High culture

Uncommon card · No. 153820

In a society, high culture encompasses cultural objects of aesthetic value that a society collectively highly esteems. It can include works of art (such as literature and music), history, and philosophy that a society considers respectable representatives of its culture. In popular usage, the term high culture identifies the culture either of the upper class (an aristocracy) or of a status class (the intelligentsia); "high culture" also identifies a society's common repository of broad-range knowledge and tradition (folk culture) that transcends its social-class system. Sociologically, the term is contrasted with "low culture", which comprises the forms of popular culture characteristic of the less-educated social classes, such as the barbarians, the philistines, and hoi polloi (the masses), although in practice the upper classes very often also enjoy low culture and lower classes also enjoy high culture. Matthew Arnold introduced the term "high culture" in his 1869 book Culture and Anarchy...

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