The Concept of Culture and The Industrial Revolution in Cultural Studies

There are many definitions of culture. As we approach the 1900s, Raymond Williams defines culture. This definition is an anthropological definition. And he says the following. Culture is a whole way of life and culture is ordinary. What does Raymond mean when he says culture is ordinary? I think he means that everyone's culture depends on the way they live and everything they do is a culture. What is a way of life? The music you listen to, the public transportation you use, the friend you choose to have coffee with, the clothes you wear, it's all lifestyle. But is this the ordinary life of your culture? Is this what culture is? Isn't there something missing in this definition? Where are art, high art, literature, classics, and music? Where are painters like Picasso, and Rembrandt? Why didn't he emphasize these?

Another definition of culture is provided by Matthew Arnold. Culture is the knowledge of the world's best thoughts and spoken words on all the issues that concern us most. According to Matthew Arnold, popular culture products are not culture. Raymond Williams and Matthew Arnold's definitions of culture are opposite to each other. Raymond Williams, in response to this thinker's statement, says that culture is ordinary. Matthew published his articles in a book called Cultural Anarchy. This book became popular and inspired many people. According to Arnold, culture is the study of the perfect and according to this definition, culture is universal.

Let us examine another definition of culture close to this one. Leavis says that culture is the highest point of civilization to which only an educated minority can relate. He wrote a book called Mass Civilization and the minority. In every period the appreciation of art and literature has been the task of a small minority. Only this minority decides what culture can and cannot be. This minority can understand high geniuses. According to Leavis, culture in this sense is the highest point of civilization. He says that it concerns only an educated minority.

With the beginning of the Dadaism movement, the working class revolted. Before the Industrial Revolution, everything was fine in England. because there were two separate cultures. With the Industrial Revolution, a socio-economic class emerged. England's golden age was over. Mass culture also disappeared. There was a mass culture, a working-class culture, which made everything ordinary. To prevent the disappearance of art, that is, high culture, the responsibility of the minority mass increased.

To summarize, Raymond Williams does not exclude high art from the concept of culture. He has a problem with high art excluding the working class. 

Against the saying that the ordinary has no culture, the saying that culture is ordinary was born.