Culture Lag

We were sitting, Nosher and I, on our old deckchairs in the shade behind Nosher's shed one afternoon, after a morning spent gardening on our little allotment patches in the patchy sunshine.
Soothed by the effect of Nosher's excellent home-made parsnip wine, we dozed for a while enjoying our relaxation. Then Nosher woke me with a sudden statement:
'What do you think of the idea that the great majority of the human population lag behind the best minds of any generation in their appreciation of the culture and the intellectual achievements of their own time?'
I scratched my head, or rather my mind, trying to take this in.
'Where did you get this idea from?' I asked.
'It suddenly came to me' Nosher replied.
'Well, I don't think you could claim it is true of popular culture' I said 'because that appears to spread like a brush fire through the ignorant and impressionable of any generation.'
Nosher frowned.
'I specified the "best" minds!' he protested.
'OK, in that case your idea appears to have some merit' I assured him. 'It seems reasonable to suppose that the most impressive insights offered to the rest of us by the best minds of our generation are not necessarily going to be the easiest to understand. In which case we might be said to be lagging behind them. But what are you trying to say with this idea?'
Nosher appeared to think for a moment. Then he said:
'Only that it's probably wise not to jump to premature conclusions.'
More from www.overthegardenfence.blogspot.com soon.
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