reading culture: consequences
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
Finally, in our comparison of cultural interpretation in Culture Making and Everyday Theology, we have consequences. Whereas Vanhoozer’s ‘cultural texts’ approach gave more depth to the content question, Crouch’s ‘cultural artefacts’ view gives more in the consequences question.
Consequences can roughly be aligned to Vanhoozer’s ‘perlocation’ — the outcome of the cultural activity. However, I wonder if the Culture Making questions are more productive, simply because they point to specific ways of thinking about this area: What is made possible by this artefact?, What is made impossible?, What new forms of culture are made in response to the artefact?
(I guess we should note that because Vanhoozer is less specific he potentially allows more consequences to be considered. For instance, he makes an interesting points around ‘culture as spiritual formation’, which doesn’t easily fit with Crouch’s questions, but I think guidelines such as those in Culture Making are a helpful start…)
The important point being that culture shapes the world around it. It isn’t just a description or picture, but is a key way that we affect the world. Andy Crouch, quoting Ken Myers:
Culture is what we make of the world.
So, we mustn’t just think of culture as simply some optional decoration that is attached to life. Culture changes and shapes our surroundings and us. And a complete reading of culture asks what the consequences are.
For instance, lets go back to cars. Possibilities opened up include rapid travel and connections to places that may have been almost cut off in the past. On the other hand, it is almost impossible to think of a slower pace to life, at least in part due to this ‘artefact’. And, of course, the cultural response includes an immense road system, petrol stations, road taxes, motor sport, etc., etc., etc.
It’s also important to realise that what the consequences of a cultural item are not necessarily related to the content or the intention of its maker. We discussed the ‘content’ of cars but at no point did we bring in the impact on the environment (nor, of course, most of the cultural responses we just listed). I guess a big part of culture making is that opens up unseen paths.
It’s worth remembering also that one of the consequences is a shaping of our imagination. Again, this may not be directly linked to the intentions of the maker. Think about westerns. Movies in this genre may not have any intention of proposing anything about fire-arms, they are simply a component of the genre. But, it may be that, unintentionally, the viewers imagination is shaped to view them as a viable are a solution to problem, etc. Something to bear in mind both when reading and creating. (See also a recent post on how we communicate what we believe).
Tags: books, culture, Culture Making (Crouch), Everyday Theology (Vanhoozer), hermeneutics
reading culture: content
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
Still comparing cultural interpretation in Culture Making and Everyday Theology. We’re now on content…
Content is what the cultural item is trying to communicate and/or do. Roughly we could think of this as making a proposal about how the world should be (Crouch’s third question) or about what it all means. Very likely this won’t be through propositional statements, but by showing or implying. Vanhoozer puts it this way:
cultural texts convey their propositions — their proposals about what it means to be human — not by offering explicit arguments but rather by displaying them in concrete forms.
I think Everyday Theology is the stronger of the two on this point. Remember it is concerned with interpretation, which obviously has a big content focus. Following Vanhoozer then we can say that to get a rounded view of the content we need to look at both what it is trying to do (in Vanhoozers terms I think this is roughly the illocution) and how it is doing it (the locution?).
The ‘how’ is the surface content or the medium, etc. It’s not really covered directly by Crouch’s questions; but perhaps it comes out in the questions that ask what a ‘cultural artefact’ makes possible/impossible/etc. — the ‘how’ comes out in the way that the ‘artefact’ alters the world around us. Perhaps the medium is (in some ways) the change that results.
When you are thinking in terms of ‘cultural texts’ there is room to think more widely (although, I think change-as-medium is a good thing to keep in mind). Here we can bring in narrative points, visual aspects, genre-conventions, as well as the details of the story, etc.. Again, considering the ‘how’ is an important part of listening, to ensure we truly hear what is being said. This reminds me of a quote from Bart Gavigan: “The problem with Christians is that they love theme more than story.” We must be careful not to jump too soon to the ‘message’ before hearing the story.
The ‘what’ is (eventually) the point that we might naturally run to first. What is this item trying to say? We can link this in with a number of our proposed questions/considerations. Within this we can think Vanhoozer’s questions: what is the world of the text? — what is being displayed — and what is the world in front of the text? — what is being proposed about/for your world. As we said, this is related to Crouch’s question asking what is the artefact’s assumption about how the world should be? Or alternatively, What new sense does
it seek to add to a world that often seems chaotic and senseless?
it seek to add to a world that often seems chaotic and senseless?
Let’s try an example to avoid getting bogged down. What is the ‘content’ of cars (to take an example off the top of my head)?
The ‘how’? Well, it’s an artefact, so it is proposes/displays/does by being a functional object, by being something that can be used in a particular way. More specifically by being a technological object. And by changing what we can do, our abilities, the parameters of our world.
The ‘what’? I guess we could start by saying it displays a world where constraints can be overcome by technology. From a specifically Christian point of view, it displays a world where we are given the ability and flexibility to alter things; a world where resources are placed at our disposal. It proposes a world where rapid travel is a virtue, where distances should not be constraining, where people should not be tied to a particular locality, and (in comparison with public transport) where individuals have only a limited reliance on others in society or societal structures, etc., etc.
Well, that’s a start. By no means a full view, but I guess that gives the idea…
Tags: books, culture, Culture Making (Crouch), Everyday Theology (Vanhoozer), hermeneutics
reading culture: context
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
OK, so we’re trying to synthesise Culture Making and Everyday Theology by thinking of cultural items in terms of Context, Content and Consequences; the question is where do we put the different questions/considerations of each book?
Context is really what Vanhoozer calls ‘the world behind the text’. It consists of the assumptions and worldviews of the author(s), as well as things that are happening around at the time, the characteristics of the medium and the personal experiences of the author. It is what shapes the reason and character of the item/work/artefact.
Of course, we can also pull in Crouch’s first question here, which helpfully focusses us on one particular aspect of this — What is assumed about the way the world is? Perhaps, we can also see half of the second question: What is assumed about the way the world should be? or as Crouch develops this: What vision of the future animated its creators? As a background to creating it is likely that a ‘culture agent’ will have some assumption of how things should be and this will filter through to what they create and say.
I guess it is easy to jump straight to analysing the message, but in many cases we don’t understand correctly unless we listen to the context first. We need to slow down and understand what is going on around before we decide what is being proposed.
As a really simple example, think of genre films (and, as Mark Kermode reminds us, there is nothing wrong with genre films): If you don’t understand the conventions of a genre, how are you going to understand the message? The message of a science fiction film may not be that we should expect life from other worlds to visit soon, even if that is what appears on the surface. The message comes in how the key components of the genre are handled or used.
Tags: books, culture, Culture Making (Crouch), Everyday Theology (Vanhoozer), hermeneutics
contrary truth
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
I’ve been in a couple of discussions for which this quote seemed helpful…
If he has one cardinal maxim in his philosophy, it is that truth cannot be contrary to truth; if he has a second, it is that truth often seems contrary to truth; and if a third, it is the practical conclusion that we must be patient with such appearances, and not hasty to pronounce them to be really of a more formidable character.
John Henry Newman
reading culture
Posted by Paul | Filed under uncategorised
Two current books, Everyday Theology (Kevin Vanhoozer et al) and the up-coming Culture Making (Andy Crouch) both start with approaches to understanding or reading culture. I thought it would be interesting to attempt a synthesis of the two. Foolhardy, perhaps, but let’s try.
While trying this, it’s important to keep in mind that these two books have different models in mind. Vanhoozer is thinking ‘interpretation’, Crouch is thinking ‘making’. Both have similary goals: understanding as an aid to being a faithful ‘cultural agent’ and I think the two approachescan be complementary in many ways.
Before we try for full-on synthesis, here is a brief overview of the approach to understanding that each take…
Everyday Theology brings in two basic grids for thinking about culture. The first is looks at culture items as ‘texts’. With this in mind, we can consider the world behind the text (what is the context), the world of the text (what is displayed by the text) and the world in front of the text (what is the proposal for your world).
The second brings in speech-act ideas. In this case we can think of the locution (roughly, what is the content? For example, ‘a story about a wolf & a girl who likes wearing red’), the illocution (what are the speakers doing in speaking?, e.g. ‘suggesting that talking to strangers may lead to unfortunate consequences’), and the perlocution (what is the result of the speech?, e.g. ‘children become more wary of talking to strangers’)
Culture Making has a more straight-forward set of questions. It is focussed on culture as artefacts and the questions reflect this. So, Crouch asks ‘What is assumed about the way the world is?’, ‘What is assumed (or proposed) about the way the world should be?’, ‘What is made possible by this artefact?’, ‘What is made impossible?’, ‘What new forms of culture are made in response to the artefact?’
I wonder if we can synthesise these by thinking along three lines: Context, Content and Consequences (you see what I did there? 
It should be noted that in doing this, we’re almost certain to lose something in translation (especially for Vanhoozer’s ideas), but I think it helps as a framework to start with. At least, for me to collect my thoughts. Maybe for others too.
It should be noted that in doing this, we’re almost certain to lose something in translation (especially for Vanhoozer’s ideas), but I think it helps as a framework to start with. At least, for me to collect my thoughts. Maybe for others too. :: next
Tags: books, culture, Culture Making (Crouch), Everyday Theology (Vanhoozer), hermeneutics
A random walk over culture, art, christianity, etc. with occasional photographs...