THOUGHTS FROM A COMMON MAN
News and comment LATEST: Brownski moves towards totalitarianism … PLUS … what’s wrong with UK cultural exports? Climate change? They don’t believe it.
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ARTISTIC BRITAIN
A report from the Work Foundation has advised that British creativity is fuelling an industry as valuable to the economy as the financial services sector. Britain, it seems, is exporting its culture like never before.
In advertising, architecture, publishing, TV, film, music, software and fashion, the UK generates more money than any other country in the world from culture, employing 1.8 million people and having exports worth £4billion.
A World Culture
In economic terms, this is a marvelous success story, but is it a success in other areas, such as culture, for instance. It certainly seems to suggest so, but the question must be asked: why are UK cultural products being sold so well abroad?
Flagship projects include Glastonbury, Doctor Who and Harry Potter. These are cultural projects which have a distinct sense of the quintessential British. But many do not. Think of The X Factor and similar cultural projects that form the bulk of success.
The essential element of such projects is that they cater not for a specific British culture, but the global. The vast majority of UK exports succeed because people throughout the world can identify with them.
What About Identity?
This is all very well, but the inevitable consequence is that British cultural products are watering down identity and culture in the search for export profit. And as these cultural forms are first aired in the UK itself, what is this doing to British culture?
In the relentless pursuit for profit, and a leading place in the world, the UK is sacrificing its own identity, filling culture with a global image. And throughout the UK, the young are losing a sense of who they are.
Many would class this as a good thing, but such people forget that essential for anything to thrive is diversity – nature and evolution would fail without it. Hence, filling UK culture with a global sameness can only be counter-productive, regardless of profit.
© Anthony North, July 2007
TOTAL BROWNSKI
I would have thought Gordon Brownski would have waited a while before consolidating his dictatorship in the UK, but even I underestimated him. And I have to admit, he is doing it with panache …
… read more …
CLIMATE CHANGE SCEPTICS
Is climate change a great big conspiracy? According to an Ipsos Mori poll between 14-20 June, it definitely is. Of 2,032 people asked, 56% believed scientists were still questioning the idea of humans being to blame …
… read more …
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