High culture poetry, or just noise?

I went to a poetry reading last January to see final project presentations for some people in a creative writing program. The creative writing arts intensive taught students to use digital media to alter or create poetry. Most people recorded themselves reading a poem, and then added sound to the poetry reading. One girl, however, altered her piece in such a way that many of the attendees had difficulty understanding her piece. She explained afterwards that her "poetry" was actually a comment on poetry itself. The self-referential nature of her final project parallels the field of art in high culture.

Here is how the audience experienced her presentation:
First, we heard sounds of people talking indistinctly. It sounded like the ambient noise one would hear in a crowded cafe. Then, there was a laugh that was quite loud and distinct. The audience laughed along; the laugh was so out of place that we found it funny. There were more indistinct noises, and then another laugh. The audience laughed again, but a little less this time. We were beginning to wonder what the piece was about. This pattern of indistinct noises and then laughter continued for almost ten minutes. People were already bored after three. Many of us kept waiting for something to happen but eventually realized that this was the entire piece. At the end, most of the audience was either confused or annoyed.

The girl explained afterwards that she had taken a poetry reading Jack Kerouac had done once when he visited Lowell dining hall. However, she had taken out Kerouac's voice and only left the background noises. To me, she had not created poetry, but removed it. The directors of the creative writing program however praised her piece for the questions it raised about the nature of poetry. In doing so, they acted as critics within the field of poetry who held opinions informed by an understanding of poetry's history and context. The directors, having high cultural capital, were able to understand the direction that the girl was going in, namely altering a poetry reading in order to comment on the nature of poetry as well. Too bad the rest of the audience, being outside the field, didn't understand her message. To the audience, her piece was merely noise.

This is what we heard...

This is what we were missing...

Primed for a career

Professor Nelson joked, during his lecture on bobos, that everyone attending Harvard is being primed to be a bobo, While it may make sense that most of us are being primed to be in the similar class when we graduate, we should also recognize that our class backgrounds and habitus may still put people in different positions after graduating. For example, my classmate whose father is a partner at Goldman Sachs will have a much different experience in the finance industry than I will have. He grew up being primed to go into investment banking, whereas I started out the job search without any inside knowledge or any personal connections that could help me land an internship.

These careers and the type of people who go into these careers are reproduced through habitus. Professor Nelson showed the class several pictures of celebrities who were essentially primed to go into showbiz. Angelina Jolie's father is Jon Vaught, an American actor who won one Academy Award, out of four nominations and three Golden Globe awards out of nine nomination. Taking after her father, Jolie has received one Academy Award and three Golden Globe awards as well.

I expect that many of the careers that my peers chose will be heavily influenced by what their parents did as well. Their choice might be a response to their parent's position, but it will still have been shaped by their parent's career choice.

The business card scene from American Psycho: how I imagine investment banking must be like at the top.

We Made This Movie: A Search For Authenticity

We Made This Movie--abbreviated as WMTM for the purposes of this post--is about a generation of kids who are desperate to make something but have nothing to say. Like hipsters who draw from the past to define their consumer choices, and people who take the same picture and add different captions to create a meme, our generation seems bounded by what already exists. Our nature is to create but we can't find anything creative to say, so we're re-purposing and recreating what already exists in a desperate effort to break into new ground. The way WMTM avoids this depressing reality is by creating a moment of true (creative) authenticity at the end when LeBron realizes that his movie is really about the personal stories of himself and his friends. Even though it by accident, his persistence allowed him to created a “break” in the culture industry (as used by critical theorists in the Frankfurt school). He (re)discovered what it means to create something of value. Value doesn't come from ripping off Jackass or Borat; value comes from saying something authentic about the condition of human existence. .

I still think this generation has something to say. Like LeBron in the earlier stages of the movie, we are simply still in the process of understanding what is worth saying. Perhaps a break will eventually surface, but in a way that requires a paradigm shift in our understanding of authentic creation. Sure, all these memes are the same thing, but perhaps we can mine from the captions some message that tells us something true about human existence, and that will be our new creative form.

So basically, WMTM is an allegory about finding authenticity, and I would say it succeeded.

Thrift Shop: a celebration of the lower class

"Thrift Shop", performed by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, defies the hegemony of the dominating class by giving status to codes of the lower class. "Thrift Shop" is a manifesto on the glories of bargain hunting, starting with the hook which describes the experience as "f--- awesome" and the bridge which describes the clothing as "incredible" (or at least making the wearer look incredible). and The song lyrics glorify characteristics of Holt's LCCs as outlined in Distinction in America.

[Hook]

I'm gonna pop some tags
Only got twenty dollars in my pocket
I - I - I'm hunting, looking for a come-up
This is fucking awesome

 [Bridge]

I wear your granddad's clothes
I look incredible
I'm in this big ass coat
From that thrift shop down the road

Many of the settings and objects in the video exemplify LCC taste. Holt found that LCCs want to have lots of space in the house and yard and desire luxury goods, whereas HCCs consider abundance and luxury crass. The materialist taste of LCCs manifests itself in the first major scene of the video, in which Macklemore is shown getting into what looks to be a luxury car in the driveway of a mansion. Macklemore's giant fur coat and the clothing he describes wearing in the club scene (leopard mink and gator shoes) is another example of LCC taste: the coat (despite its cost) is showy and ostentatious--a clear cry for attention.

The clothing that Macklemore re-claims for himself (from your "grammy, your aunty, your momma, your mammy") is a symbol of creating pseudo-identity using consumer goods. These clothes are hand-downs from other people. By combining these cast-offs Macklemore makes a new identity that looks cool but is not authentic. Contrast that, of course, with the aesthetic taste of HCCs, who value authenticity in their style.

Macklemore is just concerned with saving money, though, regardless of the style and even of the quality (buying a cheap coat even though it smells like piss). The lyrics emphasize how cool the clothes look despite their costs. This focus getting the most value out of your dollar is a value of LCC. Bargain hunting is an activity that people with lower cultural capital tend to value; it's an example of using utilitarian means to achieve ends.

Finally, the video and song challenge hegemony by glorifying an activity indicative of lower cultural class status. In "Thrift Shop", paying $50 for a Gucci t-shirt earns criticism from Macklemore, not praise. He calls out the owner as a "ignorant bitch" who is getting "tricked by business". Additionally, this lyric argues that the man with a expensive, brand-name shirt is just as victim to the culture industry and false consciousness as anyone else because the shirt is mass produced. Macklemore criticizes a man for wearing the same shirt as six other people. Neither person has achieved authenticity. Both reclaiming "unique" pieces and wearing mass-produced items fall under the culture industry. However, Macklemore challenges the value of authenticity, and the values of HCC in general. His pride in his LCC elevates the status of LCCs to that comparable to HCCs.

Side note: I have no idea what the woman in the video is supposed to represent in terms of class and culture, but her presence is hilarious.

Chelsea Handler: in which objects reveal class

Conan and Chelsea's exchange about cars in the above video reveal how financial and cultural capital create differences in tastes and consumption practices. Chelsea has high financial and cultural capital as a talk show host who is now a "super successful" celebrity. Her financial capital allowed her to buy a Bentley, a luxury car brand owned by Rolls-Royce. Although I know very little about cars, I could tell through Conan's reaction to Chelsea that owning a Bentley must be a big status symbol.

Later, I asked my roommate, "What kind of people do you associate with Bentleys?" to which she responded: "Rich people. They're really expensive, but typically older gentlemen drive Bentleys because they care more about cars."

On the other hand, though Conan has high financial and cultural capital as well, he owned a Ford Taurus. Again, I didn't know the exact significance of owning a Ford Taurus, but I could tell by Chelsea's disbelief that a Ford Taurus must be on the less expensive end of the car industry; Chelsea's surprised seemed to stem from disparity between Conan's cultural and financial capital and his car taste. As another successful talk show host, one would expect Conan to own a car brand more "befitting" a person with high cultural capital. However, Conan's pride in his car brand reveals a stronger tie to humble beginnings than Chelsea holds, despite evidence that both Chelsea and Conan grew up in working class families (Chelsea's father working as a used car salesman and Conan's father drove a car that was missing the floor).

Later, I looked up the prices of Bentleys and Ford Taurus. Turns out the price of a Bentley can range from $200,000 to $500,000. The Ford Taurus, on the other hand, has a cost that ranges from $25,000 to $40,000.

Ciritcal Theory: Facebook + Instagram

Instagram

6981 up, 5708 down

April 26, 2012 Urban Word of the Day Every hipster's favorite way to make it look like they take really classy pictures when really they are still using their phones. Yeah, you might look really cute/old school/vintage/retro, but it's still a cell phone picture. Photographer: Hey man, look at this picture I took with my Canon 5D Mark II camera and edited in photoshop! Hipster: No way man, look at this picture that I took on my phone with instagram! It's even better! Photgrapher: *FACEPALM*

Facebook's acquisition of Instagram in August is a perfect marriage of two products whose users exude psuedo-individuality and spectatorship. On Facebook, users become defined by their 'Likes', their interactions with other people, their photos, and their friends. Very little of how we portray ourselves on Facebook comes from actual individuality. This is most apparent with the 'Likes' page, in which our tastes and our interests come almost directly from mass-produced forms of media or entertainment.

The culture of taking pictures just to put them on Facebook becomes a form of staging one's life, rather than living it. This occurs with Instagram as well. The abundance of pictures on food for example, reveals how people focus more on taking pictures of food, rather than actually eating it.

Instagram allows anyone to create "artistic" looking photos just by adding a filter. It's standardized artistic photos, and commercialized it. You can now sell your instagram photos online. What's considered "good" in the photography world is now being judged by the masses. Even "bad" instagrams can sell. This applies well to Bordieu's concept of fields. Fields try to become autonomous of the market, but in this case, the market dominates what is good and bad for this kind of photography.

Spring Break in the Hamptons

"What did you do over spring break?"
"I went to a friend's house in the Hamptons. What about you?"
"That Hamptons?! That's so Gossip Girl of you! I'm at home. Your life is so exciting!"

This phone call happened a year ago, and it was the first of many breaks I would experience with my friends from home. Even though my family did not own any summer homes, two of my freshman year roommates owned houses in Cape Cod, and another guy living on my floor owned a house in the Hamptons, which he later invited me and six others to vacation at for Spring Break. Since I have arrived on campus, I have been made used to the idea of summer homes. I no longer balk at the idea of someone I know living in a house on 5th Ave in New York, but I also recognize such things as symbols of the upper class. 

For example, you can see the backyard through the windows. It's not very clear, but in the upper left hand corner is the edge of the tennis court. We all decided to take a picture in my friend's sitting room, which was decorated with a lot of blue and yellow, with blue China everywhere.

At the same time, some parts of the fabulously wealthy lifestyle still make me uncomfortable, because they go against my middle class upbringing. For example, my friend's family employed a housekeeper. I was not used to having somebody, other than my mother, picking up after me. My friend's mom also had the cooks come to the house each night to cook us dinner. It wasn't strange at all for my friend, who had grown up with cooks and housekeepers, but it was strange for me, because I was being served food but I also didn't have a customer-server relationship with the cooks.

We took a picture with most of the group. The housekeeper is in the middle; she's the black blur wearing all white.

Because I now have such different life experiences than my friends from home, I can't consider myself part of their status group. At the same time, I'm not like my new Harvard friends, because my family does not have a summer home I can vacation at whenever I want. I suppose I am still in limbo now.

Kendrick Lamar, "Black Boy Fly"

Rolling Stone calls up and coming rap artist Kendrick Lamar "a storyteller, not a braggart or punch-line rapper, setting spiritual yearnings and moral dilemmas against a backdrop of gang violence and police brutality." Kendrick was born and raising in Compton, CA. The turbulence of his childhood feature prominently in his lyrics. "Black Boy Fly" is one particularly autobiographical song on his first major album, good kid, m.A.A.d city, which dropped October 22, 2012.

Rap Genius has a great breakdown of the meanings and references embedded in each lyric of "Black Boy Fly."

The song describes Lamar's experiences growing up in the black lower class where "every neighborhood is an obstacle" and being jealous of two of his peers who were making it out of Compton whereas he felt trapped. His experiences are similar to the experiences the Rivers family have in There Are No Children Here; his neighborhood seems submerged in "crime waves," "guns bursting", a pervasive understanding or belief that "only one in a million will ever see better days." Lamar doubts if he'll ever make it. His frustration increases when he sees classmate Arron Afflalo graduate with honors and leave Compton with a bright basketball future ahead.

Lamar's decreasing hopes of leaving Compton are reflective of Bordieu's culture of poverty theory. In Bordieu's theory, the disadvantaged adjust their aspirations to what they expect their life chances to be. Agents are strategic actors who are simply responding to the structural disadvantages thy face each day. Lamar raps that "Compton made you believe success wasn't real" and that "I never believed the type of performance that I could do." Both exemplify the act of adjusting one's aspirations to one's expectations, which is a response to the perceived lack of opportunity coming from one's socioeconomic position and results in self-defeating behavior.

Many of the songs on his album talk about typical experiences of a person growing up in a low income neighborhood and the issues they face growing up.

Power: Inequalities in Social Exchange

I went to a lecture presented by Brodwyn Fischer, a professor of history at Northwestern University yesterday, called "Poverty, Social Intimacy, and the Politics of Inequality in Post-Abolition Brazil". The topic focused on urban inequality in Brazill between the 19th century and mid 20th century. It specifically looked at Recife, Brazil as a case study. 

Fischer began the lecture by examining the function of inequality in Brazilian cities, which she claimed to be at the foundations of Brazilian society. In Recife, survival depended partly on social networks. To survive, it was important to make friends with people a few levels higher on a vertical hierarchy.

“Access to any form of power, prestige, and upward mobility depended on vertical power relations,” Fischer said. She also said that people in Recife relied heavily on social networks for survival. Although Fischer didn't elaborate on what survival in Brazil generally meant, she did point to one case study in which a hierarchical relations trumped race and allowed a darker-skinned but better connected man to avoid being condemned in a rape trial. The result of this hierarchy was vertical dependence and increased inequality.

In many ways, this reflect's Blau's theories of social exchange, in which all social exchange is based on imbalances in power.

Strategic alliances were made between the person without much power and the person with greater power in order to survive. As a result, those who had greater social capital and a higher social status held power in society; they were the dominating class. The subordinate class had to depend on this hierarchical system in order to survive. This also reflects Weber's framework of society, because people have a certain amount of power based on their position in society. However, it also incorporates Marx's theory of domination, because the subordinate class depends on the dominant class for survival (like how the worker depends on wages for survival) and get exploited as a result.

Affirmative Action: Culture as Capital

The Crimson published an opinion piece by Sarah Siskind that has been attracting a lot of controversy lately for Siskind's treatment of affirmative action. What's been getting Siskind so much press has been this section:

Race-based affirmative action attempts to target these groups: the discriminated against, the poor, and those with unique experiences and intellectual merits. However, affirmative action is fundamentally flawed because it uses race instead of targeting these groups themselves. Less academically qualified applicants should be treated as such, unless they come from poorer households and therefore do not have access to the same amount of resources as other applicants. However, this would be class-based affirmative action, not race-based.

Helping those with primarily low academic qualifications into primarily academic institutions makes as much sense as helping the visually impaired become pilots. How would you feel if you were assured before going into surgery that your surgeon was the beneficiary of affirmative action in medical school? I do not see why higher academic institutions should lower their standards for admission.

Siskind's piece discourages the use of affirmative action on the principle that it uses race to target the "discriminated against, the poor, and those with unique experiences and intellectual merits" instead of the aforementioned groups themselves. Siskind argues that, as a result, admission boards use race as a proxy for determining the specified groups, which is "fundamentally flawed" in her opinion. Even leaving the question of race out of this question, I think we need to consider one assumption Siskind makes that I believe is flawed after reading Lisa Stampnitzky's article, "How Does 'Culture' Become 'Capital'? Cultural and Institutional Struggles over 'Character and Personality' at Harvard" (Sociological Perspectives, 2006). Namely, Siskind assumes that more selective colleges are primarily academic, when that is not necessarily the case. 

Developments in Harvard's admissions policies in the mid-twentieth century began a trend in the field of selective higher education; selective schools became more likely to use a holistic selection process, considering multiple academic and personal factors in their evaluation of applicants (qtd. in Stampnitzky 476). Lowering the academic guidelines to allow for people (no matter the race) of qualifying character or personality traits may simply be the result of incorporating "institutionalized cultural capital" (Stampnitzky 475).

Siskind's third target group, "those with unique experiences and intellectual merits" should be separate groups. Perhaps affirmative action is about accepting someone with unique experiences (not conditional on intellectual merits). The hope is that unique experiences are not mutually exclusive of intellectual merits; after all, doesn't intellectual curiosity generally lead you to unique experiences?

Finally, I'd like to address Siskind's point on intellect:

Finally, what about intellect? Perhaps our universities are in dire need of diversity of intelligence. Counter to most stereotypes, ugliness is highly correlated with poor intellectual performance by traditional measures, though I don’t know how many qualified applicants will be willing to put that down on their application.

Though she meant it satirically, I wonder if there isn't more truth to her statement than she realizes. Perhaps Harvard (or any other selective school) is indeed looking for diversity of intelligence. After all, the Harvard admissions office in the 1950s "expressed fears that academic achievement might be linked to poor character, neuroticism, conformity, and effeminacy, among other detrimental qualities" (Stampnitzky 472). They didn't want to fill Harvard exclusively with brains; they wanted bodies full of heart, mind, soul, and other intangible qualities.

Harvard admissions officers in the mid-twentieth century were looking to produce national leaders and worried that intelligence (as we narrowly measure it) was not a good proxy to determine those candidates. These admissions officers were looking for a mix of students with "character and personality", the broad interpretation of which allowed them to to "counter the challenge/threat of academic meritocracy yet also allowing them to claim to speak from within the discourse of merit themselves. Their strategy and the adoption lead to the rise of culture as capital within the field of elite education.