Culture vs. Culture

Culture vs. Culture sounds intimidating, huh? I think so. For those who may not be familiar with me, my name is Whitney. I am from a small city in the state of Alabama. In my lifetime, I have had the privilege to travel the U.S. far and wide. I’ve met people from all walks of life. I’ve met people in different social classes, some wealthy and some not so wealthy.

I currently attend Communications@Syracuse, an amazing program might I add. In our Digital Media course, the topic of the cultural skyscraper came about. In my entire 31 years of life, this was the first time I had ever heard of this module. For those who may not know what the cultural skyscraper is, allow me to introduce you to the method.

Try visualizing the Empire State Building, ok you see it? Now, lets use an invisible knife to slice it into sections. The sections of the skyscraper are divided by cultures. The very top is high culture and the bottom is considered low culture. High culture includes: operas, ballets, art galleries , and Hamlet. Low culture includes TMZ, Ultimate fighting, reality shows, and top 40 music .

The discussion that stuck with me about this topic was, who controls what’s what? I believe that the determining factor of high culture vs. low culture is us! We the people! We have allowed different genres to determine stereotypes for what’s high and low.  We have given a false face and identity to different genres. I encourage everyone to research the cultural skyscraper. I also challenge you, the reader to be the change of the stereotype.