“Culture, like religion, is a name given from outside to activities which are not themselves interested in culture at all, and would be ruined the moment they were. I do not mean that we are never to talk of things from the outside. But when the things are of high value and very easily destroyed, we must talk with great care, and perhaps the less we talk the better. To be constantly engaged with the idea of culture, and (above all) of culture as something enviable, or meritorious, or something that confers prestige, seems to me to endanger those very ‘enjoyments’ for whose sake we chiefly value it. If we encourage others, or ourselves, to hear, see, or read great art on the ground that it is a cultured thing to do, we call into play precisely those elements in us which must be in abeyance before we can enjoy art at all” (C.S. Lewis, The World’s Last Night, pp. 33-34).
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