Page 107 - Cultural Change and Ordinary Life

98 Cultural change and ordinary life

causes of the social and cultural processes involved. In considering these
developments, in accord with my approach in other parts of this book, I will
focus on one significant representation that captures a number of aspects. Van
Eijck (2000) offers an excellent example as he notes how ‘Peterson’s findings
and interpretations regarding cultural patterns can be both affirmed and fur-
ther specified if we compare them to other studies on the subject’ (p. 208). Van
Eijck recapitulates on some of the most important aspects of the omnivore
thesis and argues that evidence for it can be found in newspaper and magazine
reading in the Netherlands, where the number of people jointly reading news-
papers at different levels such as ‘quality’ newspapers and ‘gossip’ magazines
had increased. Thus, to transfer this finding to the British context it would
be like more people reading The Guardian and Hello! While this finding is of
significance as is the way that the thesis has been found to be transferable to
other societies, I will focus on the further examinations for the development of
omnivorous culture.
First, van Eijck examines the idea of social mobility, making sure that he
separates diversity in individual taste from such diversity in a group. He rightly
points out that these were not sufficiently distinguished in Peterson’s formula-
tions and that while they may often go together it is not necessarily the case.
Thus, while the discussion of this in Peterson’s argument tended to be at the
individual level – socially mobile individuals retain an allegiance to forms of
culture that they were brought up with – it might also be that the social com-
position of higher status groups has shifted due the overall trend to upward
social mobility: ‘Therefore, the diversity of tastes among the higher status
groups may have come about as the sum of either omnivorous individual
tastes, or from the diversity of tastes at the group level’ (p. 212). Van Eijck
suggests that both processes have occurred. Moreover, this process tends to
accelerate.
The second important dimension that van Eijck explores is age. He
argues that if the omnivore thesis is correct, then two main patterns should be
found among the higher status groups: the traditional snobbish taste and the
omnivore pattern. Given that the former is decreasing, it would be expected
that the older people would exhibit the former and the younger ones the latter.
Van Eijck explored this through a consideration of musical taste among Dutch
people, using factor analysis. He found that while older generations were
becoming more omnivorous, this was more likely to occur with younger
people. Picking up on some other discussions of class he suggests that this is
the culture of a new middle class.
This leads van Eijck to a significant consideration of the nature of the
forms that are combined by the omnivores. Again it is important to point
out that such patterns do not simply combine different types of culture ran-
domly – that do not lack discrimination. This confirms the research under-
taken by Bryson. The genre of world music is a good example of the type of
combination that van Eijck, following Peterson (1990b) sees as a typical omni-
vore formations. This genre itself combines a diverse range of practitioners,
so that ‘it seems that the attraction lies in the musical experiment and the
juxtaposition of diverse musical elements rather than in perfection within a
well-defined genre’ (p. 216). Van Eijck considers the different discourses that