Den kultiverade människan

by Jonas Frykman, Orvar Löfgren

.The culture of the bourgeoisie gradually came to dominate European society during the nineteenth century. Jonas Frykman and Orvar Löfgren examine how this new style of life developed and how it spread. They focus on Swedish society from 1880 to 1910, conceptualizing events and behavior in a way that applies to western culture in general during that era, and illustrate their yhemeswith contemporary photographs.  Through their interpretation, we are reminded that middle-class culture is only one alternative among many, and not always the best.

Culture Builders deals primarily with the ways in which ideas about the good and proper life are anchored in the trivialities and routines of everyday life: in the sharing of a meal, in holiday-making, and in the upbringing of children.  The authors describe how the attitudes of the bourgeoisie toward. Time and time-keeping set them apart from the peasantry. Uses and perceptions of naturals increasingly divided the classes.  For peasants, nature consisted of natural resources to be used. Fr the bourgeoisie, nature had only non-productive connotations.  Another change was the growing importance of home over the community.  Life became a romantic ideal, not an economic necessity.  For the first time, parents became self-conscious about how to raise their children.

Frykman and Lögnen also show how the middle-class developed new perceptions of dirt, pollution, orderliness, health, sexuality, and bodily functions, and how they disdained the filth of peasant households. By stressing refinement, rationality, morality, and discipline, the middle classes were able to differentiate themselves not only from the peasants, but also from the degenerate aristocracy and the disordered and uncontolled emerging working class.  The bourgeoisie viewed their own form of culture as the highest on the evolutionary ladder, and turned it into a national culture against which all other groups would be measured.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Anthropology, Academic, Swedish Literature

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1979

Reviews

[Simone Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the introduction to this book, I felt there were some pretty deliberate attempts to convince us that this book is universal in nature, and can be applied to ALL middle classes. I agree, especially since the causes of middle class origin are relatively uniform throughout the world, however I think Culture Builders draws almost entirely from Swedish history and cultural anecdotes- there was much discussion of peasant tradition, natural practices, and the like.

So was it universal in scope? Not really. Only partly. But was it an interesting hybrid exploration of Swedish culture and the emergence of the middle class? Absolutely.

[Epp · Rating 5 out of 5]

Soovitan sajaga. Aitab lahtisema silmaga vaadata minevikku ja argipäeva. Nalja sai ka.

[Guðrún Úlfarsdóttir]

Það var margt mjög áhugavert í henni! Rosalega Svíþjóðarmiðuð en fær mann alveg til að hugsa um hversdagsleikann. Las hana fyrir skólann.

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

lättläst men visar upp bönder och borgare som två enkelt uppdelade och oproblematiska klasser/stånd

[Linn J · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intressant och inspirerande läsning inför min uppsats skrivning

[Sanna Bergkvist · Rating 4 out of 5]

Läste upplaga 2!

[Reading]

《美好生活：中产阶级的生活史》[瑞典] 奥维·洛夫格伦、乔纳森·弗雷克曼。

用各种规则将自身与他人及阶级区分开来，将不间断地继续着一个又一个对自我的定义。

[Becca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read most of it for a uni course.

[Francis Laufkvist]

Bók fyrir skólann. Mjög fín bara og smá mind-blowing

[eden !]

dnf after 2 chaps i had to read for a class but i can’t get thru it smh im searching up a summary

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book starts with a definition of "culture" from a 1911 standard Swedish encyclopedia, Nordisk familjebok, which constructs culture in terms of middle class values such as "milder manners," "advanced forms for the organiztion of society," individualism, sciences, sensitivity and rational/scientific thought. The authors say that "[i]n a way this is a study of the culture behind this definition of culture, a study of the making of the middle-class world view and life-style in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Sweden" (1). The authors restrict the study mainly to the period between 1880 and 1910 in Sweden, though they do farther backward in time as well as forward to emphasize the construction of mainstream culture in Sweden. They claim that middle class culture opposed not only aristocratic classes, but also looked at peasant and working class cultures to constuct thier sense of selfhood against. They are interested in the ways that middle class values became naturalized as Swedish. They analyze middle class or bourgeois as Swedish contempoary culture inherited a great deal from them (5). They do this through juxtaposing ethnological accounts of peasant and working class culture with middle class accounts of themselves. They point out that the ethnological accounts about peasants and working class were written by the middle class scholars and thus reflect middle class evaluations of peasant/working class culture. They also note that as the emerging power class, they did not expend a great deal of energy documenting themselves and their reflections on history often come across as nostalgia.

The first section of the book was written by Orvar Löfgren, who focuses on the differing ways that middle class viewed time, nature and home from the ways that peasants and working classes. In the first chapter on time, he discusses the ways that middle classes rationalized time. Peasants lived created culture around natural seasons and church calendars. Time for the peasant was hetregenous and organic, centering around work (harvest time, planting time, etc). Middle classes constructed time in accordance to rationalized parts, minutes, seconds etc, for to better manage the creation of commerce. Labor was less about the time when something was done and more about selling his time, efficiently. (need to finish my notes on this, so ha!)

One thing that I feel the book lacks: the authors do not really deal with literature, and literary folklore. While the anthropological approach was becoming dominant, they leave out the ways that literary folklore faded; it is a untraced thread.

[Yifan (Evan) Xu (Hsu) · Rating 3 out of 5]

“美好生活”是中产阶级对自身文化、生活方式的解读，并不代表其他阶层。本书其实也就是在谈中产阶级文化的起源，从中我们可以看到中产阶级价值观的各个方面。我认为对这些价值观的体现才是本书的真正价值。
　　
　　那么中产阶级的价值观与其文化、财富、社会地位的关系是什么呢？
　　本书没有提及，但在这里做一个总结。西方社会中产价值观源自于西方社会本身，它们是中产阶级从西方社会积累的各类价值观中择优挑选出来的。这些价值观，在西方近代社会里，是无产阶级中的任何人，按照正常发展轨迹，获得财富和社会地位的必要条件。它们一共有五个：未来倾向、自律、服从、有序、和对财富的欲望。
　　
　　本书着重描述了自律和有序。
　　
　　自律主要指控制人自身的欲望。本书强调中产阶级对性欲的控制、对不雅行为的克制和对不适合在公开场合表达的情感的控制。这些社会教条在维多利亚时代的达到巅峰，在维时代的文学作品里得到集中反映。
　　
　　有序源于资本主义所提倡的社会分工。事实上，中产阶级的诞生是伴随着资本主义的发展。因此从初始，中产就认为分工合作、有序的进行生产劳动同样适用于家庭和社会体制。
　　
　　此外，本书的另一亮点在于揭示了中产的家庭生活，包括婚恋、子女教育、家庭生活等等，并提供了大量丰富详实的案例，让读者从中可以推论中很多有趣的结论。比如，中产父权家庭的本质是双头制，因为女性也可以使用很多方式获得家庭权力。

[Basse · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a Swede, this is a mighty interesting book that tracks cultural development in Sweden over the centuries.