I quite like the article and found it interesting. I'm a Brit and you have to realize British publications like the Economist tend to take the piss out of Europe a bit, especially the Eurovision song contest.
Well, you're British and this is a British publication targeting you :-)
In the past Italy sent its B team - and TBH san remo has much better strike rate for good songs.
The main point of watching (UK perspective) is for the cometary, The late Terry Wogan and now Graham Norton ) and to see how few points the UK gets
What do you mean by that? There were of course borders, and they were certainly enforced.
Until the late 18th century travellers were more likely to be monitored at the district or parish level. During the French revolutionary wars the Jacobins began to issue foreign travellers with a carte de sureté on arrival at the French border, but these early ‘passports’ were dependent on the ideological affiliations of the holder rather than their nationality and subsequently fell into disuse after the Napoleonic Wars.
For much of the 19th century border control was sporadic and often non-existent, as millions of people migrated from Europe to the New World or within Europe itself without any passports or documentation. In 1942 the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig recalled the amazement of young people when he told them he had travelled across the world without a passport before the First World War.
The situation had started to change following the global economic slump in 1873, when governments began to introduce immigration controls based on nationality and ethnicity for the first time. In 1882 the US government passed the first Chinese Exclusion Act in response to racist ‘Yellow Peril’ lobbying from California politicians. In 1885 Bismarck ordered the expulsion of 40,000 Polish workers from Germany to prevent the ‘Polonization’ of Prussia. In 1897 the South African colony of Natal introduced a language test for immigrants, which barred entry to anyone who could not fill out an application form in English – a test that was specifically intended to eliminate ‘coolie’ labour from India. The ‘Natal formula’ was also introduced in Australia in order to keep out Chinese migrant workers.
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/history-matters/beyond-...
Both in the social scene (upper-middle classes and above travelling around Europe), and in the explicit and implicit exchange of influences and ideas between philosophers, writers, poets, musicians, painters, and so on.
Opera, music, art, literature etc
I thought OP was referring to the fact European upper noble families were all blood related and shared the same interests.
They sit around in their special sphere saying things like “The Economist is pretentious, market-driven, and stupid, like Eurovision.”
Then they say “Yeah bro, high five!” like Borat.
I’m not sure what you mean by “more than” pop culture.
There is good art and bad art in all genres, which are just mediums of cultural communication that reach different audiences.
I didn’t understand the reductionist criticism of The Economist, which I have found to publish numerous examples of good criticism and bad criticism, about a range of topics, mostly to do with economics, and occasionally culture.
I don’t think culture is The Economist’s forte. They probably don’t either, except when cultural platforms have measurable economic consequences.
Basically that aside from there being "good art and bad art in all genres" there are is also more substantial and less substantial forms and artistic cultures.