Page 55 - Communication Processes Volume 3 Communication Culture and Confrontation

30 Guy Poitevin

On the whole, in modern discourses, popular cultural forms are
often simply equated with ‘primitive’, ‘archaic’, ‘esoteric’ or ‘traditional’
forms, whether positively or negatively assessed. Two erroneous prin-
ciples operate behind these classificatory approaches. The assumption
of a non-commensurability or substantive estrangement of both the
so-called popular and elitist cultures, first, implies an essentialist con-
cept of culture. Second, on this basis, one constructs one’s cultural
identity through opposition to the ‘other’.
For the ‘learned’ and ‘knowledgeable’ elite who claim competence
and authority to reflexively ponder over cultural matters and the pro-
gress of humankind with full knowledge of the facts, popular culture
on the whole pertains to the pre-human realm of the primitive, the
irrational and the esoteric. Conversely, for those who feel discriminated
upon, ‘colonized’ and exploited by the very same elite, it becomes the
repository of human hopes of dignity and alternative social orders.
As a matter of fact, both the essentialist and differentialist principles
have strong historical credentials. They are deeply grounded in the ini-
tial construction of cultural anthropology as human science (Affergan
1987) by the erstwhile colonialist authorities.

Culture as a Milieu of Circulation

Opposing approaches are simply mistaken. Let us start from the most
common and everyday observation, that there is no such stable object
as ‘given cultures’ except for analytical purposes. One may even deny
the status of an ‘existing reality’ to culture for the reason that what we
observe is a permanent osmosis (Muchembled 1991) or communica-
tion of idioms, a constant circulation of aesthetic creations, a mix of
forms of life, processes of hybridization and cross-fertilization, blend-
ing and overlapping of tastes and cognitive patterns, the capacity to
freely incorporate or reinterpret, flexibility to integrate, readiness to
share viewpoints. Innovation constantly takes place through collages
and patchworks, re-configuration and distortion, overlapping of forms
or texts and commercial labelling, syncretism and cross-fertilization,
and so on.
In this respect, culture and communication are reciprocal con-
cepts, which some would even equate to one another (Carey 1992).