The Hierarchy of the Author (or “writer”)
In the essay “Modern Authors” Rebecca Moore Howard discusses the binary educated society. One class that is highly intellectual and create works of originality. Another class makes up the “low literature”. She refers to these people as the one’s that write in magazines, newspapers, and other sources. They are called the “Great Unwashed”. The mass education that occurred resulted in, according to Howard, just people plagiarizing other works. As I write I am plagiarizing in some form because I my language and choice of words seems to be related to the text. Am I just apart of the “Great Unwashed” and who are these intellectual people from what Howard refers to are apart of the literary canon? I contest that many “cheap novels” from the “Great Unwashed” are very beneficial to all of society, that in turn will have benefit and little cost. On the other hand, if the “Great Unwashed” were never educated, where would equality begin? Many people today seem to preach equality of all sorts. Why not literature? This perspective seems to be one of the literary canon (authors who are original), complaining that their sales of originality are greatly outpaced by magazines, cheap novels, and newspapers. Yes some of this literature (i.e. Star magazine) can be relatively pointless to mankind. However, one example I give is Robert Kiyosaki’s book Rich Dad Poor Dad which illustrates the mind process and ability to become rich. Maybe another term is financially free from the 8-5 job. After reading this book, I have greatly increased my assets and am retiring my mom because of this book. To criticize the “Greatly Unwashed” for plagiarizing and not being original is I believe wrong. Robert got his ideas from someone else, who got the ideas from the book from someone else and eventually the originator. If this sequence of knowledge wasn’t passed down and plagiarized in his book, millions of people would not have been helped by his book (or maybe just thousands, I don’t know). I would argue that “the Great Unwashed” can and sometimes do contribute to society in much better ways than do the literary works of the highly intellectual. However, maybe I missed the point and did not see these “cheap novels” Howard talks about is not really the books that I am referring to. Or maybe I am missing the point of plagiarism. I don’t know. Can anyone attest to this argument about “the Greatly Unwashed” and maybe perhaps this is an outcry and criticism towards us? And who is “the Greatly Unwashed”? Is it us? Then who is the highly intellectuals that are original in their works? Am I an idiot and don’t see the point of her essay and totally went in the wrong direction?
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4 comments:
Great post. I think you're right to zero in on the high/low culture divide Howard identifies as part of the qualities that make up modern authors. To answer your question, Howard definitely means to include students in the "Great Unwashed" (though, to be clear, she doesn't believe this herself).
As authorship came to be defined in increasingly narrow terms--as someone who is original, creative, moral, etc.--people who failed to meet this criteria became a source of contempt. As Howard suggests, this divide between high and low cultures emerged at the point when mass literacy and mass education arrived in the West. As a result, we can (unfortunately) still see the effects of this change in present-day universities, including UW, where students are sometimes thought of by faculty as "uncultured" or "unreasonable" and therefore in need of acculturation.
When it comes to the divide in class between high and low culture I feel that we as college students are probably on the low rung of the low culture in terms of the popularity and exposure of our work. However, in terms of the morality and ingenuity of our work I would argue that we are much higher up in the literary world than we are given credit for. Although we may be "uncultured" our acculturation may be exactly the washing we need to create works much closer to genius.
I wonder just how far the "Great Unwashed" goes. That is, by the name of it a person from that group may simply need to be "washed" (probably going to school or something) to become part of the high culture. If that is so, then I would expect people like Howard to be trying to provide mass literacy and mass education. I see something a little different though.
Agreeing with the first line of the second paragraph by Scot, people who failed to meet the criteria did become a source of contempt. Since this is the case, the high/low culture divide is more a set of exclusive clubs.
People who failed to meet the criteria are obviously not considered in the literary canon. And I also agree with Erik in that they are a source of exclusive clubs. However, is it true that before anybody apart of the literary canon had to be first apart of the great unwashed. Then after becoming educated, became original in their work. Is it a process we all must go through, or is there a direct route that right from the beginning you can be considered apart of the high culture that Howard talks about?
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