grossly patrician term, but it holds some value. a person distinguishing others by cultured and uncultured ironically enough makes themselves look like a philistine, though. there's essentially no difference in character between the blue-collar roughneck who reads sports journalism and listens to Pearl Jam in his spare time than the European burgher who reads Goethe and listens to Mahler. what ultimately matters is what can be produced by the two. if the two were to really work slaverously at making some lasting artistic contribution, i would gamble that the former probably wouldn't produce something as great as the latter. a lot of great writers were financially stable enough to pursue writing full-time, whereas the roughneck would probably be stymied for such leisures (something i can relate to, as i've worked in warehouses before). but i guess value-laden judgements like that can only be meaningfully articulated through majoritarian preferences, and arguably singers make far more valuable contributions on an economic level. the aesthetic dimension, however, lacks proper definition as of now
it's a tricky business but i think we have certain selection processes for determining what is of more aesthetic or sociocultural value, and it's probably something that extends beyond preference which we are naturally inclined to (as Burke thought). it would be an absolute injustice, for instance, if Taylor Swift were considered a greater writer than Gaddis, and any formal criterion which we currently have for determining such value seems to favour the latter in this scenario