Common culture (low)

I decided to address From Dawn to Decadence again when I heard that Barzun died.

He has some lively lines, and interesting asides.

When secularism came to prevail, Bible reading disappeared among the majority, and with it the background of ideas and allusion common to all. In this role, the only ecumenical replacement one can think of is the daily newspaper's comic strip.

That's a bit dated. The daily newspaper is a little less common than it used to be, and I'm not sure what TV shows everybody watches. I'm told that for news it is FOX vs the rest (except for those of us who get news online), but once the news is over what I don't know what people look at.

We've managed to get political divides, racial divides, language divides--lots of AVI's tribes. I wonder what bits of culture they have in common. I guess some sports bridge the divides, but they provide a rather limited common language.

Language divides aside, do the groups even tend to like the same comics? Doonesbury and Mallard Fillmore play to different political affiliations. I found Boondocks pretty obscure, but I suspect I wasn't the target audience. Did anybody not like Calvin and Hobbs? (You're not limited to what your newspaper has; literally thousands of different strips are online and those who've invested in a smartphone can read their favorites after reviewing facebook.)

There's a topic for some sociology students (if they can resist the temptation to survey only college students!): figure out the favorite comic strips past and present as a function of age, political affiliation, race, religion and religiosity, educational attainment...

Although it's a scary thought that perhaps the only things our tribes have in common are a liking for football and Fox Trot. There's not enough for a common language there.