brow-level

English

Alternative forms

• brow level

Noun

brow-level (plural brow-levels)

1. A perceived social affiliation by how highbrow a person’s cultural expression is.
   • 2003, Shin Kap-Han, “Unraveling the Brow: What and How of Choice in Musical Preference”, in Sociological Perspectives‎^[1], volume 46, number 4, →DOI, page 435:

     the central thesis that there is unequal distribution of cultural items across social dimensions is supposed to be upheld. The maps are then read in terms of “brow level,” a shorthand for cultural stratification that mirrors social stratification.

   • 2005, Elizabeth Gregory, ““Combat Cultural”: Marianne Moore and the Mixed Brow”, in Critics and Poets on Marianne Moore: “A Right Good Salvo of Barks”, Bucknell University Press, page 208:

     Clear determination of the brow level of a text was also dubious, both because the level of reflection with which one addressed a given text affected the experience and because the wider culture’s ranking of the brow status of cultural productions often changed over time.

   • 2017 January 27, Jessica Kiang, “Why snobbery is bad for you”, in BBC‎^[2]:

     Reverse snobbery is just another form of snobbery, after all – it’s a peril at any brow-level – and corrosive tides of partisanship along left wing/right wing, liberal/conservative, populist/elitist divides are rising not just in global political discourse, but in the cultural discussion too.