When I scan the business sections of various newspapers, I come across interviews with various prominent business figures and sometimes there's a section where they're asked about recreational activities (to allow them to demonstrate what rounded personalities they have, presumably) - their favourite films, books, and the like.
Their answers here are very often - not always, but depressingly often - the most banal, the most obvious, the most dumbed down you can possibly think of, e.g. 'Titanic' for favourite film, 'The Da Vinci code' for favourite book, that kind of thing.
Now I used to think this was simply because they have sacrificed their intellectual life or their 'inner life' to their careers to such a great extent that they do honestly think 'The Da Vinci Code' is the height of literature, but it occurs to me that, in some cases at least, they're not actually that stupid.
It occurs to me that some of them don't want to 'scare' their public by appearing in any way 'intellectual' or 'elitist'. Because, to be honest, of the self made people I've met, one or two seriously wealthy, they are not stupid individuals. Quite the contrary.
I am reminded of the part in 'Brave New World' where Mustapha Monda admits to Helmholtz Watson that he has actually read quite a few of the banned classics himself, but insists that the masses, even the Alpha class, must not be allowed the same opportunity, as that will only make them think too much.
C.P. Snow wrote in the 1950's about the division between science and the arts:-
The Two Cu - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Well now we have a whole cadre of so-called educated people who know nothing of EITHER the sciences, OR the arts, but whose SOLE interest is in asset accumulation.
"Art, science, you seem to have played a fairly high price for your happiness. Anything else?" as the Savage asked the World Controller.