For centuries the upper crust had an appreciation for the arts. But to enjoy the arts required person to think, to meditate, and to engage the mind and the soul. This new brand of entertainment, increasingly being enjoyed by the masses, was mindless. It was “about gratification rather than edification, indulgence rather than transcendence, reaction rather than contemplation, escape from moral instruction rather than submission to it.”
In other words, they new forms of entertainment gaining popularity with the ordinary man were nothing more than senseless fun—and loved for just that reason. The elite hated entertainment for the same reasons that the working class delighted in it. The elite loved art, Shakespeare, excellent, thought-provoking literature and classical music while the masses were swooped off their feet by dime novels, ear-splitting music, and trash of all kinds.
Gary Gilley, This Little Church Went to Market, pg.25
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