This is gonna be long. Please bear with me. I'm in my late 50s and grew up on a farm in Indiana - if you want to talk about limited opportunities and lack of diversity. My family may not have been 'cultured' but were well educated even though most of that education was not in any formal setting. We were/are able to make connections between others and ourselves, recognize mastery of profession, innovative/resourceful and read extensively. <Shout out to the Texan extolling the value of public libraries!> It was an excellent foundation.
I've got an MBA and my undergraduate is in the Classics (Latin/Classical Greek). I spent the first 15 years after college living all over the world and I speak 5 languages other than English. I've never lived in NY but could hold my own in just about any 'cultured' setting. What I said in my first paragraph about making connections and recognizing mastery I think is key. Culture is always changing. Being able to understand it and the effort/skill it took to create something (even if you don't like it) is important as is being able to talk about it. I didn't used to like hip hop until 2008 - that's when I saw America's Best Dance Crew on TV. Wow! I'd seen So You Think You Can Dance but it wasn't until I saw ABDC that I really got hip hop and all that is part of that 'culture'. I started watching it with the kids which led to all sorts of conversations about style, influences, etc. - all on TV, all at no cost. Then, the kids and I started making playlists for each other as part of our 'musical education'. We'd talk about why we liked something, why we didn't and what influences we could hear in the music. Hearing a song in a different genre than the one it was originally performed in also led to some awesome discussions. We're having 'cultural' conversations like intellectuals do in our low-brow, lower middle class home because we think, understand and articulate our thoughts. Finally, we've done a 'classic movie' night with the kids since they were little. We focused on movies that had a lot of cultural references and that were engaging. Let me tell you, watching the original Bad News Bears led to a lot of discussions. We also attend a lot of high school theater. You don't have to have fabulous actors and amazing sets to get the benefit of 'culture'. When I was in the hinterlands of the former Soviet Union, sets, costumes and performers were much reduced. The dancer/singers were of much higher quality than a high school production but you don't need to ride in a Rolls Royce to know how great transportation by car can be. |
Bad News Bears? LMAO. What did your family think of Caddyshack? You slay me. |
DP. Thanks for posting this! Interesting! |
PP here. To my great disappointment, the kids didn't like Caddyshack! I have to say that it wasn't as good as I remembered it. But! They did like Birdcage and Casablanca. The Full Monty is next on the list! You CAN watch classic, engaging movies and relate them to current events. |
It’s not true. Where we live culture per se isn’t highly valued. You can be a software engineer or work in finance and know nothing about culture and you will be respected more than a teacher who knows art and literature -OP |
Interesting! Well, we are from a fairly boring European country so I guess not much ‘cultural clout’! But it’s a great angle for selling DS his culture of origin of which he isn’t quite a fan yet (except for sweets!) |
Yes I am, but I’ve lived in the US for a while now. I’ve met quite a few culture snobs from the old country, but I think their culture knowledge base is a bit outdated and will be perceived as obscure by many US intellectuals. Or maybe they simply lack American cultural knowledge? |
That’s an odd red herring. You’ve asked whether a software engineer can be cultured. So it seems you want both professional and social success for your DC. In any case, your kid may live elsewhere as an adult. It’s unclear why you’re disguising your motives. |
OP here, I’ve stated a new leg of my cultural journey by watching Frasier; so far it’s going great! Special thanks to the PP who mentioned it.
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My background is in architecture and I worked in the engineering field for many years and this is consistent with my experience. In fact I would go further and say that there is some disdain for art and culture, at least in some corporate environments I've worked in. It's sad to encounter people with such firm opinions on what they've never learned. |
It’s unclear why you don’t trust me when I tell you my motives. I want my son to be a better person. Someone said you had to have a low paying job to be cultured, so I said I had no idea and thought it could be a side dish so to speak. But it’s ok, you are free to think what you want about me or my motives ![]() |
If you were a teen in USSR in 1970-80s, we grew up in a very peculiar time - the things we enjoyed in terms of "culture" were pretty much the same things our parents (and often grandparents) enjoyed. In all other times what the youth watched, read and listened to was at least annoying and usually quite scandalous to their elders, but at that time in USSR the period of stagnation (эпоха застоя) reached everywhere. Add to it the overall limitations on what was accessible due to the iron curtain and state sanctioned art, and many of us ended up (maybe subconsciously) with the idea that there is some canon, some body of culture that is universal across time and space. I see lots of people of my background looking for that stability and continuity, culturally speaking, that they had with their parents, and they want to replicate it with their children. I was wondering if part of you is searching for that too. |
In NY, it's pronounced "Kul-cha". |
Lesson 1 of American Culture: if you have to ask how to be cool, you'll never know. |
^^accurate. |