Objective evaluations of cultural quality

I had always thought that cultural artifacts such as the products of artistic endeavor could only be evaluated objectively based on technical aspects, such as technical correctness, adherence to the formal rules of the relevant domain, effectiveness (in those cases where the artifact is intended to serve some purpose such as conveying an idea i.e. not merely for art's sake), and consistency within its cultural and/or academic context.

However does it not make more sense to objectively assess cultural objects on their cultural (as opposed to technical) value, and attempt to derive some metric for their "quality" in a cultural sense?

To list some examples, some seem to consider classical music culturally superior to gangster rap or Britney Spears, the opera to be culturally superior to a sitcom, an editorial in a newspaper of record superior to someones blog, a painting of the Old Masters to be superior to scatology or graffiti, and art house films to be superior to action films or someones YouTube upload.

We casually use the terms low brow and high brow as symbols identifying opposing end-points on some perceived single dimensional spectrum, are these terms legitimate in discussions of comparative culture? Do the differences try and say something about the class stratification in human society (tabloids vs broadsheets could also be seen to fundamentally differ in terms of cultural quality)?

What role does (post)modernism play in the way we objectively assess cultural quality? Have things turned around? Do "lowbrow" cultural artifacts in fact say more about whats relevant to us in the 21st century than what we term "highbrow"? Even if it does, what does "relevance" have to do with cultural quality?

Is it more or less appropriate to apply objective cultural evaluations to individuals rather than specific works or genres of works?

My biggest question is probably, do those who deal with culture actually have some formal process of objectively evaluating cultural quality, whether it be of an individual, work of art, or genre?

I tried to find some answers on the internet but didn't really come up with much, mostly sites talking about the "culture of quality" in a manufacturing sense, or the quality of someones cultural sensitivity and understanding for example when dealing with minorities as a health care provider.

The closest I came was when reading websites about objectivist philosophy, but they basically state A is better than B, and claim its due to A being more "life affirming" than B and therefore culturally superior, but I didn't find their arguments convincing.

I also found some lists stating that certain things are all culturally significant or of high cultural quality whereas other things are devoid of cultural quality or even culturally damaging! Lists are nice, but I would prefer to be able to perform the assessment myself, to be able to put my finger on a certain cultural artifact and determine whether its, basically, good or bad (or beneficial or damaging) on a cultural level.

Does anyone perhaps work in the area of culture or perhaps studied something like this and can point me to some academic papers that might describe formal methods for objectively evaluating cultural quality?

I believe this discussion is going to be too "high brow" for TT..

"..reality is neither the subject nor the object of true art which creates its own special reality having nothing to do with the average "reality" perceived by the communal eye."

Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire

KZA, try a book by John Berger called ways of seeing. It is mainly about the visual arts, but I think it is on the right lines.

there has been considerable psychological experimentation in this area broadly called 'preferences'. In one experiment, US students were exposed to melodies from Chinese opera (a genre they were completely unfamiliar with and with a structure alien to them). Individual melodies were played through headphones randomly with each melody being presented to students 1, 3, 9 or 27 times. After initial exposure the students were then presented with each melody only once as well as a number of melodies they had not heard in the initial presentation. They were asked to assess first whether they recognised the melody as something they had heard before and secondly on a scale of one to ten, whether they liked the melody.

The results showed that students were completely unable to identify which melodies that had heard. However, the 'preference' scores mapped perfectly on to the number of times they had been exposed to each melody: the melodies they had heard 27 were the favourites with the rest following sequentially down to the completely novel melodies which were generally hated.

The conclusion to this study was that preference was highly influenced by familiarity.

Taken a step on, low and high brow culture could be seen as a factor in what a person has been exposed to. A child brought up in a house with Miros, Klees and Picassos on the wall and Shostakovich or Arvo Part on the record player would probably grow up with a liking for more high brow fare than a kid with no pictures and only a tinny radio playing pop.

BINGO!

(That's a low brow working class social activity of course. )

Dunno if you have been following the debate on the radio ouput of Bayerische Rundfunk Kza but that has parallells with this issue.

no expert in this field, but would not think there's any easy solution. You can apply a 'cultural value' of, let's say 98 of 100 points today on an item of your choice, but will it still be considerded as valuable in 20 years? When you look at paintings, their value (both monetary and cultural) has changed massivley over time. People first laughed at van Gogh and now they adore him, expressionism and the like was termed degenerated art by the nazis (= low cultural value) and now draws huge crowds into museums and is considered of high cultural value. Same is true for african artifacts, even if they are of high cultural value in their place of origin, europeans considered them long time to be something 'barbaric' and by no means of high cultural value. So the list goes on and on. Even if you can come up with a checklist to give away cultural credit points to something, who will set the standards for the checklist?

Just a theory that I made up on the spot, so its probably crap, but here goes.

Cultural significance has more to do with longevity of popularity rather than the physical amount of popularity. The longer something remains in the public consciousness, the more likely it is to become a cultural icon and a sign of that particular time.

or something like that.

DerekB, so The Beatles aren't just the throwaway pop band they were in the 1960s?

What if Jordan stays in the public conciousness a long time?

Indeed, a perfect case. The beatles longevity has made them a cultural icon.

As for Jordan, terribly nice girl, took her out on a yacht once with her friends, but I fear she will never be a sign of her times.

Well the people who do claim that one thing is culturally superior to another must have some form of rationale or justification for doing so, even if the specific argument is in each case different there are hopefully some things in common that they look for and try to point out, even across different genres and cultures.

It seems almost self evident that MTV reality shows for example are inferior and perhaps even harmful in a cultural sense than say a fine art exhibition, and that animated ring tones featuring farting frogs are inferior in the same way to a recital of classic poetry, even once one manages to ignore issues such as familiarity, and personal taste, I just have trouble formulating a rational argument illustrating in a defensible way why.

There's an implicit presumption that Miro, Shostakovich et al are "high brow". Given the way that term is commonly defined, I think it's a safe presumption to make. However, implicit in the appelation is that it is, in some measurable way, better than anything "low brow". [pedantic aside: should high and low brow be hyphenated?] People tend to think that canonical art is somehow good for them, whereas anything popular is not. In many cases what people who aspire to erudition are doing is emulating the tastes of a wealthy elite class.

I like Derek's idea of the lasting impact makes things a cultural icon. I would also say how original it is in the first place and how much it influences other things is also a sign of its cultural significance.

Exactly Showem , kill Beyonce now.

Ooh, a highbrow thread on TT .

The first thought that came to my mind was that highbrow art (including music, literature etc) is more cerebral and complex, while lowbrow stuff is more visceral and spontaneous. Then again, that's just a gut feeling.


I guess that's like the experiment BTC described with the Chinese opera - people will at first reject an unfamiliar art form because they don't know how to appreciate its complexities.

I'm not really a culture vulture, but I always though that the art of Picasso and Klee was quite "accessable" and therefore had a broader popular appeal?

But with technology and access to musical "instruments" becoming easier, isn't SO much more music able to be produced ascompared to say in MOzarts day? So thatere is less chance of longetivity?

(High brow threads on TT are a refreshing change )

Culture is a parasite. It makes itself as attractive as it can to us in order to survive.

Hmm I think originality or innovation in culture is more of a technical evaluation, after all, at the time gangster rap was invented it was innovative, yet a lot of classical music being written at the time (ok I am assuming here, dont know enough about modern classical music) was in some way emulating the music of previous decades if not centuries. Yet the cultural contribution of gangster rap is debatable.

Another example would be some recent works of art, featuring virgin mary statues in condoms, and shit smeared on bed sheets, highly original and innovative, but arguably possessing a rather negative or minimal cultural value.

The level of influence is interesting, I am still thinking about that, but I can imagine scenarios where things of a fairly negative or minimal cultural value have a high degree of influence due to its mass appeal, whereas more sophisticated works of high cultural potential that due to their fringe exposure, (perhaps because they are perceived as "inaccessible" or too high brow) go practically ignored and therefore have no real level of influence.

Kza,

Perhaps you could argue that cultural longevity / superiority are based on stimulation of thought and or long lasting entertainment value.

I look at it like the difference between a joke and a novel. Both can make you laugh, but re-hearing a joke many times and re-reading a novel many times are dramatically different, ie the book has repeat value and stimulates the imagination.

I think these are more like comments on culture than part of culture itself. People will always be drawn to what they like to look at or what they like to hear. Controversial artworks i.e those which make people uncomfortable are unlikely to have any lasting cultural impact much in the same way that farting frogs are unlikely to influence the way we hear music. The exception being artworks which stimulate thought beyond the immediate impact.

Mass appeal is generally, but not always, short lived and therefore, Once again, longevity of cultural impact is the key.

Have any of you been to the Britart shows, now permanently housed at the Saatchi in London. On the face of it, works like Emin's Bed and Hirst's pickled cow are entirely transient and when they were created, they were dismissed as populist and empty. But they are still being exhibited now in a permanent exhibition. It will be interesting to see what happens to this collection in the next 20 to 50 years to see whether it retains iconic status and passes into the cannon or spirals down the drain of ephemera.

Good Point. With Emin's bed, I am not sure if that will be possible though, wasnt it destroyed in a warehouse fire. Let history decide.

BTC said the magic word before I did.

Deardful old ruling class Tory that wants shooting, but Saatchi has sponsored some great art, controversial yes, often dismissed yes, but a lot of it IS art.

Some of the "Sensations" show was just purile I found. Mannekins of children with their noses elongated into penises or given an adult womans breats said nothing to me. But the classic pictire of Myra Hindley made up of black, white and grey childrens handprints was one of the best things I have seen in all time.

Even though the image itself and the cultural baggage around it are social contructs from the media.
At first glance, from a distance all you say was the epitomy of what "we" were brought up to be "Evil", but the closer you got, the more complicated it all became.

Objective and Culture can only be bought together when assesing the influence something has had on society. In that sense i agree with DB that longevity is a valid criteria when comparing cultural impact and importance. Individuality is less of an important factor, just as being the first to do something is, though obviously they do contribute to an artifact making a deeper and longer lasting cultural impact; but are not, especialy in the current day and age, the prerequisites for cultural importance.

Kza, try a book called "Art in Modern Culture: An Anthology of Critical Texts"
You could also look for texts by Marshal McLuhan, when it comes to the mass-media.
These are just starting points. If you look for these at the library, I'm sure you will eventually find what you are looking for.

Rauschenberg and Pollock are still popular today.

Anyone know Mr. Piero Manzoni?

Artists shit in a can. high brow oder low?

I saw pictures of those cans on sale in Berlin.

Apparently the cans are starting to decompose. I think there are 91 originals.
Can we measure this...

One of the interesting points is indeed when a urinal or a pile of bricks are declared art.
There's often a pooh-poohing from some quarters becasue art is being if you like "re claimed" from the establishment. Whether those "radical" artists then go on to form the new establishment is another issue...

Remember the case last year when someone smuggled something into a posh gallery in London, let it hang there and everyone was convinced it was "art" for a day or so.

High brow and Low brow are archaic terms used by the culturaly defficient, and purely based on snobism, elitism and a pedantic and frightened understanding of "what one should like". Considering that it is niether. What it is though is a wonderful piece of provocation which plays with our emotional response of disgust and our natural inquisitive tendancy to know "is it really shit in that can?" The fact that we have ben told "it is art buy it and leave it alone" adds to the sense internal frustration. To know the truth is to destroy the very material worth of the artifact. Brilliant.

Yes I think they are all art, and technically innovative at that, and they serve their purposes well, perhaps they are even significant. I am however unsure of their cultural quality because I don't know enough about evaluating it fairly without letting my tastes and agendas pollute my judgment. Wish I did though, I want to concentrate on exposing myself to more higher quality culture and avoiding things with minimal or negative cultural quality. At the moment I have to rely on intuition for that but I have no reason to trust my intuition. At the moment I think certain things are better culturally that others but I don't know why.

Pierro Mansoni also did breath of the artist in a baloon.
Duchamp's Urinal( entitled "Fountain" I think ) was part of a series of what he called "Readymades" His idea was to break the rules of traditional art and encourage the person looking at the work to think and participate in what was to all intents and purposes an artistic joke which poked fun at the established artists of 1915ish?? much in the same way that damien hirsts, or david mach works do today. Also in the same way, the controvercy which the works generated were more responsible for the pieces continuing notoriety than the work itself. However notorious the readymades were, I wouldnt class them as being culturaly significant.

@gideon
I agree.

@Kza
I think maybe one way we can measure cultural significance/value/wankyness is on a "Shitinacanometer" using the R.MuttisDADAscale

Culture is a totally subjective concept which is why one can't define what's cultural for someone else. There's something very wrong about making a list of what's supposedly cultural for one person and applying it to another. It's really far too individual for that.

It sounds like you're still thing in the wrong context to be honest. High and low are not the right reasons for the judgemnet of any culturaly important object be it a piece of music, building, sculpture or painting. This class system of culture is something we are told to believe by those who have little understanding of art apart from its conspicuous value as a sign of social standing. Intuition should though be switched off when it comes to culture. "I know what I like and that isn't art" is dumb and stupid. Art was released of its represenational constraints centuries ago. It may be fun, provocative, scary even. It is how you subjectivly see it, and experience it that is most important thing. Just go out there and do it all. Only through personal experience can you form an ability to say why you find something good or bad. Sure, read up on the why, but dont take a critic or historian's viewpoint as being unbiased and right.

Agreed, but only because people in general feel insecure about culture or more specificly the visual arts, and feel there must somehow be a list of, the paintings to appreciate, the music to listen to and the books to read.
What can be said though is there are, through concenscous, cultural icons, whose importance can be justified in the advancement of their specific cultural areas.

Yer proppa kulcha can only be figured by Muggins on a muggins by muggins basis. This Muggins can give Mayoonik a kulcha rating (one is pants, and ten is the dog's bollocks) on what Muggins feels s'portant fer wot Muggins 'as 'an 'an'kerin' faw.

Sin's Kulcha Ratings fer Mayoonik:

1. Beer qually = 10

2. Beer price = 9

3. Boozers = 6

4. Birds = 8

5. Footie = 2 (3 teams; The Smallboys, The Underachievers and The Ponces)

6. Nosh = 7

7. Gigs = 3

8. Banta = 2

9. Lack of stuck up 'enrys an' 'enriettas = 1

10. Art (well we is tawkin' 'bout kulcha, afta all) = 7

11. Uvva Cockneys movin' in on Me Mana = 1

12. Marmite price = 1

*Sin is yer H'official Cockney Kulcheral Attachay ta Mayoonich, Erikland

Yer forgot places where yer can park the motor, guv.

Yer can park yer motor anywhere yer bleedin' like in some Manas and can't find an 'ole anywhere in uvvas right froo Mayoonik, sa its awl 'bjective, innit?