Does Mass Culture Mean a Crisis of Values? Dwight Macdonald's Position and the Issue of Its Topicality

Tomasz Jerzy Stefaniuk

doi:10.17951/kw.2018.25.25

Does Mass Culture Mean a Crisis of Values? Dwight Macdonald's Position and the Issue of Its Topicality

Tomasz Jerzy Stefaniuk

Abstract

Dwight Macdonald was generally right in describing the beginnings of mass culture, or Masscult, and its essential features. Besides, he rightly predicted that Masscult – focusing on profit, not on the quality of the cultural goods offered – would gain a dominant position in relation to higher culture. However, he could not predict what was to come, especially the revolution in the field of information transfer and emergence of new ways of cultural goods distribution. According to him, Masscult means a crisis of values. This is because financial profits by no means balance the fall of art and culture, traditionally understood. Masscult is a threat especially to such values as the value of a work of art, the value of a “natural” human life and the value of a “natural” social relations.

Keywords

Dwight Macdonald; culture; theory of culture; mass culture; Masscult; criticism of mass culture

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/kw.2018.25.25
Date of publication: 2018-07-31 21:30:06
Date of submission: 2018-03-24 22:18:15

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