Western higher culture was feudal because it systematically alienated itself from business.
Evidence
The higher culture of the West—whose moral, aesthetic, and intellectual values industrial society still professes—was a pre-technological culture in a functional as well as chronological sense. Its validity was derived from the experience of a world which no longer exists and which cannot be recaptured because it is in a strict sense invalidated by technological society. Moreover, it remained to a large degree a feudal culture, even when the bourgeois period gave it some of its most lasting formulations. It was feudal not only because of its confinement to privileged minorities, not only because of its inherent romantic element (which will be discussed presently), but also because its authentic works expressed a conscious, methodical alienation from the entire sphere of business and industry, and from its calculable and profitable order. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 285
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines what Marcuse means by calling high culture ‘feudal’: not minority privilege per se, but conscious alienation from the profit order.
- XREF: connects to: Culture’s distance from the economy makes it prone to idealization — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 18; Feudalism’s narrow circles suppressed both collective spirit and individual freedom — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 647; Culture becomes administrable precisely by being severed from practical action — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry: Selected Essays…, 161 (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- Culture’s distance from the economy makes it prone to idealization
#expands(0.82) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 18 - Culture becomes administrable precisely by being severed from practical action
#corroborates(0.80) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 161 - Feudalism’s narrow circles suppressed both collective spirit and individual freedom
#qualifies(0.75) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 647 - Applying the term feudalism outside western Europe is at best a misleading analogy.
#qualifies(0.72) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 344