Cultural Practices

As consumers, we tend to complain about the internet a lot, yet there are fantastic things you can find on the internet. Honestly, I think I take advantage of it at times when I find myself complaining about how inconvenient the internet can be at times. Things such as music and videos that we can always have are just some of the things we should be thankful for. Though, what I am taking time to talk about is Raymond William’s four types of cultural practices “emergent, dominant, residual, and archaic” (Williams, 96). Upon first reading, I had no idea how these different categories could possibly sum up all of the cultural practices that our world participates in. Though, when the chapter we read started to name off things that could fall in those categories, I realized that maybe this wasn’t totally out of the question. When I started to look even further into what parts of our culture fit in which category, I realized that things were matching up very well.

Emergent and Dominant are two of the categories that come first when something ‘fresh’ or ‘new’ comes out. People are so excited to get their hands on something new, that sometimes these products don’t have to have qualities that make them stand the test of time. When I say that, I don’t nesessarily mean the physical aspect of it, but the user interface and usability. In our current culture, there is a new phone coming out every year. When I was growing up, I remember that the wait was much longer when we were waiting for the next big thing. People might’ve gotten addicted to the feeling they get when they have a new piece of technology in their hands. We are currently sacrificing long-term usability for the feeling we get when we get something new. The problem with this, is the fact that since we are always updating our phones, it is going to be hard to look back and select something as our favorite, since there is always renewing experiences. Now I am just speaking for myself when I say that this vicious cycle could be tarnishing our nostalgia with an endless amount of different tools that have miniscule differences.

As we move to the other side of the spectrum, we have Residual and Archaic Williams had this to say about the Residual and Archaic categories “areas of human experience, aspiration, and achievement which the dominant culture neglects, undervalues, opposes, represses, or even cannot recognize” (1977, 123-124). So, as he says it possibly the first two ends of the spectrum lack the real connections that we got to make as things we view as ‘nostalgic’. For me, I can honestly feel that as I get older and times change, I find myself getting less and less excited about upcoming events and new things coming out. Now, I am not sure if this is due to newer products lacking the real connections that I experienced when I was younger, or just the fact that as I get older and my understanding of the world changes, I just get less excited. I do honestly believe it is a combination of both, because as I look back at the different things that I had during my childhood, are still holding some weight even to this day. Though, to be fair when I was growing up, things like the Gameboy SP and handheld device were relatively in their new stages when I was a kid. Regardless, people have strong connections to certain things that fall into these latter categories, but I think deciding what goes in each of the categories, comes down to personal preference.

In conclusion, the four categories of cultural practices are categories that at the front end, are easy to organize, but once you start dealing with what older things go in which category, that ends up being up to personal preference. Emotions always get wrapped up when it comes to things like these, because even though you think you have everything figured out, there are a large amount of different points of view that we have to take into account. Though, that would pose as difficult because it is hard to create a machine/program that takes emotions into account. I think categories like these are always going to slightly suffer because of the different opinions that will always be flowing in. Like in my opinion, Pokémon was a huge part of my life and that is what my world revolved around for the longest time. For someone who doesn’t play any games, their viewpoint could be drastically different than mine, just based off life experience. Regardless, I think these categories are a really good visual aid when it comes to trying to distinguish between different parts of our culture.

Citations: Jenkins, Henry, et al. Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture. New York University Press, 2018.