Folklore and Worldview

Toelken claims that worldview, in the case of folklore, "refers to the manner in which a culture sees and expresses its relation to the world around it," (1). These worldviews, or perceptions of reality, are strongly influenced by the culture in which they are cultivated.

In relation to folklore, research has indicated that the line between folk culture and formal culture is extremely blurry (as we have quickly found in our class discussions).

That the author decided to point this out quickly caught my interest and put him up a notch in the legitimacy category in my book. Mainly, this is because how I feel on the subject. And I have debated similar terms in the past. A topic that invigorated me in high school was the line that distinguishes art from everything else. There are many theories on the topic. Some say anything with utilitarian value can't be art; others place value on an item that hinges upon the time it took to produce it. But I was fascinated by modernists. When the modernists first came onto the scene the popular subscription was to a line which had "high art" cherished and left everything else in limbo. Modernists told them to shove it. They would open an art gallery with one of the items being a toilet entitled "The Great Equalizer." They decorated the museums with toilet paper (on the outside AND the inside). They pushed the question of "What it art?" further than anyone had ever done before.

Is folk culture, one that depends so heavily on informality, going to rigidly stand by a definition of folk culture? What is there now has always been and always will be? If the merchants of capitalism capture a folk trend and popularize it for as long as it is profitable (which probably won't be long); will it always fall to the wayside, never to be acknowledged by folk culture again?

Or is folk culture nothing more than the spirit of frontier living and all of its advantages and consequences? Whatever can be done without the need for industry and press; done with the bare hands and the naked brain will be accepted as folk?

I think the latter is an attractive concept. Everyday life for some and guilty escapism for others. It is not looking back at a glorified past. It is the simple need to make the present seem like safe space. Space in which tools that folk culture provides can produce a endless number of frontiers for posterity to enjoy.