Some Aspects of Mass Culture

Casting an indulgent eye on the merry-making of Flemish peasants, Breughel found it brutish, vulgar, lusty, gluttonous, bibulous and, possibly, dulling. Yet, nothing in his canvases suggests the suspicion that the feudal lords might have devised the popular culture of their time the better to keep the peasantry in submission. Pious monks might have believed that the Devil was to blame, but no serious historian would credit such views today. We condone superstition with reference only to our o...