Pragmatism and Popular Culture: Shusterman, Popular Art, and the Challenge of Visuality

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In this article I will discuss Richard Shusterman's defense of popular culture. I intend to show that while his arguments are highly interesting, the entertainment industry has a dark side, which he tends to ignore. Actually, I fear that higher culture and even civilization itself might be endangered by the predominance of popular culture. I am especially skeptical of visual entertainment. Its triumph in the last decades seems to have had a negative impact on linguistic skills, lead to the decline of reading, and caused an increase in attentional deficiency among children. The relevance for educational matters should be obvious.

Let us now take a look at Shusterman's theories. It is not by chance that he defends popular culture; after all, he is one of the few aestheticians today who enjoys some popularity. As a result, his work is widely read outside of the philosophical community. The reason is simple: we all love rebels and the American philosopher is a rebel with a cause. He wants to promote art as an integral part of the ever-changing stream of life, believing that popular culture provides ways of giving art a place in everyday existence. This is an important part of Shusterman's pragmatist aesthetics. Just like his predecessor John Dewey, Shusterman stresses our active involvement with art.¹ When it all comes down to dust, it is the art of living that matters most.

Shusterman maintains that the entertainment industry speaks on behalf of the common man. Popular culture is just as important as fine arts. In actual fact, the entertainment industry is rather a provider of culture than its enemy. To this he adds that entertainment can have some positive value; it helps us relax and recharge our batteries. Such a relaxation can even heighten our sensitivity to stimuli and therefore provide for deeper learning.²

Shusterman has not only been influenced by Dewey but also by a host of other thinkers. One of them is the well-known French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Bourdieu famously maintained that the elite distinguished itself from the multitude by having a different taste; they called their own taste "refined" and the taste of the masses "vulgar." The elite stresses form, not function. Only a formalistic approach to art is legitimate; focusing on its function in everyday life is vulgar.³ Like Bourdieu, Shusterman says that the veneration of the fine arts is class based, a part of the elite's attempt to distance it self from "the masses." The elite looks down upon popular culture and commerces with art in an intellectualist fashion. Relating to art in an emotional and somatic way is not really aesthetic, the elite thinks.⁴ Shusterman counters these claims and takes on highbrow criticism of popular art. This criticism can be treated roughly in terms of six charges made against popular art: the ones of (a) spuriousness, (b) passivity, (c) superficiality, (d) the lack of autonomy, (e) the lack of form, and (f) the lack of creativity. Let us take a brief glance at Shusterman's way of countering these charges.

(a) Spuriousness: He shows that it is extremely hard to understand, let alone substantiate, the charge that popular art is spurious. The high brows claim that whatever satisfaction popular art gives is shallow or unreal. (I cannot for the life of me find any criteria for the discernment of real from unreal satisfaction.) If the alleged spuriousness consists in popular culture only being able to provide us with "washed out" or "faked sensations," the charge is unfounded; witness the intense and absorbing experience of rock music.

(b) Passivity: The high brows maintain that we only passively receive the products of popular culture; understanding them needs no intellectual effort. To this Shusterman responds by saying that most of the high brow critics see intellectual thinking as the only game in town, the sole activity of any greater worth. But we have no reason to believe this to be the case. Besides, enjoying classical music makes one much more passive than the enjoyment of rock and roll...