."

My basic problem with your examples, is that they do not really address this statement, and the distinction he draws between the state and popular culture. The state discrimination example, or the divorce one, are examples of state fundamentalism, if they exist.

Let's look at this from another vantage point. You can have actions and beliefs based solely on those in power. That would be State or Elite fundamentalism separate from that of the people. But when you have a government whose policies reflect the attitudes of the populace, then it would by all logic be practically the same as the prevailing popular culture. It's not just what the State passes, but how the people accept these actions. In the case of the majority of American legal traditions, the people accept these with little question, in part because they correlate so well with their attitudes about whom is most fit to do what.

The "shying away" from a person with AIDS is certainly not a part of the popular "culture"; it occurs due to ignorance, when it occurs at all. Would you make the argument that most people shy away from a person who speaks a different language or is black?

Cannot ignorance be part of a popular belief? Have you ever tried to avoid stepping on a crack, walking under a ladder, etc. because of some "silly" belief? And yes, yes I would make that argument for the examples you made because of beliefs that people have held (wrongly, I believe, but still they were held and some still hold them) that contact with those who are different is akin to being with someone "unclean" or "inferior." Ever wonder why there are often difficulties in interracial or cross-cultural marriages? There's more than love between two people involved there, unfortunately. What's the source of it? Prejudice? Probably. Where is the source of that prejudice? Beliefs passed down from others to the individuals involved. And what of those beliefs? Have some of those arisen from interpretations of religious texts that we might disagree with vehemently today? Mayhap. So if you look further into it, there is grounds to discuss a deep-rooted religious belief of what is and what is not fundamentally right and wrong in the popular culture of Americans, based on the definition of popular culture that I gave above.

You have run quite far from the statement, and, I think, given too much leeway to the term "popular culture".

I'm a historian - we define popular culture differently than Anthropologists or Sociologists do. Just ask Alana sometime

Maybe not so quick, but I did restrain my fingers somewhat.

Good for you.


Dylanfanatic

Illusions fall like the husk of a fruit, one after another, and the fruit is experience. - Narrator, Sylvie

OF Blog of the Fallen