UK "culture"

[Serial_Apologist]

Still don't know what it is.

It studies "the superstructure", ie the ideological expression, in culture, as defined by the stage of development of the productive forces ("the base") at any given period in history. That's it basically but it covers an awful lot!

[Serial_Apologist]

Semi-detached suburbia
Roundabouts
Heritage
Back and sometimes front gardens
Garden cities
The Arts & Crafts movement
The vast range of local and regional accents
The reputed favouring of animals over people
Renaissance and Georgian architecture
Dog track racing
Home ownership as an aspiration
The Church of England
Pastoralism in art and music
Logical positivism, empiricism and pragmatism over theory in general
Sexual squeamishness and scatological humour
Puns

[gradus]

Private Eye

[Mal]

The Detective Novel (thanks to Wilkie Collins...)
The Science Fiction novel (thanks to H.G. Wells...)
The Campus Novel (... Kingsley Amis)
The Spy Novel (... Ian Fleming)

[Richard Barrett]

It studies "the superstructure", ie the ideological expression, in culture, as defined by the stage of development of the productive forces ("the base") at any given period in history. That's it basically but it covers an awful lot!

Although these days it's usually a derogatory term used by the right to dismiss anything that smacks of a liberal view of the presence and function of culture in society, let alone a Marxist one. I think this was the sense in which it was being used by our departed friend.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Some people:

Bede
Barbara Castle
Aneurin Bevan
Jenny Lee
Tim Berners-Lee (no relation AFAIK)
Jo Cox
The Pankursts
The Tolpuddle Martyrs
William Wiberforce
The Lancashire Cotton Workers who refused to break the embargo on cotton from the US in support of the abolitionists
Richard Steinitz
David Attenborough
Turner

... etc etc etc ...

[teamsaint]

and Thatcherism...........an enormous political /cultural phenomenon, ( the defining one of my adult lifetime I would say) for better or worse.....mostly worse.

[vinteuil]

.

... some more people :

Sir Thomas Browne
Robert Burton
Joseph Addison
James Boswell
Rev James Woodforde
Tobias Smollett
Edward Gibbon
Isaac D'Israeli
Sydney Smith
Thos: Love Peacock
William Hazlitt
Wm: Makepeace Thackeray
Arthur Hugh Clough
John Ruskin
Matthew Arnold
Samuel Butler

.

[Joseph K]

It studies "the superstructure", ie the ideological expression, in culture, as defined by the stage of development of the productive forces ("the base") at any given period in history. That's it basically but it covers an awful lot!

You've reminded me - I have a copy of Terry Eagleton's Ideology of the Aesthetic that needs to be read...

[french frank]

The original Issigonis mini:

[Serial_Apologist]

Private Eye

But France has (or had) Le Canard Enchaîné, doesn't it?

[gradus]

But France has (or had) Le Canard Enchaîné, doesn't it?

I had no idea that the French mag was so long established but (again thanks Wiki) it seems that The Eye can trace its origins back to Shrewsbury School, and maybe was inspired by Le Canard, perhaps any scholars of the Eye on here can help?
Are both mags cultural ambassadors for their respective countries?

[Conchis]

Sitcoms that people still watch, even though (or because) they've seen them so many times they know all the jokes/punchlines.

Weak tea

Broad humour

Not being 'too clever by half'

Coronation Street

Invented lower middle-class terms for sexual organs and natural functions

Supporting a football team, in order to be able to make conversation with other people

Playing pool for the same reason

(Horrible) warm beer

Having a (usually) carefully concealed contempt for people from other countries

Casual racism

Deep racism

Not thinking about anything too deeply and being proud of the fact

The idea that so-called 'high' culture is 'just not for you'

Using your much-vaunted 'sense of humour' as a cover for your insecurities and latent aggression

The loving embrace of mediocrity in all its forms


That sums up 'UK Kulcha' to me.....

[teamsaint]

Sitcoms that people still watch, even though (or because) they've seen them so many times they know all the jokes/punchlines.

Weak tea

Broad humour

Not being 'too clever by half'

Coronation Street

Invented lower middle-class terms for sexual organs and natural functions

Supporting a football team, in order to be able to make conversation with other people

Playing pool for the same reason

(Horrible) warm beer

Having a (usually) carefully concealed contempt for people from other countries

Casual racism

Deep racism

Not thinking about anything too deeply and being proud of the fact

The idea that so-called 'high' culture is 'just not for you'

Using your much-vaunted 'sense of humour' as a cover for your insecurities and latent aggression

The loving embrace of mediocrity in all its forms


That sums up 'UK Kulcha' to me.....

You forgot to include “undisguised contempt for people from your own country “.

And you are talking complete nonsense about the racism, just for starters. It does happen in other countries you know.

https://metro.co.uk/2018/06/20/racist-countries-europe-not-actually-bad-7646762/

https://www.indy100.com/article/european-countriesracist-study-european-union-map-prejudice-survey-7893106

We are a long way from the worst.

[Conchis]

You forgot to include “undisguised contempt for people from your own country “.

And you are talking complete nonsense about the racism, just for starters. It does happen in other countries you know.

Of course it does, and I know because I've lived in other countries. But I've yet to meet a people as intrinsically (though subtly) racist as the British - or, rather, 'the English'.