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Globalization has permeated all aspects of social life (economic, political, cultural) and affected the daily life of people. Postindustrial society and postmodern culture have made a significant impact on the transformation of identities, which have truly become liquid - multidimensional, discontinuous, decentralized, fragmented, unstable and inconstant. Parallel with this, new tendencies in culture have almost completely narrowed the boundary between high and popular creativity, thus challenging the status of the established, until then recognized values. These changes have also become evident in the contemporary Serbian society, which is obsessed by preserving the tradition and long-developed identities. By chance, that society has had one foot in the postmodern information world, with the other stuck in the quagmire of old habits and misconceptions inherited from the period of premodern social awareness. By analysing crucial value aspects (traditionalism, conformism, authoritarianism and nationalism), the author of this paper attempts to provide an explanation (which is the basic precondition for the resolution) of the ambivalent and, seemingly, inescapable situation in which the culture of Serbian society finds itself.

The paper points to the disappearance of the division of art into 'high' and 'popular', with a particular emphasis on popular music, which under given circumstances adopts certain aesthetic standards of classical music forms. The authors also analyse the reverse process: the popularisation of classical music, in the composing-arranging and the performing sense. Particular attention is paid to the role, status and reach of popular culture/art in contemporary postmodern ventures. In this context, the Beatles represent a paradigmatic example, due to the fact that they used a plethora of postmodern creative procedures. The authors conduct an analysis of two characteristic Beatles' albums (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Beatles, known as 'The White Album') that incorporate the key principles of postmodern aesthetics.

The author of this paper deals with the problem of cultural difference through the analysis of the relationship “us” - “others”. He searches for the answer to the question why the culture of other peoples or individuals are often considered inferior in many societies. This type of treatment leads to the extreme where the position of the “other” is reduced to the level of “primitive” (less valuable, lowly, and brutal). In such a context, the author analyzes theoretical concepts of the Enlightenment rationalism of the 18th century and the anthropological evolutionism of the 19th century, believing that the roots of the negative assessment of the “other” can be found in them. Namely, the majority of these theories conduct a hierarchization of culture according to the time and value principles, from which peoples and cultures can be classified as “primitive” and “civilized”. European modernism provided the vision of history as one of linear growth, which led to modern cultures being a priori declared more valuable and culturally more sublime. However, modern cultures are also classified among themselves according to value principles. The differentiation of cultures is performed using various stereotypes, and the idea of progress as rational improvement in the sphere of material culture, science, and technology legitimizes the transformation of the different (other) into primitive. From this prejudice, according to the author, emerges the Eurocentric thought on the exclusiveness of the European culture, which latently justifies colonialism and other negative phenomena coming from the European civilization. Primitivism is being presented as an objective state, while it is, in fact, the case of a social construction which has the aim of proclaiming the “other” as “primitive”.

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