Conclusion

Abstract

This book has examined the tensions between formal and substantive rationality; between courses of action which are instrumentally rational and those which are formulated with particular cultural values in mind; between impersonal forces and creative impulses; between the logic of profit and the ambiguity of aesthetics; between a tendency to like what we are trained to like and affective or contrarian impulses; between taste as power and taste as an individualized performance; between the steely logic of the measurable and the qualities of all that is human and immeasurable. Within each person, there is a complex meshing of motives that underpins every instance of social action. As Weber (1968[1913], p, 27) wrote, ‘[i]t would be very unusual to find concrete cases of action, especially of social action, which were oriented only in one way or another’. Similarly, in each cultural object, there is a complex meshing of elements. Those which are replicable, calculable and standardized exist alongside those which are ambiguous, aesthetic and unique. Even when an object, sold on the global culture market, becomes a failure or success when measured in the terms of sales figures or revenue generation, it might nevertheless achieve failure or success on entirely different terms as audiences evaluate its aesthetic properties in relation to other similar objects that belong to the same category of cultural production.