Gellner refers frequently to “high culture”. What is this? How does it differ from other uses of the word “culture”? See pages: 8-13, 35-38, 50-52, 85, 89, 92-93, 111, 137-143
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Gellner's description of high and low cultures, and the effect of high culture on the development of the modern nation-state, is one of the most interesting parts of his book. For Gellner, "high culture" is the combination of literacy, higher education, and ability to communicate in universal terms. In agrarian and pre-industrial state, there existed many vertical and horizontal cleavages in ability to communicate through society (11-12). These resulted in a minority of the people having literacy and with it the ability to manage national affairs, while the majority of the people lived "laterally separated" and "inward turned" lives (10). Their lack of literacy and experience outside of their local families and communities made them incapable of performing higher occupations or taking power over government, and indeed prevented them from desiring to do so. The ruling class had access to a limited higher culture. In one fascinating strategy, however, they often educated "gelded" slaves or foreigners, such as the literally gelded Chinese eunuchs or the foreign Mameluks in the Ottoman Empire (15), to rule over the finances and administration of the state. These members had access to a universal high culture, but did not have the ability to take control over government or pass on their high positions to their children.
This situation changed with the industrial revolution and the requirement of literacy to perform industrial occupations (36). A universal high culture is now required to sustain the society. Gellner writes, "for a given society it must be one in which they all can breathe and speak and produce; so it must be the same culture. Moreover, it must now be a great or high (literate, training sustained) culture..." (38). With this universal culture came the desire of the people to take control over their state apparatus, and especially to prevent foreign powers or regimes that they considered illegitimate from ruling over them. This universal high culture would inevitably lead to the spirit of nationalism in the modern age, and the breakdown of empires and monarchies across the world.
When we now refer to the "culture" of a nation, we almost always are referring to its high culture. Since we live in societies where there is a common ability to communicate ideas and skills across all parts of the nation with ease, we can fain recall a time when cultures were dominated by what was local or family based. In the short history of the US, especially, it is questionable whether dialectical barriers or illiteracy ever really impeded the free flow of ideas across the nation, leading to a spirit of nationalism. Gellner explains that we now refer to "Kultur" is the high culture, where the differences in culture are between nations and not between social classe in their access to education and universal communication (92-93). In older states, however, the past was often filled the "low culture" for the common people. In the countryside of China, for example, you can still hear a signficiant difference between the univeral "putonghua" (Mandarin) used for general communication and the local dialects used for talking to families and friends. These dialects, products of continued settlement for hundreds of years, are often different among provinces or even among villages, and are unintelligible for even those fluent in Mandarin unless he or she has practiced the local dialect. Gellner would explain this phenomenon quite elegantly in his theories on pre-industrial states, as China is an example of a state still in the process of entering an industrial age of national culture and higher education.
-Enjoy the reading - Yang Li.
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