Pop culture tends low-brow because that is where most peoples' tastes run, whether in food, music, pictures, reading, architecture, style, etc. The big money is in lowbrow mass market. That's fine.
It's not really an economic class thing although it might correlate in some ways. I consider myself solidly middle-brow, but have tried to educate my appreciation and enjoyment of the finer things all of my life. I may be partly limited by my IQ and by my imagination. I suppose we all have tastes that sometimes run the gamut. I love the Beatles and I love Bach.
Hillary Clinton had herself photographed lunching at Chipotle to indicate that she can relate to lowbrow tastes. That was just once. Where does she usually lunch without the press? Not Chipotle or McDonalds, I am sure. She looks well-fed.
I'd consider T.S. Eliot to be a highbrow. From A Culture Warrior Contemplates Defeat:
A Culture Warrior Contemplates Defeat
In his 1948 essay, Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, T.S. Eliot argued that the highest levels of culture are only attainable by relatively small groups of people, and that in order for a civilization to sustain high culture a class system of some kind is necessary. Because culture is transmitted primarily through the family and religion—not schools—and because it relies to a large extent on these particular loyalties for its perpetuation, when these institutions fail, “we must expect our culture to deteriorate.”
I am not alarmed. High culture is alive and well. Silent snobbery is good, but spoken snobbery is snotty and you have to be careful because some people with proletarian tastes are darn smart and just unilluminated. Well, sometimes snobbery is appropriate. During the Renaissance, 99% of Western people were illiterate peasants who never heard of Michelangelo. Admittedly, they had some exposure to fine things if they went to a cathedral, but they never did - or maybe one pilgrimage in their life. I try to remember that Verdi was the rock star of his time, far from "high culture". How many Greeks studied Plato?
There are cultural elites just as their are elites in every other arena of life. We ordinary people rely on our elites for many good things.
Two highbrows talking on TV. Right-wing neanderthal dude on the left played Bach on the harpsichord to relax at his seaside home in Stamford, CT. and had a pianny on his sailboat. If you are too young to know, Bill Buckley and Gore Vidal:
