The Distinction between High and Low Culture

Student’s Name

Institutional Affiliation
 The Distinction between High and Low Culture

The distinctions between high culture and low culture have over time become blurred. Peterson

and Kern (1996:900) conduct a review that brings out the distinctions between high culture and

low culture with fine arts in context. Besides, Levine’s study in cultural transformations also

presents features of high culture with William Shakespeare in context, while Dimaggio

(1982:33) presents a discussion on the institutionalization of high culture from which the

distinctions between high and low culture can be drawn. In reference to these readings I argue

that high culture is for the elites while low culture is for the common people, high culture is

related to arts, literature and philosophy while low culture is related to ideas and hobbies, and

high culture needs efforts to learn, grasp and appreciate something while low culture does not

need learning to understand and appreciate it.

The receivers of high culture are the elites, refined and educated people, or simply the upper

class in society whereas the receivers of the low culture are the mass and common people in

society. This is reflected by Peterson and Kern (1996:904) on how music was classified; elite

music and non-elite music. It meant that the elites were to listen to elite music while their

counterparts, the non-elites, were to listen to music deemed for non-elites. The elite music was

for a section of the population who were the well-educated people doing well in life (Peterson

and Kern 1996:904). They were expected to patronize the elite arts, which were unique from the

rest, and this formed the high culture. Basically, the likings of those in upper class were

dissimilar to the likings of the common people, and this explains why they valued classical music

and opera over the popular music (Peterson and Kern 1996:900). Peterson and Kern further

assert that the receivers of high culture earn approximately five thousand dollars more family

annual income, have more education of about two years, and are more likely to be whites; these
are elite features (1996:901). On the other hand, the common people listen to popular music and

they generally embrace the pop culture, thus, low culture. The lovers of low culture do not

patronize the elite arts, rather they like wide array of musical forms. Moreover, they were mostly

African Americans.

High culture is related to arts, literature and philosophy while low culture is related to hobbies

and ideas. Peterson and Kern have affirmed this when they assert that the high-status Americans,

who basically form the high culture, are more likely to consume the fine arts (1996:900). It

would mean that fine arts were reserved to a section of the population who valued it but not the

entire population. It would also mean that those who did not value arts were not the receivers of

the high culture. Accordingly, visual arts were centralized around museum and it was controlled

by a board of civic-minded elite members (Dimaggio 1982: 42). Based on this, the proponents of

visual arts were the elites who were also in the high culture. Away from that, Levine (1984:36)

presents the educated Americans as the lovers of literature; they knew their Shakespeare as early

as eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. And as earlier discussed, the educated Americans are part

of the receivers of the high culture. It is therefore evident that as those of high culture valued

literature, those in low culture valued other things like dancing, for instance, rock and roll as well

as composing songs such as gospel, rock and blues; his could be regarded to as hobbies (Peterson

and Kern 1996:901). Dimaggio (1982) on the other hand presents the other side of high culture,

which is the love for philosophy. According to Dimmagio (1982:36), after the establishment of

the high culture institutions it is when the aesthetic philosophies blossomed. This is an indication

of a correlation between high culture and philosophy. Since high culture was formed as an

opposition to low culture, then probably the value of philosophies by the high culture was as a

result of opposing ideas of the low culture receivers (Dimaggio 1982:35). Thus, the ideas of the
low culture were the inception of the philosophies of the high culture. Therefore, those in low

culture depended on their hobbies to form the low culture whereas those in high culture

depended on philosophies, arts and literature to make them distinct from the rest.

High culture needs efforts to learn, grasp and appreciate something while low culture does not

need learning to understand and appreciate it. Looking at what defines high culture, for instance,

arts, literature, and philosophy, all these needs some form of learning. The elites who were

associated with high culture build organizational forms that isolated and differentiated high

culture from low culture (Dimaggio 1982:33). High culture was defined with a wave of

institutional building, such as schools for learning. Understanding literature, fine arts, and

philosophy all required some learning effort. And for one to be considered in the high culture,

they had to be well-educated. However, this is different from low culture. The low culture

depended on what the masses needed, and there was no learning effort that was a requirement for

one to fall in low culture.

In conclusion, the term “culture” is vast. Although there are distinctions between high and low

cultures, these distinctions are at times blurred. For instance, Shakespeare is in high and low

culture; he is not only available for the elite class but also he is available for low class. Besides,

those who were regarded as snobs are now consuming what was seen as low culture. All in all,

the paper has discussed three distinctions between high culture and low culture. To reiterate, high

culture is for the elites while low culture is for the common people, high culture is related to arts,

literature and philosophy while low culture is related to ideas and hobbies, and high culture

needs efforts to learn, grasp and appreciate something while low culture does not need learning

to understand and appreciate it

 References

DiMaggio, Paul. "Cultural entrepreneurship in nineteenth-century Boston: The creation of an

organizational base for high culture in America." Media, Culture & Society 4.1 (1982):

33-50.

Levine, Lawrence W. "William Shakespeare and the American people: A study in cultural

transformation." The American Historical Review 89.1 (1984): 34-66.

Peterson, Richard A., and Roger M. Kern. "Changing highbrow taste: From snob to

omnivore." American sociological review (1996): 900-907.