Casa Jonsson

A stimulating discussion on culture is in progress at Tasty Tacos. Dig in!

I’m not worthy so much as to gather taco crumbs from under the table. The presence of an unwashed philistine such as myself in the kitchen may not make the tacos any tastier, but perhaps it makes the process more democratic instead of republican. (I mean republican in the Platonic, as over against the Condoleezzian, sense.) Besides, the others are pulling so hard on the oars that I’m sure they won’t mind my doing a little water-skiing—or gleeful metaphor-mixing.

Speaking of romantic comedies from the 1980s, it doesn’t make my favorites list, but Moonstruck is one of my favorite movies. Failing all else, it does have the relative virtue of casting Olympia Dukakis as an Italian mamma in New York rather than as a Southern belle in Louisiana. I like Moonstruck because it helps people who don’t love opera to see why some people do. (Other worthy contributors to this cause include Amadeus, Diva, and Philadelphia.) And I like Moonstruck because it bolsters my opinion that a plumber can love opera without diminishing the degree to which his trousers fail fully to cover his hindquarters.

Lots of people seem to forget—or never knew—that until fairly recently opera was to the common man in Italy as baseball was to the common man in the United States. Giuseppe Verdi’s biggest fans were working-class Italians, and they were vociferous critics when a performance didn’t cut the mustard. They were not unlike the Budweiser-slinging Cubs fans at Wrigley Field. I’m no expert on this, but I wager that not being able to belt out “La donna é mobile” along with one’s paisani was as unthinkable as forgetting the words to that song we always sing at baseball games—that classic, unforgettable song, you know the one, the really famous one that talks about macadamia nuts and crackers and never wanting to come back? Oh, never mind. Anyway, both opera and baseball have waned as national pastimes and emblems for Italy and the U.S., respectively. But Enrico Caruso and Babe Ruth are still icons.

The Italians’ nationalistic love of bel canto singing is not surprising from the perspective of history, and this fact makes the line of demarcation between high culture and low culture seem arbitrary. Furthermore, not only do I myself enjoy a night at the opera, I also enjoy A Night at the Opera. I don’t know how to describe the difference between high culture and low culture, if the distinction has any merit. Maybe it would be valuable to define some terms. Would anyone else care to do this? I’m planning on taking a whack at it in my next post.

But let me step back for a moment to say something about what I think is going on at Tasty Tacos. I came across something in a recent rereading of Surprised by Joy. C. S. Lewis invokes philosopher Samuel Alexander, a thinker whom I never would have encountered if not for Lewis’s footnote, given that my philosophical credentials are of the armchair variety. According to Lewis, Alexander’s epistomology distinguishes two modes of experience, ‘Contemplation’ and ‘Enjoyment.’ As best I understand them, ‘Contemplation’ is conscious consideration of its object whereas ‘Enjoyment’ is something like unstudied experience. The human mind is always ‘Contemplating’ something and ‘Enjoying’ another; you cannot both ‘Contemplate’ and ‘Enjoy’ the same thing at the same time. And ‘Enjoyment,’ by the way—not to be confused with enjoyment—has nothing to do necessarily with pleasant affections. While watching their least favorite movie of the summer, Chad and Mark were ‘Contemplating’ the exploits of Allan Quatermain and his fellow Gentlemen, and they were ‘Enjoying’ (although not enjoying) the filmmaking skills of Stephen Norrington. After leaving the theater they ‘Contemplated’ the stupidity of the movie while ‘Enjoying’ film criticism. (I believe this phenomenon is what is meant by the remark that such-and-such a work operates or does not operate “on more than one level.” Complex cultural artifacts possess multiple frames of reference that invite the student’s ‘Contemplation’ and ‘Enjoyment.’)

As we ‘Contemplate’ culture we ‘Enjoy’ cultural studies. It seems to me that one of the goals of cultural studies should be promoting widespread ‘Enjoyment’ of culture on both sides of the high/low divide because this causes people to ‘Contemplate’ aspects of the world which they might never do otherwise.