Buku Culture & Society 1780-1950 (Raymond Williams)

All this work will be difficult, but it could be helped by understanding the context of the four current vocabularies in these matters, for which. Parts of the book have already been published, in other forms, in Essays in Criticism and Universities and Left Review.

CONTENTS

A NINETEENTH-CENTURY TRADITION

3 MILL ON BENTHAM AND COLERIDGE 53

INTERREGNUM

TWENTIETH-CENTURY OPINIONS

4 TWO LITEBARY CRITICS

AN OUTLINE OF DATES The dates given are those in which the

AN OUTLINE OF DATES

INTRODUCTION

However, it is also a recognition of the effect of these changes on society as a whole, which is changing in the same way. INTRODUCTION Common language records the consequences, in England, of the American and French revolutions, and a crucial phase of the struggle at home, for what we would now call demo.

XIV INTRODUCTION

This development, like each of the original meanings and the relations between them, is not accidental, but generally and deeply significant. In my first part I consider a number of nineteenth-century thinkers, many if not all of whom will be familiar to the informed reader, but whose contexts, and even whose individual meanings, can be seen from this point of view in a somewhat different light .

CONTRASTS

4 CULTURE A3SOD SOCIETY 1780-1950

The correctness of this idea is not at first in doubt; and their truth is not to be assessed in the first instance from their usefulness in historical understanding or non-political insight. Burke's writing is an articulated experience, and such is validity that it can survive even the demolition of its general conclusions. It is not that eloquence survives where reason has failed; the eloquence, if it were merely that vein erofacause, would now be worthless. We don't like being superficial. It lacks the nerve to face such a task, it is the degenerate penchant for fooling around with shortcuts and small faulty conveniences that have in some parts of the world created governments with arbitrary powers. 4.

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In terms of democracy being a system which enables individuals to decide how they should govern themselves (this is not a definition, but was common, in relation to the doctrines of individual economics, when Burke was writing), this is a criticism essential.

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If the creation of forms of government is “the known march of the ordinary providence of God,” then even the great changes that Burke opposed might be beyond human control.

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The tenant-right of a cabbage-garden, a year's interest
the real property o the nation into fewer hands; it has
and relative to other matters deemed useful in the con
most important aspect, for Cobbett, was its use of the mon

Unnatural is the constant emphasis, and the word is the cornerstone of a continuing tradition of criticism of the new. It was, of course, a sign of the times that so much of this information should be conveyed in print, but the book includes this part of Cobbett's positive reaction. He wanted to save what he could of household industry and traditional daily skills.

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CONTRASTS #3ressandProspectsofSociety; 1829). The commentary sketches ressandProspects of Society; 1829). The Commentaries outline for us the famous Mr. Owen o Lanark, who, unlike the majority of his contemporaries who had realized the inadequacies of the new society, offered answers where they raised questions; offered confidence where they experienced difficulty; schemes offered, backed by practical success. Owener this, if he had not troubled the better part of the nation by proclaiming, on the most important of a U subjects, opinions equally fatal to individual happiness and to the common good.

4 GUI/TUBE AND SOCIETY 1780-1950

There can be no health, no soundness in the state, till

Government must regard the moral improvement of the people as its first great duty. The same remedy is required for the rich and the poor. He is as staunchly paternalistic and essentially authoritarian as a Tory reformer-like Southey, but he unquestioningly accepts the increase of wealth as the means of culture.

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CONTRASTS ^1 The children were trained and educated without pun

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THE ROMANTIC ARTIST

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THE ROMANTIC ARTIST 35

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THE ROMANTIC ARTIST 37 ever governed by factitious influence, which, under

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THE ROMANTIC AJRTIST 39 Similarly in 1834 Tom Moore spoke of the

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THE ROMANTIC ARTIST 41 tween 'grows' and 'made' was to become the contrast "be

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THE ROMANTIC AHTIST 43 The tendency of Romanticism is towards a vehement re

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TEE ROMANTIC ARTIST

45 more active relationship is essential. The 'something more'

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48 CULTURE AND SOCIETY 1780-1950

The difficulty is that this kind of statement has become entangled with other kinds of responses to the problem of the artist's relations with society. I am sure of nothing but of the sanctity of the heart's affection, and the truth of imagination. Wordsworth, in the Preface to Lyrical Ballads, shows us most clearly how consideration of the poetic process became entangled with more general questions of the artist.

THE ROMANTIC ARTIST 51

The whole action has passed into our common experience, to be there, formulated and unformulated, to move and be explored.

MILL ON BENTHAM AND COLERIDGE

MILL ON BENTHAM ANB COLERIDGE 55 be said to be active. The point is crucial, yet still the piety

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MILL ON BENTHAM AND COLEBJDGE 5/

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MILL ON BENTHAM AND COLERIDGE 59 But is tihds fundamental doctrine of Bentham's political

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Even more than the danger of majority tyranny, Millsaw, when he wrote this essay, was in danger because of the success of the first period of the Industrial Revolution, that national life was dominated by laissez-faife com.

MILL ON BENTHAM AND COLERIDGE 63 doctrine would indeed afford a certain means of relief,

MILL ON BENTBAM AND COLERIDGE 6$

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MILL ON BENTHAM AND COLERIDGE 67 development of those qualities and faculties that char

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MILL ON BENTHAM AND COLEKIDGE 69 change. In the face of the

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MILL ON BENTHAM AND COLE3EODGE 71 Yet for Mill, and for us, the importance lies in the principle

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MILL ON BENTHAM AND COLEKIDGE 75 then only when it would exist for itself instead of being

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THOMAS CARLYLE

THOMAS CARLYLE 79 understand Marx's subsequent tribute to this aspect of Car-

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This belief in mechanism, in the paramount importance of physical things, is in all ages the common refuge of weakness and blind discontent. Despair, or even despondency in that regard, seems to us in any case a groundless feeling. We believe in the indestructible dignity of man; in the high calling to which he has been appointed throughout his earthly history.

THOMAS CAHLYLE

THOMAS CARLYLE 8$

THOMAS CARLYLE 87 mocracy in our kind of society is in fact the spirit of laissez-

THOMAS CARLYLE 89

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THOMAS CABLYLE

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THOMAS CAKLYLE 93 Never, till about a hundred years ago, was there seen

THE INDUSTRIAL NOVELS

THE INDUSTRIAL NOVELS 95 characteristic feelings and responses of families of this land

John Barton in the later parts of the book is certainly a very shadowy figure. In committing murder, he seems to be not only beyond the bounds of Mrs. GaskelFs sympathy (which is understandable), but more significantly.

THE INDUSTRIAL NOVELS 97 feeling within which she was working. It is not only that she

THE INDUSTRIAL NOVELS OQ servations and her attempts to do what good she can. Be

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INDUSTRIAL NOVELS 1O1 trade, as such, is rough. Every name (and Dickens uses his names with conscious and obvious effect) that involves a border involves this typical feeling. Social criticism. The problem concerning Thomas Gradgrind is of a different character. The case against him is good, and his rebuttal with experience is so masterful that it's easy for the modern reader to forget exactly what Gradgrind is. This line is easy enough, but another could easily be drawn: say Thomas Gradgrind, Ed win Chadwick, John Stuart Mill.

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It is significant that Dickens must thus go out of the industrial situation in order to find any expression of his values. This going out is similar to the Canada that Mart/Barton ends, or Margaret Hale's legacy. However, it is also more than this, for it is not merely escapism, but a positive assertion of a certain kind of experience, the denial of which was the true basis (as Dickens saw it) of the hard times, according to the kind of criticism that Dickens made, inevitable that his treatment of industrial workers should be so unsatisfactory.

THE INDUSTRIAL NOVELS 10$

THE INDUSTRIAL NOVELS 10/

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110 C0LTTOE AND SOCIETY

THE INDUSTRIAL NOVELS HI

CULTUBE AND SOCIETY

THE INDUSTRIAL NOVELS 113 which have a parallel in Esther's impulse to speak at the

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It is the mood of the sixties of Shooting Niagara and Culture and Anarchy that holds an incompetent autopsy of the earlier phases of Radicalism. Felix Holt himself is not a character as an imitation: ardle in which heagain appears in the Address to Working Men, by Felix.

THE INBUSTBIAL NOVELS 117

H. NEWMAN AND MATTHEW ARNOLD

Knowledge, indeed, and science is merely expressed in intellectual ideas, but it is not yet the statistic or habit of his intelligence; foreknowledge, its ordinary sense, is the button of its circumstances, indicating a possession or influence; and science is appropriated to the subject itself in relation to it, in relation to it, in relation to it, in relation to it, .

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H. NEWMAN AND MATTHEW ARNOLD 121 tare, received increasing emphasis in opposition to the pow

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H. NEWMAN AND MATTHEW ABNOLD 1^3 TMs aspect of the preparation of Arnold's ground could

H. NEWMAN AND MATTHEW ARNOLD 12$

Nor is it an activity that pertains to individuals alone, or a part or section of society; it is, and should be, es sentially common. Culture and anarchy are primarily a description of this attitude; second, a re-examination of certain dominant nine tenth-century "notions and customs"; and thirdly, a consideration of the influence of this point of view on the progress of society. This is the social fact, and the corresponding social attitudes are described in the common phrase as an overvaluation of 'machinery*: means valued as purposes.

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H. NEWMAN AND MATTHEW ARNOLD 127 from an illiberal, dismal life at Camberwell to an

The literary method is rather a sour romanticism, of which we have had sufficient examples in the common notions of 'Subtopia' in our day. Yet the most influential part of Arnold's work is not this treatment of the 'stock concepts', but his efforts to give his appraisal a practical meaning in society. The few who follow the path to perfection, the harder it is to find/ So all our fellows, in East London and elsewhere, we must join in the progress towards perfection, if.

H. NEWMAN AND MATTHEW ARNOLD 12Q and we must not let the worship of any fetish, any

NEWMAN AND MATTHEW ARNOLD 12Q and we must not allow the worship of any fetish, none. The aristocracy (barbarians) were, as a class, useless because their characteristic virtues were those created by business to protect the status quo. NEWMAN AND MATTHEW AKNO3LD 131 really true, can the state, in practical terms, be really true, can the state, in practical terms, be likely to be considered "the center of light and authority" at all.

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H. NEWMAN AND MATTHEW ARNOLD 133

The aristocracy uses the power and dignity of the State as an instrument for the protection of its own privileges. The middle countries, reacting against this, only seek to reduce State power and to leave perfection to those simple natural laws which somehow arise from unregulated individual activity.

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EL NEWMAN AND MATTHEW ARNOLD 135

Arnold could defend himself against a charge of mere authoritarianism by arguing that it is only concerned with providing that "necessary minimum of order" that would allow the process of civilization and humanization.

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H. NEWMAN AND MATTHEW ABNOLD 137

Now the challenge of the valuations concentrated in the idea of culture was bound to provoke hostility from defenders of the existing system. With such hostility one wants a truce. Yet.

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Weshall, if we are wise, continue to listen to him, and when the time comes to answer, we can scarcely speak better than in his own best spirit. For if we concentrate our attention on a tradition of thought rather than on an isolated man, we shall not be inclined to undervalue what he did and what here represented, or to neglect what he urged. Culture directs our attention to the natural flow of human affairs and its continuous operation, and will not let us fix our faith in any one man and his works.

ART AND SOCIETY

Pugin, of course, wrote with an obvious polemical and practical purpose; his concern, as the second title shows, was to define the true principles of Pointed or Christian architecture (1841), in order that 'the present degraded state of ecclesiastical buildings* might be repaired. He offered Gothic not as one of a number of possible styles from which a competent architect could choose, but rather as the embodiment of 'true Christian feeling* which, so understood, could be helped to revive. It is, of course, very strange to find this principle of the necessary relationship between art and its period enunciated in the context of a revivalist treatise. This paradox was.

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ABT AND SOCIETY

143 diaeval churches have been spoiled,

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There is also ample evidence for Ruskin's direct response to the evils of industrialism; and it is perhaps we, and not Ruskin, who are on questionable ground in supposing that social criticism requires a special (usually infamous) explanation. In his art criticism his standard was always this typical beauty*, the absolute proof, in works of art, of the 'universal grand design*. In his social criticism, his attention was focused on the 'happy fulfillment of functioning in living beings', and on the conditions for the 'joyful and right exercise of perfection'.

ART AND SOCIETY 147 what was later called 'aestheticism', a body of feeling from

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ART AND SOCIETY 149 therefore bad. The key words of the opposition of kinds of

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ABT AND SOCIETY 151 derly system of interdependence sustained by author

ART AND SOCIETY 155 pended not only on the value of the thing in itself, but, by

ART AND SOCIETY 157 perhaps, in the fact that when the essays composing Unto

CUXTUBE AND SOCIETY

Guilds would take over the functions of the existing employer of capital and regulate working conditions and product quality. Finally, based on this premise would be the category of business whose business was 'necessarily inferior work'. This class would include criminals, men designated from a certain number of two probationers. sure 'happy fulfillment function', and 'joyful and. There was no force to which Ruskin could appeal, and more and more he narrowed it down to that of small-scale local experiment.

ART AND SOCIETY 159 general phenomenon. The image of a society organized in

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Certainly anyone who claims to think that the issue of art and cultivation should go. It is the province of art to set before him the true ideal of a full and reasonable life, a life to which the perception and creation of beauty, the enjoyment of true pleasure, will be. The social revolution would therefore be the answer to the deadlock of the 'attackers against progress'.

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Art, Morris argued, in keeping with his tradition, depends on the quality of the society that produces it. One day we will win back Art, that is, the pleasure of life; Art reclaims itself as our daily labor.84 This, towards the end of the century, is a rejection of the specialization of 'Art' that was common at the beginning. Delight in work was widely destroyed by the machine system of production, but, Morris argued, it was the system, rather than the machines as such, that was to blame.

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But now, from 19505, the bearings look different. The break no longer comes in the generation of Butler, Shaw, Wilde, who are already figures of the period. We therefore regard the period 1880-1914 as a quagmire of interregnum - it is not the period of the masters, of Coleridge or George Eliot.

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INTERREGNUM 175 'That surely is hardly a fair way* began Laurence