Introduction

"Mass culture" and "etatisation" represent two related sets of attacks on popular culture. This chapter discusses a common theme in the question of modernity and mass culture. In the vocabularies of modernisation theory, modernity is a desirable achievement. The rosy picture of modernity may not be sustainable, and the notion of convergence may have to be tempered and qualified by ideas on traditional persistence or cultural continuities, but the basic scheme of contrast between tradition and modernity, and of some process of economic/technology led development in the direction of modernity persist. Conceptions and practices of modernity, and attitudes towards it in this context are complex and multi—layered. Symbols and representations of modernity become stakes in ideological struggles between different camps of nationalists, liberals and religious fundamentalists. Representations of modernity coexist with practices which belie them. The idea of modernity, at least in the discursive context of modernisation theory, had an optimistic and positive moral valency.