Pop Culture Vs High Culture Essay

“A high culture is the self-consciousness of a society”, Roger Scruton stated this in ‘The Guardian’ (1). Scruton goes on to state that, “It contains the works of art, literature, scholarship and philosophy that establish a shared frame of reference among educated people” (1). High culture drastically varies from Pop culture or ‘low culture’ as mentioned by Mr. Scruton. Pop culture would comprise of a culture which is generalized to the masses, highly entertaining to the young society and articles that are easy to understand. The latter is disputably more sophisticated, knowledgeably more challenging and intrinsically pleasing. For example, the pop culture includes famous trends such as online gaming, sports, fashion, movies and various other aspects; whereas, high culture contains a specific set of activities that set this culture apart from others, such as opera, royal parties, cruising, horse races, golf, fine dining and various

High culture primarily refers to a quality for/within a community that exhibits refinement; refinement based on taste, knowledge and subtlety. The approach brings about a sense of hierarchy between the high culture and the perceptions of the modern ‘low’ culture, generally known as pop culture. In bringing about such refinement within a mixed society where both high and pop culture coexists, gives the followers of high culture more respect and value in comparison to the latter. For example, if an individual is set out to socialize with two different groups, where one group follows high cultural aspects of socializing and the other group follows the latter, the person would find the community following high culture much more appealing, distinguished and refined on approach. Whereas, the other community would exhibit no organization, randomized and bore in comparison to the other group (Browne