Pregledni rad
Some Theories about Two Cultures: Towards a Dialectical Perspective
Snježana Čolić
; Institut društvenih znanosti Ivo Pilar, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Sažetak
The article analyses some theories about two cultures - popular (folk) and e lite (high) culture
(Radic); low and great tradition (Redfield); the culture of dominant and subordinate
groups (Gramsci, Cirese) and others. Contrary to the classical conceptions and definitions
of popular culture and folklore, where these are described as relatively homogenous cultural
systems, Gramsci and Cirese emphasize the social heterogeneity of subordinate
groups and their culture(s), at the same time putting forward a hypothesis about the
proces of cultural circulation between hegemonious and subordinated social groups
(classes). The latter hypothesis finds its verification in the work of English historian Peter
Burke in whose interpretation the people and folk culture, as well as governing classes
and dominant culture, acquired their socio-cultural signature stratum and are presented as
a historical phenomenon. Through a historical lense (perception), the >>elite« and »folk<<
(»popular«) culture, that is the two cultures, appear to be more complex than ethnological
and other research maintained until recently. The author attempts to demonstrate how a
hypothesis about two cultures gives different results within the framework of cultural analysis,
depending on the fact whether we tend to look at culture as an open or a closed system.
What us essential is to realize that neither the so called fol k (traditional) culture nor
the elite (high or scholarly) culture are stable and fixed (unchangeable and static), and it is
useful to view them as »dialectic systems«, within whose framework all forms of interaction
between learned and traditional become important.
Ključne riječi
two cultures; traditional (folk/popular) culture; people (folk); folklore; little and great tradition; dominant culture; elite culture; cultural flow; cultural change
Hrčak ID:
101737
URI
Datum izdavanja:
5.11.2002.
Posjeta: 1.340 *