Page 36 - Cultural Change and Ordinary Life

Changing ordinary life 27

later), to adopt a term that Lipovetsky would not use, given his critiques of
Bourdieu, is fluid in this sense. Both Charles (2005) and Sennett (1994) point
to the implications of this argument for politics, in that it makes political
attachment more contingent and also in Lipovetsky’s argument makes
democracy work as in a sense it is more like a marketplace of choices. This is
not a disciplined or one-dimensional culture, individualism or politics.
A key part of the importance of this for this book is that it characterizes
a paradoxical (hyper) modernity in a way that is reminiscent of earlier work
on modernity (e.g. Berman 1983; Giddens 1990) examined the paradoxes of
classical or earlier modernity. It captures important aspects of society and cul-
ture as dynamic. I will return to these themes, but for the moment I want to
emphasize the point that what may be seen as forms of social and cultural
fragmentation and individualism can through the lens of this argument have
forms of paradoxical aspects. People can be connected through culture and
practice but there is more choice about how those connections are made and
remade. Thus, there is contingency, fragmentation and individualism but also
modes of connection. Some different aspects of this process can also be seen
through the idea of the omnivore thesis.
This idea has been developed by Richard Peterson with a number of
co-authors. For example, Peterson and Kern (1996), argue that in the USA there
has been a shift from a division between the elite and the mass in culture. In
particular, they argue that the middle class has become more omnivorous in
taste (Peterson and Kern 1996) in that middle-class people engage with a wider
range of cultural forms than was the case in previous historical periods and
that they tend to treat them as equal. So, for example, in the past, an educated
middle-class person might consume the classics of literature and classical
music, they are now likely to read detective novels, watch soap operas on TV
and listen to popular music from around the world as well. They are thus
omnivores in that they consume both high and popular culture. As Peterson
and Simkus (1992: 169) argue:
There is mounting evidence that high-status groups not only participate
more than do others in high-activities but also tend to participate more
often in most kinds of leisure activities. In effect, elite taste is no longer
defined as an expressed appreciation of the high art forms (and a moral
disdain or bemused tolerance for all other aesthetic expressions). Now it
is being redefined as an appreciation of the aesthetics of every distinctive
form along with an appreciation of the high arts. Because status is gained
by knowing about and participating in (that is to say, by consuming) all
forms, the term omnivore seems appropriate.
In accord with my theme in this section, this can be seen as a form of
fragmentation of a previously coherent mode of middle-class culture. However,
in accord with the argument derived from Lipovetsky it also means that new
combinations of taste are produced. Further, according to this thesis, those at
the bottom of the social scale are univore-like as their cultural consumption is
more restricted and constrained by material factors (Bryson 1997). Evidence
for the omnivore thesis was initially produced with respect to the consump-
tion of music in the USA and has now been subject to empirical investigation