Heather MacLean wrote:
>
> Huh. I'd never considered this. You think this list is part of popular
> culture?? I know computers are becoming more and more a normal
accoutrement
> of the white yuppie US household--but, popular?
>
> Which brings up a thorny point -- and one that's probably completely off
> list-topic, but... how are you/y'all defining 'popular'?
If I were defining popular, in the context of popular culture, it would be
in opposition to "high" culture. That is, cultural pursuits - such as, but
not confined to, reading science fiction - which people find pleasurable
for their own reasons, rather than because they have been sanctioned by the
elite of their society who have the power to define what "high" culture is,
eg canonical literature, classical music, etc.
> is quite likely that the 2% of readers come primarily from middle class &
> upper class.
This seems to be, IMHO, a sweeping, not to say patronizing assumption
> unless some logical event makes him fall. On the other hand, even though
> the originating novum--SpiderMan fell into a vat of superjuice uhm,
Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider, or so I read....
<more snips>
> So, why call SF--as a genre--'popular'?
For the reason given above, it is a genre which has been created as a
collaboration between writers and readers and has continued to thrive
despite being ignored or even rubbished by the cultural elite. In my
definition - which I venture to suggest is shared by many others -
"popular" is not a statistical measure.
Joan Haran
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:07:40 PDT