Raymond Williams “Culture is Ordinary”

Reading Response Tutorial 05 Wed Sept 18th, 2013

Each response should be a maximum of 2 pages (1 per reading) and consist of the following:
3-4 sentence summary of the text's principal message or argument. In your summary you should attempt to link the reading to at least one of the key concepts for that week (or previous weeks), as identified in the course outline.
2-3 questions or problems raised by the text
These responses are worth 1 mark each, adding up to a total of 10% of your final grade.

Raymond Williams “Culture is Ordinary”
Williams’ main idea that he tried to convey through his essay and our journey through his learned experiences of what makes up a culture was that “culture is ordinary,” and is made up of two distinct parts: the known meanings and directions, which its members are trained to (the experiences we accumulate) the new observations and means, which are offered and tested (the new concepts that arise and are then contended in society)
The author then went on to discuss the various complicated ideas he has encountered which inappropriately try to define culture but have also oddly enough helped him refine his own definition of it. Williams’ also address’s teapot culture (which he labeled “down the nose”), lowbrow’s reactions to the highbrows (which he labeled as “bad mouthing”) and also Marxists and Leavis definitions of culture in which he points out their inaccuracies. Williams’ ideas relate to the concepts previously discussed, in that culture cannot be easily defined and also touches on industrialism/capitalism affecting what culture looks like.

Questions/Problems Raised:
Industrialization gave way to seeing people as “the masses,” as a result of this it created commercial culture, which thrived on this new perspective of what people were
This new concept of culture created stigma and a divide between classes (Highbrow vs Lowbrow)
Culture cannot be seen as only being high culture but is an ever changing phenomenon that requires constant study

Tom Standage, “Social Networking in the 1600s”
Standage’s article mainly addressed the potential negative ramifications that social networking may currently produce today through using the coffee houses in the 1600s as an example. His article excellently drew comparisons between the old way we as a culture fell away from universities and the like to explore a new found area of socialization and networking within the coffee houses of the 1600s and how we are again under a process of transformation in how we interact and live in present day culture while ever still developing. This article related in what we previously read in our textbooks in which we explored what going out for coffee meant culturally and the many different meanings associated with this ritual.

Questions/ Problems raised:
New media-sharing platforms pose a danger to our young
Social networks potentially reduce productivity and focus
New technologies are often criticized for disrupting the existing ways of doing things but require a transitional phase to be gradually accepted