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Explored are the issues relating to interdisciplinary studies as they arise specifically in the study of culture. It is argued that as "disciplines themselves are unstable & shifting in character, so also is the notion of interdisciplinarity." The central issue that arises is whether the concepts, categories & methods of investigation employed in the understanding of new types of entities that have been brought into being by the activity of men are the same or radically different from those that are used effectively in the understanding of phenomena subsumed under the term "Nature." The world of culture of course presupposes the world of nature, as without it there would be no embodiment of meaning or its transmission from one being to another. But besides nature it also presupposes a creative being who comprehends meanings & values & tries to objectify them outside himself so that he can apprehend them in an objective manner & also communicate to other human beings through such embodied objectivation. The importance of culture in a particular tradition may therefore itself be a function of the importance that objectivation & embodiment enjoy in that culture. The relationship between man & culture is thus as diverse as the ways in which man himself may be conceived. Culture may thus be understood as arising from the dialectic between what one has created & the demand to understand what one has created -- a dialectic that may be said to arise from the very nature of self-consciousness itself. Beyond this, however, is the dialectic between knowledge & action combined with the situation that actions determined by knowledge do not distinguish between falsity & truth of the knowledge concerned, but rather depend more on the degrees to which the belief in their truth is entertained. There is in fact no clear-cut dichotomy between belief about reality & reality itself in the social sciences at least to the extent that it does seem to obtain in the natural sciences. Further, as belief relates to imagination & plays an integral role in the creation of sociocultural reality it follows that imagination is much more central to culture than most people have thought it to be. The central issues about cultural reality therefore seem always to cluster around self-consciousness which not only is enmeshed in the awareness of value but always expresses itself in alternative ways because it is reflexive in character. The understanding of culture therefore is a perpetual challenge to all those who believe in only one way of understanding the world, whether it be the empiricist or the idealist way of of understanding it. Modified AA.

POLITICAL SCIENCE HAS IGNORED MANY CRITICAL ASPECTS OF THE 'LEISURE CULTURE'. TO REMEDY THIS, A NEW PERSPECTIVE IN POLITICAL STUDIES SHOULD BE DEVELOPED. THE LEISURE CULTURE HAS A POWERFUL EFFECT ON THE POLITICAL CULTURE THROUGH THE SUPPORT OFFERED FOR POLITICAL AIMS, WHILE GOVERNMENT POLICIES GREATLY AFFECT THE LEISURE CULTURE. THE MAJOR CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POLITICS & CULTURE INCLUDE: (1) RECIPROCAL INTERACTION BETWEEN POLITICS & CULTURE, (2) CULTURAL POLICY, CLASS, & DISSENT, & (3) AN INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT. TO DEVELOP A POLITICAL SCIENCE THAT ENCOMPASSES BOTH POLITICS & CULTURE, THE DISCIPLINE SHOULD BE STUDIED LESS & THE CULTURE MORE. 1 FIGURE. MODIFIED AUTHOR'S SUMMARY.

Culture politique et politique culturelleToute activité non-professionnelle vouée à la poursuite des loisirs possède sa propre culture, laquelle influence la culture politique. La culture des loisirs constitue done un composant important de la formulation des demandes politiques d'une société. De même, les politiques gouvernementales ont un effet sur la culture des loisirs. A l'aide de multiples exemples, l'auteur illustre ces influences mutuelles entre culture des loisirs et culture politique, influences qui s'avèrent être beaucoup plus complexes et étendues qu'on ne le croit.La science politique actuelle, en négligeant aussi bien les aspects « input-output » de la culture des loisirs que ses effets sur la culture politique, en est venue à ignorer l'existence d'une partie essentielle de la réalité politique et sociale. Bien que l'étendue de cette ignorance ne permette pas pour le moment de déterminer jusqu'à quel point il sera nécessaire de reviser le champ d'étude et les méthodes de la science politique, il n'en demeure pas moins que le crucial probléme des dimensions politiques de la culture des loisirs doive reçevoir à court terme une attention toute particulière de la part des chercheurs. Cette tâche est d'autant plus urgente que la culture des loisirs a des implications importantes pour le contrôle de la pensée individuelle et collective.

The dichotomy of popular vs elite art is explored. During the eighteenth century, previous concepts of specific arts were replaced by a concept of art as a unity seeking a new integral mythology, a concept shaped by Romanticism. This movement has a central image: the artist in conflict over whether to follow his own inspirations or the demands of the market. Low culture, based on mass production, confronts high culture, & the two mutually deny one another. Rejections of mass culture tend to take the form of movements; rejections of the avant garde generally take the form of affirmations of isolated great works. The recognition that art can become mass culture implies the unexplored possibility that mass culture can become art. In the struggle to emancipate works of art from religious values, art has become an expression of a religious impulse. There is a need to recognize the finiteness of art works & to include the nonelite arts in a concept of art that includes all expressions of the impulse to artistic creation. The ultimate direction of this is reduction of the differences between life & art. W. H. Stoddard.