Becoming a cultured person, “just like NYC intellectuals”

[Anonymous]

It’s an interesting questions. The definition of being cultured is a bit personal. To me it means caring about, learning about and investing time in an art form. And learning about other cultures by research and travel.

I love music, go to live shows and play an instrument. I also love the visual arts - l have no talent to make visual art but l have studied art history and go to a museum or gallery a couple of times a month. I now have a group of art friends that l go to events with and usually a meal or drink before or after. It’s not Woody Allen level discussion but we have s common interest and varied levels of knowledge about art.

I also love reading. I used to be on s gear book club but haven’t been able to find one here where people actually talk about the book.

The love of music and reading was passed down from my mother. The love of the visual arts is just something innate in me. We had a big book on art history at home that l browsed dozens of times as a teenager, that’s how it started.

When there is an intersection between talent and interest that’s awesome, but it’s not necessary.

The other component is travel. The US is such a big county with huge regional cultural differences - it doesn’t need to be Europe. I find learning about different cultures to be fascinating.

I’m thinking about Jane Austen’s “accomplished” young ladies - she made fun of them and obviously preferred Elizabeth Bennet who was no good at languages, painting or music - she just loved to read and observe people. Whatever you go for do it because you love it, not to become cultured or accomplished.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's been a fairly significant intellectual shift in American culture that steers away from the idea of "high" art towards a consumer culture. Some parts of that are good as intellectual cultural stuff can get ridiculous. Some parts are bad because populist stuff can just be kitsch, or worse, propaganda that Americans have lost the critical thinking skills to recognize.

One thing that strikes me a lot when I think about this is my grandmother and her wall of Harvard classics, her modern art prints on the wall of her tiny home in central California. In her day there was the sense that culture and art were for the Everyman and were, as you're suggesting "improving." While I think there's a lot of art that was made in the 20th with that rubric that's not good art, the concept itself is one that's important. Art is improving. A society needs common touchstones, common emotional experiences, common metaphors, etc. Without that I worry we're going to turn into a nation of people with long guns in Walmart.

Think of a show like Fraiser that explored and sometimes parodied "intellectual" or "high" culture. I am not sure if the culture it parodied, which actually was good when it was not bad, exists anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Read the New York Times every day, The Atlantic, and the New Yorker. You can add to that list but that would get you a long way.

This is good advice. I grew up middle class and pretty broke in the Midwest. My parents longed for a different life and we got the Sunday NYT, the Atlantic and the New Yorker at home. This was back in the heyday of magazines so we also had stacks of fashion magazines and Vanity Fair. We also watched CBS Sunday Morning before church. That all gave me a glimpse into a different world and the ability to slip into college and my first job in NYC with a little bit of camouflage.

Nowadays culture is so driven by money that I would only bother because you want your kids to know and learn, not because you want to equip them to be part of certain worlds. Those worlds are mostly gone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Culture is cultivated, not taught in schools. Likewise, children have to want to cultivate it or it won't really take.

+1

Culture is bred into you - you can not artificially create it.

But how does it happen for my kid, if
- I am not initially part of English language culture, though I am relatively well versed in it;
- I am in a somewhat of a cultural vacuum - there are cultured people from my old country but they aren’t much of a influence on my kid, and there is no local cultural scene really, and if there is, I am not part of it.

This thread has a lot of great advice though. Results not guaranteed but trying can be fun in itself!
-OP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many many of the NY intellectuals did not originate in NY. They came to NY to succeed because they were smart and ambitious. Susan Sontag grew up in the Arizona desert; Harold Ross (founder of the New Yorker) was from the Midwest; most of the artists produced & published in NYC and writers live or are from elsewhere.

Ah, this is an important bit of knowledge for me!
-OP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Geez, I am a PP and some people are being weirdly hostile about this benign question. And I actually am a New Yorker, so theoretically I should be the nastiest person on this thread!

I think it’s an interesting question.
Especially because (in my opinion) “culture” is not a monolith and is ever evolving. It’s particularly interesting to me because there have been tectonic shifts in the culture of my profession (medicine) in the last 25 years or so, which has been fascinating (and sometimes distressing) to observe.

I have often wondered how some cultural touchstones endured, while others fell out of favor over time. For instance, the idea of a “NY intellectual” persists from the 70’s and 80’s. I think is no longer culturally relevant or influential (at least in my circles in NYC), but clearly lots of people disagree. Or just find me totally uncultured!

But I do wonder what from the current time will be considered “culture” 100 years from now (assuming some catastrophic event doesn’t end society as we know it). Because if we can’t even agree on a definition, then how do we seek it out?

What were the shifts in the culture of medicine if you don’t mind?
Thank you for your post. This is the kind of conversation I am not part of in real life unfortunately (though I used to be able to talk to a lot of well educated Americans when I was a teen and young adult).
As for 100 years from now, I think the process will be twofold. On the one hand, elite little circles of cultured people will become even more selective and obscure than they are now. On the other hand, mass culture or popular culture will accumulate part of what’s now considered more “elite” culture and will become more vibrant than ever.
-OP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Culture is cultivated, not taught in schools. Likewise, children have to want to cultivate it or it won't really take.

+1

Culture is bred into you - you can not artificially create it.

You’re quoting me and that’s decidedly NOT what I meant. I’m cultured despite growing up in an uncultured household because of my personal interests. In contrast people who were “bred” to be cultured (ew) don’t necessarily take it up.

I am not PP but how did you become a cultured person?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Being an intellectual requires a high IQ to being with. The “cultured” part isn’t so much about consumption (who can afford Broadway) as it is about gaining in-depth knowledge of the arts and in some cases being an artist. Generally it means forgoing the high-money careers (Ibanking, big law) in favor of much lower paying jobs. That means the actual intellectual cultured set is very small in NYC and sort of a double peak - lots of younger people, then a much smaller number of people who are arts or academic stars.

Ah, this is an interesting comment! I was imagining it was possible to be “an intellectual on the side”, i.e. have a day job as say a software engineer (or whoever else) and then be knowledgeable about culture and an erudite.
-OP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Read the New York Times every day, The Atlantic, and the New Yorker. You can add to that list but that would get you a long way.

This is good advice. I grew up middle class and pretty broke in the Midwest. My parents longed for a different life and we got the Sunday NYT, the Atlantic and the New Yorker at home. This was back in the heyday of magazines so we also had stacks of fashion magazines and Vanity Fair. We also watched CBS Sunday Morning before church. That all gave me a glimpse into a different world and the ability to slip into college and my first job in NYC with a little bit of camouflage.

Nowadays culture is so driven by money that I would only bother because you want your kids to know and learn, not because you want to equip them to be part of certain worlds. Those worlds are mostly gone.

I don’t think being cultured will give my kid any tangible advantage, that’s for sure.
I value being a cultured person (in a broad sense, from music to current events) in and of itself and I just hope my son will also take pride in being well-read and all around knowledgeable one day.
-OP

[Anonymous]

The key is finding “ins” that work for your child. As a teen I did not enjoy museums, until I listened to some incredible audio guides. People of all ages often need some scaffolding like that to have a great experience. Even the Lourve offers kids tours that sell out quickly. My husband and I gift each other private walking tours and that’s how I know about architecture. I wish I didn’t need to be spoon fed but it works!

I *hated* the one opera I was dragged to as a kid. Now I make sure my children go see operas for kids (Mo Willems etc at KC) so at least they don’t loathe it. Sometimes there’s an instrument petting zoo beforehand.

If a teen starts to like any retro or even current indie music there is so much culture that can be brought in. Lyrics inspired by great poets, so many references.

Kids are much likelier to retain history when you connect it to one of the wars happening right now.

Go to embassy day here in DC to get a sense of the breadth of cultures that exist. Go to a used book shop and let them pick out any random thing. Teens like to develop their own interests.

But I agree OP. My Eastern European peasant grandparents were more cultured than I am in the sense that they played instruments, knew a shared canon of literature, performed in amateur theater and played chess. It’s a huge loss

[Anonymous]

I come from a western European country, and I've found that a lot of Americans lack culture. Back home, free museum days are mobbed, there are lots of free concerts in town squares, teens and young adults enjoy discounts to all sorts of cultural activities, traditional print media is still relatively popular and highlight shows and exhibitions, classic and modern. The news anchors aren't shy about skewering politicians, talking about international politics, difficult societal topics, etc.

The closest you can come to here is read a lot of newspapers (WSJ, NYT, WaPo, The New Yorker), go to old and new exhibits, listen to NPR and watch PBS Newshour (but those last don't really ask hard-hitting questions).

The problem is the USA is very self-absorbed, unlike smaller countries that look outward out of necessity. You really have to look for international politics. Maybe scour BBC News, not just the US section.

[Anonymous]

NYC eliminated all gifted and talented education (GATE) programs in public schools.

“NYC intellectual” will soon be an oxymoron.

[Anonymous]

Someone previously hit the nail on the head when they talked about the move toward STEM as the be all and end all. Parents don’t want to pay for their kids to take arts and literature courses in college because those courses won’t get the kids well-paying jobs.

When all aspects of education are looked at through the lens of, “How does this enhance the ability to make a lot money?” then the arts and literature are left behind and seen as without value. Without a knowledge of and appreciation for the arts and literature, one can’t truly be a cultured person.

[Anonymous]

I think this is part of why schools like NCS are so revered. All the grads I know work in commercial fields but have an amazing command of literature/culture/arts. Now if only you could get that without the anxiety and clubbiness

[Anonymous]

I sure hope so. I don’t live in a major city (Midwestern suburb). I think it’s fine to do what you can where you are. Our local library has symphony members and other professional musicians come and perform for free. DS6 goes with me and listens very well and now plays violin. I take him into the city occasionally for “real” performances.

When we travel we go to museums and other cultural activities. At home, we read together and I also leave things around for him to read and browse that I like. The TV is rarely on and when it is we are watching well spoken, urbane people cook or chat, or he watches calmer math or language programs. We take advantage of “cultural fairs,” language events, festivals and the like locally.

In the car, we listen to famous performances that I purchase or check out from the library. He often gets in the car and asks to listen to Beethoven 5th Symphony.

My kid also loves going to local pubs and eating a hot dog, plays rec football, collects Pokémon cards. I think he is a normal kid and not a snob.

I do think it’s important to travel and for him to be exposed to other ideas and cultures. We try to make it to the east coast once a year and have started making international travel plans this year. It’s also important that YOU do things and model behaviors that you with to cultivate in your child.