Page 102 - Cultural Change and Ordinary Life

The omnivore thesis 93

For the purposes of this exposition it is not necessary to consider these
processes further. In my view an excellent example of how this perspective
can be applied fruitfully is found in Peterson’s (1990a) classic article on the
development of rock and roll.
Returning to the detail of the omnivore thesis, it is important that Peter-
son locates the initial findings in this respect in the context of a fairly simple
distinction. He argues that much of the previous work on cultural taste had
been concerned with the relationship between the elite and the mass in the
context of mass society or mass culture theory. Thus, in the way in which he
describes it the elite consumed or were characterized through the consump-
tion of what has often been called high culture:
[T]he hallmark of those at the top of the hierarchy according to the
received elite-to-mass theory is patronizing the fine arts, displaying good
manners, wearing the correct cut of clothes, using proper speech, main-
taining membership in the better churches, philanthropic organizations
and social clubs, and especially for the women of the class, cultivating all
the attendant social graces. The term ‘snob’ applied to such people is of
course pejorative.
(Peterson 1992: 245)
In Peterson’s view those in this position would resist low or popular
cultural forms and practices. He argues that historically a number of different
characterizations have been given of the culture of those at the ‘lower’ end of
the social scale. Broadly, he suggests these fall into two main types: as restricted
and tradition bound or as mass-like. Moreover, many theories have suggested
that there has been some kind of move from a version of the former to the
latter, as modes of massification of culture and society have occurred. Finally,
there developed forms of culture between these extremes. These were often
characterized as ‘middlebrow’. A critical point is that these forms of culture
were seen as separate. Thus in Peterson’s argument those at the top ‘will
choose the fine arts and related leisure activities while shunning all others.
Those near the middle will choose derivative works and activities, while those
groups at the bottom will shun the fine arts and indiscriminately choose
sensational and mass-oriented entertainments’ (Peterson 1992: 246).
Peterson’s work that argues against this ‘received elite-to-mass theory’
(1992: 246), had its origins in a rather different study that derived from the
study of occupational groups and their cultures from within the production of
culture approach described earlier. Despite this, in Peterson’s view, the work
that he carried out with Simkus (see Peterson and Simkus 1992) provided
strong evidence that the received view was deficient. Based on 1982 data from
the USA concerning the participation of adults in the arts, Peterson and Simkus
defined 19 groups of occupations, ranging from higher cultural (including
architects, lawyers, clergy and academics) to farm labourers. They then ranked
these groups by the music that the members said that they liked best. The
types of music were also ranked by occupational group. Basically they found
that the highest occupational groups were far less exclusive in their tastes than
the elite-to-mass theory would predict. While these groups had preferences for
high culture forms of music, such as classical music, they also said that they