An Intelligent Person's Guide to Modern CultureReceived by the British press with equal acclaim and indignation, this book sets out to define and defend high culture against the world of pop, corn, and popcorn. It shows just why culture matters in an age without faith, and gives an extended argument, drawing on philosophy, criticism, and anthropology, against the "post-modernist" world-view. Scruton offers a penetrating attack on deconstruction, on Foucault, on Nietzschean self-indulgence, and on the "culture of repudiation" which has infected the modern academy. But his book is not only negative. It is a celebration of the true heroes of modern culture and a call to the higher life. The American edition of this famous and notorious work has been revised to take account of the controversy which it has inspired, and contains new material specially directed to Americans. |
Contents
What Is Culture? | 1 |
Fantasy Imagination and the Salesman | 55 |
Modernism | 68 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
aesthetic aesthetic interest anthropologist argument Arnold van Gennep artistic attempt Avant-garde and Kitsch Baudelaire become belief bourgeois C.P. Snow ceremonies Christian civilisation commodity fetishism common culture Confucius critical culture of repudiation dancing dead death deconstruction Derrida desire différance divine drama Eliot emotion Enlightenment erotic ethical vision experience F.R. Leavis faith fantasy feel Foucault freedom gesture gods Hence Herder high culture human idea imagination intellectual judgement Kant kind kitsch knowledge live London Magic Flute marriage meaning membership ment modern culture modernist moral myth nature object Odysseus offers painting philosophy photograph poetry political popular culture post-modern present question realisation reality redemption religion religious rites of passage ritual Romantic sacred sense sentiment sexual social society spiritual sympathy T.S. Eliot theory things thought tion totem tradition tribe truth ture Wagner words youth