Elites denied creative status to most people’s cultural production under capitalism
Evidence
Yet creativity remained largely associated with the work of artists and authors, as the European “high arts” gained their creative esteem largely by contrasting themselves with more pedestrian forms of culture. Whether working in factories, on plantations or in various administrative positions, the vast majority of humanity who were enrolled in European-led capitalism were systematically denied any real opportunity for creative expression, and what little was afforded them was belittled and mocked by elites as uncreative: peasant dances, indigenous musics and workers’ popular culture were all seen as hopelessly derivative (see Haiven 2014, 190–216). — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 437
Categorization
- QUESTION: The claim that ‘what little was afforded them was belittled’ — worth chasing how this gatekeeping maps onto contemporary discourse around ‘originality’ and copyright once creativity becomes financially valuable.
- XREF: connects to: Print capitalism shifted literary authority away from artisanate and peasantry toward elites — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 502; Elite critics assumed working-class readers lacked cultural resources to resist mass culture. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 148; The culture industry is production from above, not culture arising from the masses — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry: Selected Essays…, 134 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Print capitalism shifted literary authority away from artisanate and peasantry toward elites
#exemplifies(0.85) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 502 - The culture industry is production from above, not culture arising from the masses
#corroborates(0.85) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 134 - Elite critics assumed working-class readers lacked cultural resources to resist mass culture.
#exemplifies(0.82) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 148 - Fifties high art asserted authority by deliberately ignoring mass culture
#exemplifies(0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 613 - Culture as shared meaning-making became democratized rather than elite civilization.
#contradicts(0.78) - Modern elites demanded that money alone replace cultural capital
#qualifies(0.72) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 776