Allan Bloom, in his 1987 book The Closing of the American Mind, argued that listening to rock music destroyed a young person's ability to appreciate high culture. Could it also be true that an appreciation of high culture destroys a person's ability to appreciate popular culture?
Norm's answer is that no, in fact, it's possible to appreciate both in the right way. That's true of Norm, so far as I can tell: he enjoys all things as they are--this is the man who once wrote in praise of the McDonald's hamburger. I should add that I try to hold the same attitude: life is a little boring when it's nothing but high culture: a little variety makes life more interesting (several years ago I took a chance on either The Power and the Glory or The Painted Veil, and much of my reading habits changed as a result).
Nevertheless, I think the author of the review in question has a point: high culture, in popular conception, is not supposed to be fun. It is also intended to be criticized--it might be better to say that people recognize the ability to criticize as a sign one has engaged a work in a meaningful way. So it comes to be the case quite often that things a person just enjoys come to be first separated from 'art' or what is high-brow, and then accorded a lower (not just different) status. Nor does that link appear to be accidental: the cultural pressure to separate in this way is widespread. An individual is led to term one thing 'art' and so worthy, and the other thing lesser and so a 'guilty pleasure.' That some people do not succumb to this pressure is a different question from whether it exists.
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