The Study Of New Cultural Intermediaries In The Aestheticization Of Everyday Life

Before the20th century, the philosophy of Everyday life is almost in a neglectedposition in western countries. Until the20th century, everyday life achieved philosophybecause of phenomenology in German. Husserl proposed the concept of "life world",then Schutz, Heidegger, Helle developed and enriched the idea of everyday life in theirresearch field."Everyday life" became a modern concept, comes from Lefebvre, aphilosopher in French, whose critical theory on everyday life had a positive influence tothe later research."The Aestheticization of Everyday Life" is a theory in the postmodern society,which is closely related to consumer culture. Mike Featherstone, a British sociologist,first proposed the "the aestheticization of everyday life". In his opinion, the boundariesbetween art and everyday life were disappearing, and distinct differences between highculture and popular culture has been eliminated in postmodern society. WolfgangWelsch, a Germany aesthetician, also thought that at present aesthetics are developing.He elaborated two kinds of thoughts in Undoing Aesthetics——"shallow aesthetic" and"deep aesthetic".With the trend of economic globalization, scene in post-modern society have beenappearing in first-tier cities in China. Cultural values and life style of Consumer Societyhas been introduced from western countries. Aesthetic activities also has been beyondthe scope of the so-called pure art/literature, permeate our daily life. Aesthetic/artisticactivities also appear in social space, such as city square, garden in the city center andso on. Chinese society is still in the pattern of pluralism that pre-modern, modern andpost-modern coexist, and the daily life aesthetic is not the whole universal reality ofChinese society. However, with the increasingly mature and development of consumerculture, there is no denying the fact that Chinese cities, especially the big cities, areexperiencing the aestheticization of everyday life.The aestheticization of everyday life associated with the transformation of Chinesesociety, also with the new cultural intermediaries. New cultural intermediaries, whohave the abundant cultural capital, are the producers and consumers of symbol. Theyunderstand the market operation rules, and introduce the art into daily life. New culturalintermediaries are management talent of culture industry; they promote the development of cultural industry, and also promote the process of the aestheticization of everydayLife in China.With the help of the media platform, new cultural intermediaries, relying on theirown cultural capital, set up a bridge of communication between the elite culture andpopular culture. In the consumer society, they make the boundaries of aesthetics anddaily life increasingly disappearing, through planning, production, dissemination ofculture goods; they are the subject of the aestheticization of everyday life in China.Though new cultural intermediaries face the embarrassment between culture andthe market, they agree with the way of life of intellectuals, to keep the pursuit ofknowledge and art, to break the cultural barriers, to make and spreading popular culture.We can’t deny their role of "new type of intellectuals". In addition, new culturalintermediaries still maintain the criticism and independent spirit of public intellectual ina market economy and public domain away. They promote the development of theaestheticization of everyday life, and also lead the public participation to theconstruction of public domain.