It seems the uncultured masses are taking over these days. Even traditional heavens such as university campuses and (if you can consider anything that is less than 4 years old, traditional) Facebook are now awash with quote unquote riff raff communicating with each other in text speak and showing each other pointless videos on their £10,000 phones which have everything but the ability to do voice chat.
Whether I myself fall into the category of Philistinism is a whole different debate. I’m not one for the material you would find in an art gallery though my love for art is passionate when you switch the specific area to for example motion pictures or CSS.
What I want to talk about here is the positive side effects we experience from the prevalence of Philistines in our society. I often comment on how much I like the fact that brainless movies from Hollywood sit on Tesco’s shelf for £10+ a piece while I recently acquired 2001 for the delightful price of £3 while Donnie Darko and American Beauty were also available for £2.
It occurs to me though that this applies to a wider social context. For example, while I was down in London I spent a day looking around the British Museum which was a fascinating experience. How much did I pay for it? Nothing. It’s free. Like almost all museums in the UK (much to Owen Johnson’s annoyance having just successfully integrated the entry payment system into every other system at the Royal Armories in Leeds :D).
The question then is this – would all these museums be free if people were arriving on mass at them all? I somehow doubt it. The cinemas are opening up massive multiplexes to deal with the load of customers waiting to pay £6 a ticket and an extra £10 for a popcorn bigger than their body mass while one of the most famous museums in Britain has no queues to be seen.
As I said, my guess is that if museums were as popular as say cinemas or sports events, there would probably be an entry fee. Maybe I’m wrong and the government would continue to fund it which would be nice but I think the principle is more important. After all, you pay what, £30-40 to go see a sporting event? The same for a music concert with a famous artist. Which such prices, charging the same for entry to the British Museum doesn’t seem unreasonable. But of course, due to the general attitudes we have, if they did, few people would go.
It’s a similar situation with public libraries. They’re completely free to use. Would this be the case if everyone uses them? There is an even stronger case for rebutting my answer of no here as this is case of public education but that’s not to rule it out – DVD rental companies be it instore at Blockbuster or online with Love Film charge what, £5 a movie or £15 a month.
Of course there are exceptions to the rule – for example, the theatre is no cheap excursion but then I’m not sure how popular demand would affect prices there. They generally play to full houses anyway so unless we’re going to get stadium-sized theatres (which I would think would somewhat ruin the experience) the laws of supply and demand may drive up prices.
So there you have it. The case of allowing the uncultured to continue to wallow in their Sky TV and chav’ed up Corsas.
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This entry was posted on Monday, January 14th, 2008 at 4:48 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.