A UK study claims that the cultural elite are no more, the kind of people who prefer high culture over pop culture: “We find little evidence for the existence of a cultural elite who would consume ‘high’ culture while shunning more ‘popular’ cultural forms.
This study, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, included the US in its study dividing people into four groups: univores, omnivores, paucivores, and inactives.
- Univores: only like popular culture
- Omnivores: like everything from opera to soap opera
- Paucivores: (taken from “paucity”?): absorb very little culture
- Inactives: absorb practically none.
Researchers concluded that social status, from vocation, not social class, from wealth or birth, are more determinative for cultural taste and preference. They also concluded that cultural elitist are no more, that at most we are omnivores, a kind of cultural eclectic. You you agree? Which category would you claim, if any?