Creativity and Popular CultureFairleigh Dickinson Univ Press, 1994 - 279 pages "In this book David Holbrook offers a fresh definition of creativity as a natural and fundamental dynamic in all human beings by which they seek to make sense of their lives. The symbolic expression of children is examined to support this view. Also examined are various manifestations of popular culture, manifestations that Holbrook suggests are manipulative - failing to satisfy primary needs, tending to encourage overdependence and regression." "Holbrook believes that commercial culture has intuitively found ways of exploiting the natural needs of children. Without being able to offer any genuine sustenance for the existential needs of the child, commercial culture uses unconscious material to arouse deep anxieties and to seize the child's fascinated interest while promoting regression. Holbrook considers children's comics and pop lyrics, among other cultural media, and through them shows that commercial culture tends to enlist a preoccupation with disturbances for which there are no solutions. The anxiety aroused undermines a child's achievements. Children often seek solace in "pop cults" and, in the words of the late Marxist critic Charles Parker, are made "agents of their own debauchery." The fascination of cult loyalty impedes their natural growth and maturation processes - and their infantile addiction can follow them into adulthood. Case in point is the nostalgia of the Beatles generation. Upon John Lennon's death in 1980, some individuals who had grown up listening to the Beatles declared that there was "nothing left to live for." Holbrook investigates such group hysteria, noting its effects on the family, and asks poignantly if the total perversion of adult-child relationships is necessary to sell electronic recordings." "Creativity and Popular Culture offers a new basis for discrimination in cultural criticism. That David Holbrook has hit his target is perhaps best proven by the fact that the publisher of one comic he discusses has refused to allow reproduction of the drawings."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved |
Contents
| 11 | |
Creativity and Culture | 35 |
Creative Symbolism at its Most Earnest | 92 |
The Childs True Voice | 106 |
Symbolism in the Childs Comic Paper | 129 |
True and False in the Culture of Youth Some Aspects of Pop | 160 |
The Corruption of Folksong | 214 |
The Need for a New Responsibility in Criticism | 241 |
Appendix A | 260 |
Appendix B | 262 |
Appendix C | 264 |
Notes | 265 |
References | 268 |
Index | 273 |
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Common terms and phrases
A. L. Lloyd achieved adolescent adult anxiety aspects baby Batman bawdy Beatles Illustrated Lyrics become believe belong capacity child comic commercial culture consciousness course creative criticism D. H. Lawrence D. W. Winnicott deal death discussion draws dreams effect element encounter English existence existential experience exploitation F. R. Leavis fantasy fears feel film foggy dew folksong girl hate human identity infant infantile inner Jonah kind living London magic manic meaning Melanie Melanie Klein Mellers moral mother nature object one's oneself parents person phenomenological philosophical anthropology play poem pop music popular culture primary primitive problem promotion psychoanalysis psychotherapy R. D. Laing reality Reeves regression relation relationship response rhymes schizoid seems sense sexual society song squiggle strip surely Susanne Langer symbolism teachers television theme things tion truth unconscious whole writing young
Popular passages
Page 116 - I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan : very pleasant hast thou been unto me : thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.
Page 116 - The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places : How are the mighty fallen ! Tell it not in Gath, — publish it not in the streets of Askelon ; Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.
Page 242 - ... a pursuit of our total perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world...
Page 215 - On these lonely hills and dales her quiescent glide was of a piece with the element she moved in. Her flexuous and stealthy figure became an integral part of the scene. At times her whimsical fancy would intensify natural processes around her till they seemed a part of her own story. Rather they became a part of it ; for the world is only a psychological phenomenon, and what they seemed they were.
Page 82 - ... gone" with them. One day I made an observation which confirmed my view. The child had a wooden reel with a piece of string tied round it. It never occurred to him to pull it along the floor behind him, for instance, and play at its being a carriage. What he did was to hold the reel by the string and very skillfully throw it over the edge of his curtained cot, so that it disappeared into it, at the same time uttering his expressive "oooo.
Page 54 - Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle!
Page 215 - Rather they became a part of it; for the world is only a psychological phenomenon, and what they seemed they were. The midnight airs and gusts, moaning amongst the tightlywrapped buds and bark of the winter twigs, were formulae of bitter reproach. A wet day was the expression of irremediable grief at her weakness in the mind of some vague ethical being whom she could not class definitely as the God of her childhood, and could not comprehend as any other.
Page 55 - LET dogs delight to bark and bite, For God hath made them so; Let bears and lions growl and fight, For 'tis their nature too. But, children, you should never let Such angry passions rise ; Your little hands were never made To tear each other's eyes.
Page 52 - ... she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and bookshelves: here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed: it was labeled "ORANGE MARMALADE...
Page 22 - The child shall enjoy special protection, and shall be given opportunities and facilities, by law and by other means, to enable him to develop physically, mentally, morally, spiritually and socially in a healthy and normal manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity.