Reflections on culture, heritage and preservation

Abstract

Since culture is the subject of this seminar 1 I would like to begin with a discussion of the commonsense notion of culture. As CONDEPHAAT is charged with formulating cultural policy, it is important to understand commonsense meanings of the term in order to be better able to reach the most diverse public possible. This is relatively easy to do because commonsense notions of culture are part of our own understandings of the concept. Could one of you please give me a commonsense definition of culture? (From the audience): "For the majority of people culture is somehow intangible and far above ordinary things. It includes painting, music, theatre, cinema." This is a good definition and contains important points for us to analyze. First of all, it reveals that culture has to do with the elite. It is sophisticated and therefore requires sophistication to be understood. But this elitist conception of culture contains two dimensions: that of the nature of cultural goods themselves, somehow spiritual and elevated; and that of the special ability that only a few people have to be able to appreciate them. "To be cul-tured", according to commonsense views, means having a certain amount of knowledge and information that aren't necessary for day to day life and also having a special ability to appreciate culture and to make use of it. In addition , culture so defined tends to be highly valued, not only by intellectuals but people in general, who show respect and admiration for people considered cultured, even if this attitude may contain some degree of ambiguity.