“Education is, before everything else, the process of giving to the ordinary members of society its full common meanings, and the skills that will enable them to amend these meanings, in the light of their personal and common experience.”
Raymond Williams, ‘Culture is Ordinary’
Culture is indeed ordinary, it includes most human activities: the arts, religion, sport, science and technology, TV/ radio and other media, the internet, eating and drinking, etc. etc. All of these topics have political dimensions involving struggles and negotiations over meanings and values. On this hub are articles on cultural activities apart from the arts, which are to be found on the arts hub, surprisingly enough.
Mark Perryman of Philosophy Football criticises the commercialisation of football, and explores the possibilities of fan culture as a social movement. During the international break, a mini-spat... Continue reading
Sarah Alderton gives a clear and detailed account of how the profit motive affects our culture of eating and drinking. Fat, salt and sugar are used to make... Continue reading
Keith Flett gets the round in again, tracing the political impact of Mrs. T on bright fined beer with his usal wit and clarity (geddit?). It’s not... Continue reading
Peter Frost discusses the uses and abuses of social media, and how its innately social character makes it a useful communications platform for socialists. Lenin died in... Continue reading
Sandy Grant proposes that in times like these, it is poets who speak the most serious words of them all. Her article is followed by a poem by... Continue reading
Mike Quille traces the links between corporate sponsorship and the distortion of history and art, in two recent exhibitions. How do the ruling classes manipulate art and... Continue reading
Melissa Oldham charts how media representation of ideal body shapes, driven by the need to maximise profits, leads to negative body images in women and men. Feminine... Continue reading
Dr. Anthony Sullivan explains why and how fashion matters, in an era when‘fast fashion’ highlights the absurd waste of precious energy and resources by capitalism’s ‘favourite child’.... Continue reading
Lynn Mally tells the story of Proletkult, the experimental Soviet artistic institution which was in the vanguard of Russia’s cultural revolution in 1917. Two years after the... Continue reading
In a superb foundation essay for our science and technology section, Helena Sheehan traces the historical contribution of marxism to science studies, and argues not only for... Continue reading