A while ago, a group of art lovers burned the famous graffiti artist Banksy's work "Fool" and broadcast it live, and then auctioned a unique electronic version of the painting for a high price of $380,000. This is not an exception. One of Banksy's paintings was once sold at a high price of $23.1 million.

Although Banksy is a world-renowned graffiti artist, he has never shown his true face to the public. One of his most famous photos is of a supermarket shopping bag as a hood and a frivolous smile on the bag. His works are just like the smile on his face, giving people a feeling of Robin Hood. He leaves his graffiti to uphold justice in New York, Philadelphia, London, Paris, etc.

As one of the most casual forms of art, graffiti is undoubtedly associated with words such as "street" and "public". In some parts of the world, Banksy's actions even violate laws and regulations: the police cleared a work he did in London. But now, to everyone's surprise, the elites have begun to cherish this kind of culture. The reasons behind this are worth discussing.

From ancient times to the present, whether it is religions such as Christianity and Islam, or the authoritative sociological theories of Karl Marx or Max Weber, there must be a distinction between high and low classes in society. High culture includes the culture of the elites, while popular culture includes the culture of the commons people. When it comes to high culture, what comes out of your mind is a thunderstorm, Matilda, horse racing, Chopin, etc. For popular culture, it is generally TikTok, basketball, rugby, and hip-hop music.

As a street artist, Banksy is naturally a representative of popular culture.

To understand this phenomenon, we must find the answer from the social relations reflected by the culture. As it is universally acknowledged, there is no superiority or inferiority between different cultures. For example, the skills required to complete a well-made graffiti are no less than that of a statue. However, people still think that graffiti represents vulgarity and that sculpture represents elegance? The reason is that the people who appreciate them are entirely different. Whether in Western Europe or China, thousands of years of feudalism have directly led to the relative consolidation of classes. In the long-term social practice, the things that the elite and the public contact and appreciate are very different, leading to the significant difference between the aesthetics of the two. But at present, mainstream values undoubtedly advocate cultural tolerance and openness. The highly developed search engine has led to the continuous depreciation of information. Confronting Google, Bing, or Baidu, everyone is ignorant. The superiority of the elite in terms of information is no longer as obvious as it used to be. On the other hand, inequality in the United States increased after the 1980s. Professor Shamus Khan from Princeton University suggested his answer in the book Privilege The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Pauls School : "New elites" who believe meritocracy, rather than elitism, is gradually emerging. In this era, the elites removed their cultural barriers from the general public and accepted multiculturalism. It is the ordinary people who are stuck in the cultural barriers and could not have access to the outside world. American elite education rarely allows students to memorize knowledge points by rote because when it comes to recitation, nobody can outsmart search engines. In the current era, what distinguishes the elite from the masses is receiving and processing information. For the elite, exposure to popular culture, such as graffiti, can broaden their horizons. On the contrary, popular culture is all ordinary people can have. They cannot and do not tolerate other cultures. At the same time, true elites have already crossed cultural barriers and regarded their vision as a sign of the kind of people they represent.

Reference: Khan, Shamus. Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul's School . Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2011.