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There’s always been a lot of cultural stuff, but the key difference is the reduction of shared culture. 30-50 years ago if you wanted to read enough to contextu

There’s always been a lot of cultural stuff, but the key difference is the reduction of shared culture. 30-50 years ago if you wanted to read enough to contextualise The Waste Land[1] it would require a massive amount of ‘high culture’ from earlier centuries (and not just in English). Nowadays it would still be a huge amount of work though perhaps would not require trips to obscure German libraries. But 30-50 years ago, at least where I live, there were only 3-4 tv channels and a few more radio stations and shows could regularly pull tens of millions of viewers because there was nothing else to watch. The lack of shared culture[2] today means people have less in common. It seems to me that having less in common with people makes them more distant and that there could be negative effects of that. I’ve certainly heard the argument that this reduced shared culture can be connected with the larger political divisions we (feel we) see today. But then 100 years ago when there was no mass shared culture like tv (or maybe there was?) we seemed to not have the same problems, so maybe there is something else at play. [1] I pick this example because the whole thing is referencing many earlier works in one way or another, and it is a concrete thing rather than a field like ‘literature’. [2] I suppose one might claim that tv is not culture because it is too pedestrian. I don’t really think that’s true, but if you just pick your favourite kind of high culture (eg theatre/ballet/classical music/poetry/literary fiction), there would likely have been some tv shows about it and, as there were only a few channels, lots of people outside the small set of people who deeply care about the thing would see those shows. It seems a little more egalitarian to me than what we have today, though I suppose if you are interested in those things it is now very easy and cheap to seek them out online.

js8 5y ago
You're making an interesting analysis, but it seems to me this "reduction" you talk about is just an illusion that comes from a vastly increased choice (it's much easier to find niche stuff thanks to Internet). And perhaps because we actually long for shared culture, and now see this fragmentation much more clearly, there is a feeling of being overwhelmed by it.
high_5 5y ago
Agreed. The subcultures started this trend in the sixties and now they are accelerating this trend since any subculture can mimic the sense of a shared culture with the closed circles of internet media/social networks. We're building filter bubbles ourselves, having less and less time for understanding, leading to suspicion and in the end conflict with subcultures perceived as threat to our way of living.
piaste 5y ago
> The lack of shared culture[2] today means people have less in common. It seems to me that having less in common with people makes them more distant and that there could be negative effects of that. This is something that we need to adapt to, and I think it's quite possible to adapt to it. For example, when I was a teenager, a good chunk of my friends and schoolmates listened to the same bands as I did, or at least there was a substantial overlap. I was much too young for the heyday of MTV, but the big names pushed by the record companies were still ones everyone knew and had opinions about, and only occasionally would we introduce each other to our personal discoveries. Nowadays, with the friends I've made over the past few years, there's usually little or no overlap. So the inevitable 'what kind of music do you listen to?' has changed from 'oh, I like X too! / I don't like X because Y' to a different exercise where you need to communicate why you're really into a certain ukulele youtuber or a Chinese operetta or a Brazilian hip-hop subgenre, to someone who's never heard of them. And then listening and asking interesting questions when they do the same for their favourites. The rare times you do find some overlaps become pleasant surprises - one of my best friends is into blackgaze and ambient, I'm a folk- and metal-head, and finding out that we had a few experimental/avantgarde bands like Unexpect and Deathspell Omega in both our playlists was delightful when we first met.
tsol 5y ago
>But then 100 years ago when there was no mass shared culture like tv (or maybe there was?) we seemed to not have the same problems, so maybe there is something else at play. I would say 100 years ago shared culture came from religion, neighbors, and the national conversations one would read about in the news. Religion is increasingly not a part of people's lives be. We still have national conversations through the media, but there too there are so many outlets you can choose a specific narrative that appeals to you and only listen to that. Neighbors are not quite as close as they once were-- the idea of borrowing a cup of sugar from my neighbors sounds crazy in modern times.
- dan-robertson 5y ago
  I thought newspapers were much less consolidated and more numerous 100 years ago. Maybe tv/internet news counteracts the consolidation. And I thought that politics (the ‘conversation’?) has become a lot more national today than it used to be. But maybe that’s not relevant to your point.

js8 5y ago

You're making an interesting analysis, but it seems to me this "reduction" you talk about is just an illusion that comes from a vastly increased choice (it's much easier to find niche stuff thanks to Internet). And perhaps because we actually long for shared culture, and now see this fragmentation much more clearly, there is a feeling of being overwhelmed by it.

high_5 5y ago

Agreed. The subcultures started this trend in the sixties and now they are accelerating this trend since any subculture can mimic the sense of a shared culture with the closed circles of internet media/social networks. We're building filter bubbles ourselves, having less and less time for understanding, leading to suspicion and in the end conflict with subcultures perceived as threat to our way of living.

piaste 5y ago

> The lack of shared culture[2] today means people have less in common. It seems to me that having less in common with people makes them more distant and that there could be negative effects of that. This is something that we need to adapt to, and I think it's quite possible to adapt to it. For example, when I was a teenager, a good chunk of my friends and schoolmates listened to the same bands as I did, or at least there was a substantial overlap. I was much too young for the heyday of MTV, but the big names pushed by the record companies were still ones everyone knew and had opinions about, and only occasionally would we introduce each other to our personal discoveries. Nowadays, with the friends I've made over the past few years, there's usually little or no overlap. So the inevitable 'what kind of music do you listen to?' has changed from 'oh, I like X too! / I don't like X because Y' to a different exercise where you need to communicate why you're really into a certain ukulele youtuber or a Chinese operetta or a Brazilian hip-hop subgenre, to someone who's never heard of them. And then listening and asking interesting questions when they do the same for their favourites. The rare times you do find some overlaps become pleasant surprises - one of my best friends is into blackgaze and ambient, I'm a folk- and metal-head, and finding out that we had a few experimental/avantgarde bands like Unexpect and Deathspell Omega in both our playlists was delightful when we first met.

tsol 5y ago

>But then 100 years ago when there was no mass shared culture like tv (or maybe there was?) we seemed to not have the same problems, so maybe there is something else at play. I would say 100 years ago shared culture came from religion, neighbors, and the national conversations one would read about in the news. Religion is increasingly not a part of people's lives be. We still have national conversations through the media, but there too there are so many outlets you can choose a specific narrative that appeals to you and only listen to that. Neighbors are not quite as close as they once were-- the idea of borrowing a cup of sugar from my neighbors sounds crazy in modern times.

dan-robertson 5y ago
I thought newspapers were much less consolidated and more numerous 100 years ago. Maybe tv/internet news counteracts the consolidation. And I thought that politics (the ‘conversation’?) has become a lot more national today than it used to be. But maybe that’s not relevant to your point.