In his piece titled The Idea of Culture, Terry Eagleton challenges common assumptions about culture by arguing that culture is not neutral nor is it expressive. Rather than defining culture just as creativity or shared meaning or zeitgeist, Eagleton explains culture's role through its history of shaping people into socially acceptable subjects. One of his claims I found most interesting and compelling was that culture functions as a process of discipline and formation, and that it does not just reflect who we are but actively produces certain kinds of behaviors and values. Eagleton argues this in addressing its roots in the word cultivation. Cultivation implies deliberate shaping, training, and improvement over time. When applied to human society, this seems to suggest that culture involves formation through habits and the creation of morals that align individuals with broader social norms. Culture encourages refinement, taste, and civility, and often presents these ideas as natural or voluntary. In doing this, it challenges the assumption that culture is inherently liberating or progressive. This becomes especially significant in Eagleton’s piece during his discussion of modern social order. As overt forms of coercion become less acceptable, culture takes on a regulatory function by encouraging self-discipline. Rather than a society being forced into obedience, individuals internalize norms and begin to police themselves. These norms frequently reflect class-based expectations, while still appearing voluntary, universal, objective, and apolitical.
Reading this reminded me of research I did at the end of my most recent semester in which I discussed how easily neoliberalism was able to exist in American society due to the pervasive survival of the fittest culture which had been popularized and spread following economic difficulties in the 20th century.
DeBox is an interactive museum which intends on “foreground[ing] transparency as both an aesthetic and political act.” It is a virtual space in which multiple “players” can explore different galleries containing digital art. The artists explored themes of AI and language models, datasets, and archives. The idea behind the piece is that through digital art which focuses on these things, it attempts to be radically transparent in the exposing and exploration of the labor of digital art.
Despite being the first piece of the program, DeBox caught my attention due to its very literal take on digitizing a museum. I initially had a very negative reaction to it, and then a subsequently interesting and positive view of it following a discussion with myself and a friend, which is why I believe it deserves attention. It was provocative. The first notes I took on it read: “The exploration of the [DeBox] seemed as if it were a gallery simulator. An overcomplicated one.” Every piece they explored seemed beautiful and meaningful, but at first, much of this meaning was lost on me because I was viewing it on my computer, through someone else's device. I wished to be there in person to fully grasp the art, and I still firmly believe that all art is better in person. I wrote down in my notes: “would be better, maybe even ONLY good in person.”
But it was here in this dialogue with myself that I found some (maybe unintended) meaning. I began reflecting on public access to museums, influenced by transportation, location, and price. It was this that made me reflect on how advantaged we are in our modern day, and how technology could be used to spread meaning and culture like no other time before. Of course I had intuitively understood this in the context of social media, but by creating a digital gallery in which you choose to interact with pieces of art (with your friends by your “side”), I understood that the spreading of culture, aesthetics, and symbolism can be done just as it can in a real world setting.
I also reflected here on the user interface and design, one which at first seems to mimic, or as I wrote, simulate a live gallery. But I was so caught up in this that I forgot to notice just how visually different it was from any museum I have been inside of. It was designed with an extreme focus on tech aesthetic, evoking what I interpreted as an artificially intelligent brain or advanced data storage. This was in and of itself a piece of art, as it brought to light questions on the “realness” of AI or digital art. I ended up loving how they didn’t make it look like a real gallery, but instead chose to emphasise its digitalness. I encourage people to “visit” this gallery and have subsequent reflections, as for me it provoked some fascinating, and inspiring thoughts.
In a chapter called “On National Culture,” from his 1961 book “The Wretched of the Earth,” philosopher Frantz Fanon argues that colonialism is a project aimed in its totality at cultural destruction. Rather than it being a simply a political or economic form of power, Fanon insists that colonialism works by systematically removing and attacking the colonized people’s history, values, and sense of self. He writes that colonialism removes the “native’s” past through distorting and rewriting it, which in turn allows its domination to appear natural as opposed to violent or oppressive. It is this that is central to colonialism and colonial power. If a group of people can be made to believe they have no history, no culture, and no legitimacy, their subjugation becomes easier.
While to some extent, especially in contemporary leftist spaces, this argument is not new to me, I think I was impacted by both the detail to which he delves into it, and the way in which it becomes paramount to the colonial project rather than a result of it. What strikes me too is his argument that culture cannot and does not survive oppression intact. Under colonial rule, culture becomes reduced to habits, folklore, or ritual, instead of a living thing. Culture becomes fossilized. This challenges other contemporary leftist notions that cultural preservation itself can resist domination. He suggests that merely clinging to static tradition without also confronting colonial power risks turning culture into a museum of a pre-colonial past, not something that can be used to change and shape the future.
I find Fanon’s argument compelling a) because of the history and current events it explains, and b) because it explains culture as a powerful, and dynamic tool.