The End of Cultural Elitism

AS ANYONE who has ever wiggled in his seat at a classical concert or stared in disbelief at a work of conceptual art can attest, culture in America has usually been imposed from the top down. Media executives, academics, elite tastemakers, and of course critics determined what was good and what wasn’t, what would have cultural purchase and what wouldn’t, what would get rewarded and what wouldn’t. Which isn’t to say that ordinary folks were entirely passive in this process. Early in the Republic they began a counter popular culture to challenge the so-called “official’’ culture, and it survives today to the point where it has often merged with high culture. But the cultural hierarchy held on.

Or at least it did. Among the many effects of the Internet, one of the most significant has been the democratization of cultural influence. No longer does the New York Times or the New Yorker or Time anoint the books we should be reading, the movies and TV shows we should be watching, the music we should be listening to. A populist aggregating website like Rotten Tomatoes that awards fresh or rotten tomatoes to movies, or Ain’t It Cool News, which preempts most mainstream film criticism by reporting on movies first, probably has more power than all the tonier critics combined. And Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace certainly have a great impact. One has only to look at “American Idol’’ to see how regular citizens have seized control of starmaking.

Naturally, no one relinquishes that kind of control willingly, which is why the old cultural imperialists joined forces recently in several bold attempts to show that they still mattered. But what is striking about these forays is not that they happened but that they were ultimately unsuccessful. For over 200 years, normal Americans have longed to exercise their cultural independence and free themselves from the tyranny of the elitists. Last year they did. In effect, the elitist empire struck back and then struck out.

(Continue reading on the Boston Globe)

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