Anonymous wrote:Please forgive me if this is entirely ridiculous but I have nowhere else to ask and it’s bothering me.
I have to say I am an immigrant, for context. I’ve noticed that it is fairly difficult to “become cultured” here in the US. I don’t mean to criticize, just trying to gauge my observations. My son goes to public school and there is hardly any classics that they read, and it mostly depends on the teacher too. Seeing ballet or even a play that’s not local amateur level is very expensive. Museums are mostly natural history and not art museums, and if it’s art it’s mostly modern art. At least that’s true for where we live, and we have moved away from the DMV.
Anyway, I’ve become a little obsessed with what I call the NYC intellectuals. For me it’s the people from Woody Allen’s earlier movies with their clever puns and references and allusions to great works of art, and also some of the NPR programming like Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me and all the smart people there. I know it’s probably a very limited view
So anyway, my questions are two:
- what is considered cultured, refined, etc in the US?
- can a child who grew up far away from NYC become a true NYC intellectual? Or it’s just something only for 2nd+ Gen New Yorkers?

Again, I apologize for the limitations of my questions, I am trying to get a good understanding of intellectualism and “culturedness” (if that’s even a word) in the US but I don’t see much discussion honestly!

Anonymous wrote: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 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here: I tried reading free articles from the NYT and The Atlantic, this is not exactly what I need right now. I will give the New Yorker a try as I read a couple of great pieces from there recently. My role model when I was a teen used to read it as well so it’s special for me in a nostalgic sense. I think I may want to carry the tradition on.

If you read the New Yorker, don’t skip the arts and restaurant reviews at the beginning even though they are sometimes boring or about really specific stuff you’ll never experience in person. The reviews inevitably connect past and present and include references that explain the origins of things that helps you start understanding context.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

OP, I’m legitimately inspired that you care.

I take a lot of pride in being well-read and all-around knowledgeable, but I’ll be the first to say that it’s an increasingly lonely or even scoffed-at effort. My child’s fancy private school is overrun by real estate investors and developers, tech execs, and other new millennium white collar jobs. I go to book clubs in the neighborhood and only 2-3 of us ever read the books. The parent pushback about teaching the basics of literature, arts and even history is constant. I grew up in an era and place when white collar=doctor and lawyer, and parents read books and multiple newspapers daily, and could help us with history and English homework. Now anyone who even has time to read a book is seen as antisocial or an underemployed slacker.

It makes me sad for where we’re at now.

Anonymous wrote:OP here: I tried reading free articles from the NYT and The Atlantic, this is not exactly what I need right now. I will give the New Yorker a try as I read a couple of great pieces from there recently. My role model when I was a teen used to read it as well so it’s special for me in a nostalgic sense. I think I may want to carry the tradition on.

Anonymous wrote:

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 wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The peculiarity (problem? yes, most likely) of today's time is that what constitutes the "intelligentsia" insofar as one can claim it are the same people who spend most of their time disdaining all the old benchmarks of culture. Instead of writing articles about a gifted orchestra, they now write articles about how white the orchestra's audience is and judging the symphony for not having enough blacks in the orchestra. The music has become besides the point. That's what NPR and NYT have become. They're most definitely not what they were pre 2000, especially pre 1990.

Because of the collapse in intellectual honesty and sincerity of the American intelligentsia, we really don't have the same kind of people with the same kind of cultural hold. The best thing is for you to decide what *you* like and not follow what someone in the NYT says. If anything, I'd say do the opposite of what the NYT or NPR tells you. You can go to exhibitions on your own, you can visit museums, you can sign up for talks, you can form your own book club. And there's still plenty of genuinely intellectual writing on art and music and culture. It just won't be in the pages of the NYT. But look around more carefully and you'll find them.

I stopped reading the NYT 10 years ago. It's too biased and getting to be one dimensional.
Much of old print journalism has been terrified of changing media platforms and it's obvious that the NYT has been curating what's "fit to print" towards the most marketable demographic of millennials and younger.
I start my days with the WSJ and Financial Times. The economy generally doesn't ideological.

Anonymous wrote:The peculiarity (problem? yes, most likely) of today's time is that what constitutes the "intelligentsia" insofar as one can claim it are the same people who spend most of their time disdaining all the old benchmarks of culture. Instead of writing articles about a gifted orchestra, they now write articles about how white the orchestra's audience is and judging the symphony for not having enough blacks in the orchestra. The music has become besides the point. That's what NPR and NYT have become. They're most definitely not what they were pre 2000, especially pre 1990.

Because of the collapse in intellectual honesty and sincerity of the American intelligentsia, we really don't have the same kind of people with the same kind of cultural hold. The best thing is for you to decide what *you* like and not follow what someone in the NYT says. If anything, I'd say do the opposite of what the NYT or NPR tells you. You can go to exhibitions on your own, you can visit museums, you can sign up for talks, you can form your own book club. And there's still plenty of genuinely intellectual writing on art and music and culture. It just won't be in the pages of the NYT. But look around more carefully and you'll find them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The peculiarity (problem? yes, most likely) of today's time is that what constitutes the "intelligentsia" insofar as one can claim it are the same people who spend most of their time disdaining all the old benchmarks of culture. Instead of writing articles about a gifted orchestra, they now write articles about how white the orchestra's audience is and judging the symphony for not having enough blacks in the orchestra. The music has become besides the point. That's what NPR and NYT have become. They're most definitely not what they were pre 2000, especially pre 1990.

Because of the collapse in intellectual honesty and sincerity of the American intelligentsia, we really don't have the same kind of people with the same kind of cultural hold. The best thing is for you to decide what *you* like and not follow what someone in the NYT says. If anything, I'd say do the opposite of what the NYT or NPR tells you. You can go to exhibitions on your own, you can visit museums, you can sign up for talks, you can form your own book club. And there's still plenty of genuinely intellectual writing on art and music and culture. It just won't be in the pages of the NYT. But look around more carefully and you'll find them.

NP and I think there is a lot of truth here. There’s an element of embarrassment about certain music, art, philosophy, literature in these circles (including and maybe especially in academia) and it really interferes with the enjoyment and appreciation.

OP, you’ve gotten a lot of good advice! I plan to take some of it myself.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op you should read this economic/class theory that explains the US. I found it on dcum before.

You are looking to the in the E section (if I remember it right). I’ll find it and link it. Wait a minute while I look…

Thank you so much, will read!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In private school, they read all of the classics and learn about all the world religions, art history, etc. At least they do at my kids' Jesuit high school.

Being well-educated to me is having knowledge in all areas, I say that as a STEM grad degree/STEM field.

There is a push around here to force STEM and only STEM down kids' throats while forgoing the classics, geography, world religion, ethics, art, etc.

they can learn world religion and philosophy in college via gen ed classes.

HS kids read the classics. My kids have read a few classics in school.

As for art, I took an honors (real honors, not the fake ones like today) humanities class in HS where we learned about modern art. Honestly, I found some of the art pointless, and not aesthetically pleasing at all. I don't find people who are into art all that "cultured". I find them a bit pretentious. There was some show or something about how a bunch of art critics were shown some drawing, and they were asked to critique it. They were all oohing and ahhing it, critiquing the technique and what have you, only to be told that it was scribbled by a 5 year old, someone's nephew or something. It's all BS. Drawing a squiggly line is considered "art".

Anonymous wrote:Op you should read this economic/class theory that explains the US. I found it on dcum before.

You are looking to the in the E section (if I remember it right). I’ll find it and link it. Wait a minute while I look…

Anonymous wrote:The peculiarity (problem? yes, most likely) of today's time is that what constitutes the "intelligentsia" insofar as one can claim it are the same people who spend most of their time disdaining all the old benchmarks of culture. Instead of writing articles about a gifted orchestra, they now write articles about how white the orchestra's audience is and judging the symphony for not having enough blacks in the orchestra. The music has become besides the point. That's what NPR and NYT have become. They're most definitely not what they were pre 2000, especially pre 1990.

Because of the collapse in intellectual honesty and sincerity of the American intelligentsia, we really don't have the same kind of people with the same kind of cultural hold. The best thing is for you to decide what *you* like and not follow what someone in the NYT says. If anything, I'd say do the opposite of what the NYT or NPR tells you. You can go to exhibitions on your own, you can visit museums, you can sign up for talks, you can form your own book club. And there's still plenty of genuinely intellectual writing on art and music and culture. It just won't be in the pages of the NYT. But look around more carefully and you'll find them.