Sociology Plus
Highbrow and Lowbrow Definition
The distinction between ‘high culture’ and ‘popular culture’, or ‘highbrow’ and ‘lowbrow’, has been central to cultural debates across the US, Britain, and France for several decades. While theories of culture have often presupposed this dichotomy, the nature of this debate has evolved significantly over time, reflecting changes in social structures, educational access, and aesthetic evaluation. This distinction involves complex interplay between perceived artistic merit, social class, and power dynamics, moving from rigid hierarchies to more fluid understandings of cultural experience.
Historical Stages of the Debate
The discourse surrounding highbrow versus popular culture can be broadly divided into four historical stages:
Stage One: Unambiguous Superiority (1940s–1960s)
In the initial phase, this view held that ‘highbrow’ or ‘high culture’ was inherently superior to ‘lowbrow’ or ‘popular culture’. This perspective characterised high culture as aesthetically rich and vital, while popular culture was often dismissed as lacking merit or even being harmful. Popular culture was frequently framed as the homogenized output of mass corporations aimed at the unsophisticated masses. Proponents of this view cited figures like Clement Greenberg, who championed avant-garde art over ‘kitsch’, and Theodore Adorno, who argued that the culture industry stifled artistic deviation. Hollywood films were similarly denigrated by critics as mere commercial products rather than serious art.
Stage Two: Empirical Challenge (Late 1950s–Early 1960s)
This stage emerged when researchers, particularly sociologists, began empirical studies of popular culture and its audiences. These studies challenged the earlier aesthetic claims by arguing that popular culture was not necessarily devoid of value or creativity. For instance, Herbert Gans’s work on suburban life suggested that the perceived dullness of environments like Levittown was subjective, rather than an objective indictment of the culture produced there, suggesting that urban life might be culturally richer.
Stage Three: Aesthetic Revaluation (Mid-1960s Onwards)
The debate shifted radically when some theorists argued that popular culture possessed aesthetic merit equal to or even superior to high culture. This shift was exemplified by architectural movements, such as Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, who found inspiration in the architecture of Las Vegas, arguing that this popular style achieved the same functional clarity as classical high culture. Similarly, the Pop Art movement celebrated mass-produced objects, legitimising them as art through works by figures like Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg. Furthermore, French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu argued that cultural distinctions are driven less by aesthetics and more by struggles for power between social classes. He contended that the dominant class uses high culture to exclude dominated classes from positions of power by controlling access to ‘cultural capital’, thereby undermining the claim of intrinsic aesthetic superiority of high culture.
Stage Four: Dissolution of Distinction (Late 1980s–Present)
The final stage questions whether any fundamental distinction between highbrow and lowbrow culture is justifiable as a basis for social theory. Researchers have observed that nearly everyone, regardless of education, engages with aspects of popular culture. As institutional structures become less insistent on sharp class boundaries, contemporary theorists like George Ritzer and Sharon Zukin focus instead on phenomena such as the ‘consumer/shopping society’ and the ‘commercialisation of leisure’. This stage suggests that aesthetic differences are not sufficiently clear-cut to serve as the foundation for major socio-political theories of cultural difference.