Thursday, April 05, 2007

culture is important

a few years ago, i had the displeasure of taking part in a tv program that "interviews" students who were actively using theater for education. apparently, the bitch host moderating the program just needed someone to pat her on the back because of all people she realized that theater is the source of all the progress of the human race. in fact, how dare i disagree with her and mildly state that theater, in fact all culture, is a product of progress, not the other way around. there was someone else in the "interview" with me, and she was more inclined to agree with the bitch host, but still, the episode never aired.

that was years ago, while i was still at school. it just hit me the other evening while i was driving through shari3 ithaqafeh (culture street) in shmeisani. the street is physically beautiful, but like all things in our backwards culture, it is so forced it makes absolutely no sense. see the concept of culture, as sometimes defined, is the intellectual product of a civilization. so logically, a culture street should be the spontaneous expression of emotions, feelings, art, or any other intellectual content of a culture, which happens in a place where those "expressors" gather, which the government then tries to preserve and encourage (like graffiti in the us and some european countries) through labeling that place as "cultural". but not in our sorry societies. i hear of things such as the royal film commission, or other sorry excuses of creating cultural aspects for our society, when the reality is nothing like that.

very simply, culture is spontaneous, it is not something the government can decide to create. it can create schools, theaters, spend ridiculous amounts of money and label streets as cultural, but it can not force culture upon the society.

i mean, shari3 ithawafeh speaks for itself.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

right on man !

Anonymous said...

the result of government-enforced culture is shallow art