"The British public are barbarians" says Jeremy Paxman

According to Newsnight presenter Paxman, the British are barbarians as they prefer to spend their time watching tv than appreciating art and visiting galleries. I half agree with him in the sense that much of modern tv is reality rubbish and its getting worse. However he completely ignores the fact that the blame for this lies in the liberal commercialisation of television since the mid-90s and also with the art establishment who have clearly failed to make art galleries interesting to a wide spectrum of people.
I've met people of Paxman's mindset & can guarantee that they don't really care about education or art but rather about using their often limited cultural knowledge to belittle others and attach to themselves a sense of status. Very lower middle class.