mass culture. cultural spaces: Hadrians wall.
Question
Cultural products, rituals, and commodities don’t just come from shopping malls.
We experience culture in many different spaces and through different events. Sports stadiums, street festivals, museums, national holidays, and rites of passage like weddings,
are all spaces where we experience and consume culture. examine how it is both a cultural and capitalist product.
What can we learn about culture, experience, and capitalism when we look closely at these spaces or events? To answer this question you need to consider how these spaces or events look, what they are for, and what people actually do there. You might also want to think about who is included or excluded. You also need to consider how these places are affected by consumerism and capitalism. These are spaces of community and culture but
also business and industry. Remember you are being asked to use course material, so you also need to think about theories like atomization, folk culture versus mass culture, and industrialization.
I want these ideas I laid out above and the ones that are present in the files I posted to be applied to one specific cultural monument. examine how it is both a cultural and capitalist product.
The monument or cultural space is Hadrian's wall. The emphasis should be to use the files I posted however use any other source that is relevant or helpful.
I've put the discipline as other but please keep me informed about the assigned writer's expertise. I think sociology would be appropriate.


Solution
Hadrian’s Wall Cultural
Monument
Cultural products
enhance the living standards and well-being of both communities and individuals
worldwide. Monuments form part of these products, which serve varied functions
to communities that engage with them or bear close relationships. Thus, when
some members of a particular community come up with them, they tend to
communicate achievements, multiple ideas and values to the societies they stand
for. The Hadrian’s Wall built from stones enacted theories concerning its
purpose, which revolve around controlling northern indigenous people, immigration,
and smuggling. Therefore, this paper aims to examine cultural products, the
appearance and purpose of Hadrian’s Wall.
In
the past three centuries, Hadrian’s Wall was innovatively constructed by
specialists from the Roman army who had special experience in architecture,
engineering, and masonry. Nevertheless, it took around 1500 men to complete the
construction of the ambitious project after six years. The Wall stretched
approximately 120 kilometers across the width of the land, and about 17
fortifications alongside the length of the Wall and a ditch with the dimensions
of 6 meters wide and 3 meters deep, which run parallel to the Wall (Breeze, 2019).
Consequently, the presence of packed earth in the ditch renders the project to
be interpreted as a defensive mechanism meant to curb invasions emerging from
the northern bay. On the other hand, the fortifications were guarded by Roman
soldiers who happen to be non-citizens recruited into the army and stationed
away from their homeland; they interact in their residential centers as they
share and their varied cultures. Additionally, several Roman Cavalry barracks
were established alongside the Wall, where soldiers resided in the back end
rooms since their horses lived in the front part of the room, partitioned by a narrow
wall (Breeze, 2019).
Consequently,
the diverse tribes who inhabited southern Scotland were potential threats to
the Roman territories. Moreover, the rampant raids took over in provinces
towards western Rome where slaves were captured and constantly steal cattle
from the fourth century. Therefore, the Wall helped them monitor the flow of
individuals between the south and north hence enabling few Roman soldiers to
fight against the potential threats (Breeze, 2019). Under the same token, while
searching for a location to establish the best military network to defend
themselves against the legitimate threats from the north, they preferably chose
the southwest region of Britain with a narrow path; hence, embrace most
topographical features in the area to gain competitive advantage. Conversely,
the Hadrian’s Wall has never served as a boundary between Scotland and England
though widely believed. However, it portrays many benefits to the world’s
heritage site and a popular tourist attraction. Furthermore, due to the Wall’s
archeological remains, its structures take varied forms, making it crucial for
archeological research and education. For instance, the stones used in building
the Wall have been dismantled, conserved, and re-used (Breeze, 2019).
Currently,
in Britain’s eastern and western regions, several aboveground remains exist despite
their reduced dimensions. Therefore, these archeological remains play a key
role in the economic sector since it forms fascinating sites for recreation and
other related cultural consumption. Moreover, in the central region of the
heritage site, wall structures are well preserved, they can be read easily, and
a significant section named Clayton wall conserved and reconstructed where most
of the landscape structures such as earthworks and ditches are still survive. Additionally,
dozens of forts, fortlets and mile castles are conserved, extracted and
interpretation concerning them is made to the public. Therefore, the Hadrian’s
Wall world heritage (HWTP) was formed in 1993 to champion the development of
reliable tourism for the Hadrian’s Wall World Heritage Site location. According
to Marx’s theory of commodity fetishism, a commodity remains simple only if it
bears a direct relationship with its use-value. Therefore, cultural sites such
as Hadrian’s Wall, the value it provides to the communities residing around it and
tourists, some expect them to foster economic tools for regions, communities or
nations. However, serious conflicts emanate from incompatible expectations due
to diverse human needs (Apter, 2018).
On the other hand,
capitalism and industrialization reduce the cultural spaces required for
recreation and archeological research. Consequently, the space utilized for
building houses, agricultural farming and industrial infrastructure demanded
the demolition of some sections of Hadrian’s Wall, which indicates the
influence of capitalism and urbanization on the consumption of cultural
activities (Kellner, 2012). On the other hand, recent studies have shown that
civilians have extensively settled alongside the Wall of Hadrian, which denotes
exclusive exploitation of cultural spaces though paves the way for major
discoveries in due course. For example, archeologists scratch the top surface
of the Hadrian’s Wall, unlike civilian settlers who dig deeper while
constructing their settlement structures. Additionally, in the 18th
century, Hadrian’s Wall was utilized to route a new road passing through
Cumbria and Northumberland. Proceeding, General Wade began constructing a new
route beginning from Newcastle to Carlisle following the Hadrian’s Wall while utilizing
aboveground remains for raw material hence depicting the consumerism.
Theoretically,
Research finding and historical records form part of the information which
enhance cultural values and economic status of a particular cultural setup.
Therefore, heritage practitioners look into preserving cultural resources based
on the theories and underlying information in the site like preservation
intervention, interpretation, and infrastructural development (Brien, 2017). According
to the theory of atomization, a basic unit of society disintegrated into
several parts based on the underlying standards; Hadrian’s Wall transformed soldiers’
lives from defense to camping places such as non-citizens recruited to the army
were posted away from their homeland. Consequently, these soldiers got
privileged to interact with the rest of the soldiers with diversified norms and
cultural engagement practices. Because the structure and life alongside the Wall
had changed, the static communities transformed larger trading centers (Stocks,
2019).
In
addition, cultural products shape the preferences and the taste of different
masses in whereby the consciousness of the parties involved are molded to new
desires. Therefore, actions to eliminate true desires, alternatives and radical
perspectives are dictated by political implications. First, the construction of
Hadrian’s Wall forms part of political implications. For instance, the Wall
restricted the flow of the people between the Romans and tribes from northern
Scotland. Soldiers guarding the Wall against any attacks resided in barracks
where they had hospitals, storehouses and temples. Therefore this kind of
interaction, like worshiping together, tends to alter the tastes and
preferences of the parties engaged (Stocks, 2019).
In
summary, the paper examined the outlook of the cultural monument of Hadrian’s
Wall, purpose, and performance. Furthermore, it examined how cultural products
can be both cultural and capitalist products. Finally, the implications of
consumerism, capitalism and theories underpinning cultural experiences were
elaborated.
References
Kellner, D. (2012). The Frankfurt School
and the Culture Industry. Chapter two, 47-75.
O’Brien’s. (2017). The History of Popular
Culture. Popular Culture: A User’s
Guide, 1-44.
Breeze, D. J. (2019). Hadrian’s Wall: A study in archaeological
exploration and interpretation: The Rhind Lectures 2019. Archaeoress
Publishing Ltd.
Stocks, C. (2019). Stories from the
Frontier: Bridging Past and Present at Hadrian’s Wall. Trends in Classics, 11(1), 139-160.
Apter, E. (2018). Fetishism in Theory:
Marx, Freud, Baudrillard. In Feminizing
the Fetish (pp. 1-14). Cornell University Press.




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