Graham Rowlands
The Importance of
Raymond Williams
TH IS A R T IC L E selects W illiam s’ theoretical preceptions from
The Long Revolution and his m ain them e of culture and social
criticism from Culture and Society. It is not im plied th at these
aspects are W illiam s’ only o r m ost im portant views; but th at in
the following ways they are of im portance. W illiam s develops a
m ethod of treating social m an th a t does not run the risks involved
in quantification w hen quantification becom es an end in itself.
H e stresses the im portance of com m unications, in particular, along
with politics, and econom ics. H e considers th e relation betw een
“high” culture and social criticism in th e w orks of a wide range
of w riters from 1780 to 1950. His analysis of the role of the
artist in the R om antic period is view ed as an exam ple of his
interdisciplinary interests which challenge the highly specialized
and educationally crippling nature of m ost of A ustralian academ ic
life, particularly its English D epartm ents. W illiam s’ own interests
extend far beyond English D epartm ents b u t are, nevertheless, based
in them.
R aym ond W illiams said in the In tro d u ctio n to The Long R evo­
lution (1961) th at his study w ent beyond academ ic prudence
because there was, at th a t tim e, no academ ic subject in B ritain
Graham Rowlands did post-graduate study in English at Queensland University.
He is at present engaged in interdisciplinary studies in the School of American
Studies at Flinders University.
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1971
where he could follow through the questions th a t interested him.
It is not surprising, then, th at in his w ork the reader finds
an acute aw areness of changes in society over tim e and a devel­
oped consciousness of the different kinds of society in existence
at any one time. T hese views are based on a wide reading in
Philosophy, L iteratu re, L iterary C riticism and especially in the
tw entieth century sciences of Psychology, A nthropology and
Sociology. If W illiam s has a prim ary aim it is to understand in
w hat way the developm ent of these new areas of study can
assist any attem pt to discover the m eaning of “culture” in B ritish
society since the start of the ongoing Industrial, D em ocratic and
E ducative revolutions.
Before trying to und erstan d w hat “ culture” m eans to W illiams,
it should prove profitable to look at w hat he includes in his first
chapter of The Long Revolution. Firstly, he surveys different
theories about art and reality in W estern philosophy and literary
criticism held over the last two thousand years. Secondly, he
introduces the biological fact th at the brain of each one of us
literally creates its own world. Thirdly, in term s of the area
he has been surveying, W illiams translates this biological evidence
into the following com parison of w orld views o r ways of being
in the world:
Platonist:
M an . . . natural seeing . . . A ppearances
A rtist . . . exceptional seeing . . . R eality
R om antic:
M an . . . natural seeing . . . R eality
A rtist . . . exceptional seeing . . . Superior Reality
M odern:
M an . . . n atu ral seeing . . . R eality
A rtist . . . exceptional seeing . . . A rt
F ourthly, it follows, in W illiam s’ view, from this sort of com parison,
th at unless the reader or viewer shares w ith the artist m any
of the com plex details of a learned com m unications system, he
cannot, in fact, see the artist’s work. It follows, then, th at there
is a necessary social basis for any art because w ithout com m unication
there is no art. (As a parenthesis W illiam s m entions th a t aesthetic
theory excludes com m unication as a social fact.) Fifthly, while
it is true that all art is a process of com m unication according to
W illiam s, he rem ains aw are, nevertheless, th a t the function of
art is often different: in some societies its function is to
em body com m on shared m eaning; in others, in rapidly changing
societies, a rt’s aim is to explore the frontiers of know ledge. W hat
W illiam s has done in his first chapter, then, is provide a preview
of his interdisciplinary m ethodology: his capacity to apply the
im plications of one area of knowledge to others.
57
H e addresses this m ethodology to “cu ltu re” which can be any
o f the following: an ideal, a state of hum an perfection; a
docum entary body of intellectual and im aginative work; or the
description of a p articular way of life — an anthropological use
o f the term . This latter m ust include family structure and
com m unication form s as well as political, econom ic and other
social aspects. (W illiams was to stress com m unications as a part
of society rath er than as a “ reflection” of society even m ore
strongly
in the first pages of Communications.) W ith careful
application these three usages of “culture” are valuable, particularly
in relation to each other. It is im portant, however, not to scale
off a rt against a particular society for the whole reality of that
society cannot be understood until the art — a p a rt of it — is
also understood. It is an inadequate educational procedure to
focus on a particu lar discipline and then claim to be filling in the
“ background” . It is clear, then, th at W illiam s regards the study
of the relationships am ong elem ents in the whole as the m ost
com prehensive study of “culture” .
It is here that he uses anthropologist R uth B enedict’s book
Patterns of Culture. F o r her a “p attern of culture” is a selection
and configuration of interests and activities and a particular
v aluation of them th at produces a distinct social organization, a
“ way of life” . W illiam s sees this notion as m eans to arrive at
“ . . . the actual experience through which these (pattern and
characteristics) were lived” . H e calls this “structure of feeling”.
It is structure because institutions give it structure; it is feeling
because it is not a perception of how th e society operates b u t a
perception of w hat it feels like to be in th a t society and for the
structures of th a t society to be in each person. M oreover,
W illiam s says th a t we are m ost aw are of this in the arts of the
period.
As an exam ple of “structure of feeling” W illiams claims, after
analysing both “high” and “p o p u lar” literatu re of the 1840s in
B ritain, th a t the following characteristics emerge: value placed on
h ard work; success based on individual effort; class stratification
based on status rath er than on birth; p o o r people seen as victims
of their own failings with the accom panying notion that the best
will struggle and achieve socio-econom ic upw ard m obility; suffering
as noble because it teaches hum ility, courage and dedication to
duty; the fam ily reverenced as the central institution of society;
adultery and fornication as u n p ard o n ab le sins, etc.
U nlike
Levi-Strauss (Totemism), K arl M annheim (Essays on the Sociology
of Knowledge) o r R . D . L aing (The Divided Self), W illiams does not
w ant th e read er to feel these as the people of the period did; rather
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1971
he wants to reader to understand their feelings. W illiam s claims
th at while there were other w orks em bodying other “structures of
feeling”, this structure was the predom inant one, that of the
prom inent productive group — the m orality of the industrial and
com m ercial m iddle class. W illiam s’ position is not one of predictive
sociological determ inism : expecting to discover a certain “structure
of feeling” because the social structure or econom ic conditions
determ ine it. W illiam s reads the “high” and “p o p u lar” literature
and finds it there.
W illiam s extends his inquiry to the following:
We are seeking to define and consider one central principle: th at of the
essential relation, the true interaction, between patterns learned and created
in the m ind and patterns communicated and made active in relationships,
conventions and institutions. (T he Long Revolution, p. 89).
U ndoubtedly influenced by R uth B enedict, W illiams finds “indi­
vidual and society” a sterile way of coping w ith the above problem
for Benedict writes:
One of the most misleading misconceptions due to this nineteenth century
dualism was the idea th at what was subtracted from society was added to
the individual and w hat was subtracted from the individual was added
to society. Philosophies of freedom, political creeds of laissez-faire, revolu­
tions that have unseated dynasties, have built on this dualism. (Patterns of
Culture, p. 181).
She further claim s th a t m odern W estern society tends to identify
society with restrictions th a t law imposes on us.
W illiams analyses the term “ individual” in historical contexts.
In the M edieval period it m eant “ inseparable” ; contem porary
W estern usage looks on “ individual” as a kind of absolute w ithout
im m ediate reference to the group or groups of w hich one is a
m em ber. T he change in m eaning of the w ord occurred in the
late sixteenth century or early seventeenth. W hereas M edieval
“ individual” destiny was connected with the total order of all
aspects of life, P ro testan t “ individualism ” related only to God.
A s E rich From m points out, in M edieval society a person was
identical with his role in the society; he was not an individual first
w ho also happened to have a certain occupation. T he growth
of Capitalism encouraged m en to see the individual as a source
of econom ic activity. W illiam s claim s th at “the m ajor tradition”
of English social thinkers from H obbes to the U tilitarians saw m an
as a bare hum an being w hereas H egel and R ousseau had seen the
value of com m unities and form s of association m ediating between
the individual and society.* It was tru e th at Locke saw the
* Adam Ferguson, Adam Smith’s sociological writing, John M illar and Robert
Owen are not in "the m ajor tradition”: they arc not m entioned at all.
59
rational and co-operative elem ents of m en as natural but he also
postulated separate individuals who created the overall contract
for m utual protection. The L iberal trad itio n argues for m inim um
governm ent to protect the rights of the individual. A nd F reud
too, while introducing the m ediation of the fam ily,** assum ed a
conflict betw een individual and society. R ecognition of groups
w ithin a society, then, was a m ajor criticism of E xistentialism ’s
identification of the social self as the inauthentic self and the
philosophy’s neglect for social man.
It was necessary historically, therefore, according to W illiams,
in ord er to elim inate hum an identification with functions of
institutions, to postulate the b are hum an being. People found
and find m eaning in them selves because they are a m anageable
area w hen com pared with say, political and econom ic institutions.
In turning aw ay from society, however, they tu rned and turn away
from o th er people so th at each is just a m ass in the other’s eyes.
W illiams understands the process th at he considers to be a deluded
way of viewing the world.
H e seeks, how ever, to change this
delusion. H e proposes the term s “organism ” and “organization” ,
the form er being the person and the la tte r being the social
structure th at becom es internalized.
E ach organism is an
em bodim ent of relationships, the lived and living history of
responses to and from other organizations. T h e concept “organism ”
and “organization” advances on both B enedict and F rom m in
the sense th a t W illiams argues that, despite a com m on “ culture
p attern ” or “ social ch aracter”, each p erson’s social history, his
actual netw ork of relationships is unique. This is caused by
influence from varying systems o r groups w ithin a society. Thus
W illiam s m aintains th at the new term s are not a new way of
stating th e old notion of individual and society but a way of
describing a continuous process w ithin w hich both are contained.
A nd if the above is true, then particip ato ry dem ocracy is the
best form of governm ent.
By C h ap ter F o u r of P art O ne of The Long Revolution it is
clear th a t W illiam s conceives of him self as a Socialist for his
definition of society is related to a series of points about what
he thinks is w rong with B ritish Socialism. H e defines society as
“ . . . a hum an organization for com m on needs. . .” T he m ain fault
of Socialism has been to propose a political and econom ic order
rath er than a hum an order. A nother fault (m entioned briefly out
of a Socialist context) is stress on these political and economic
aspects of society to the exclusion of fam ily and com m unications
** Williams is apparently unaware of Adam Ferguson’s stress on the family.
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1971
areas of societal interaction. In W illiam s’ ideal society there would
be that strong sense of com m unity th at was lacking in British
thought from the late sixteenth century to Freud. Life and work
should be integrated and the m ain claim to relevance of art should
be a concern for o u r general hum anity or to nothing. W illiams
com bines the full im pact of the m eaning of his m ethodology and
of his Socialism in the passage:
T he long revolution, which is now at the centre of our history, is not for
democracy as a political system alone, nor for the equitable distribution
of more products, nor for general access to the means of communication.
Such changes, difficult enough in themselves, derive meaning and direction,
finally, from new conceptions of man and society which many have worked
to describe and interpret, (p. 141).
M alcolm B radbury finds a conflict between the kind of argum ent
outlined above w hich he regards as passive, predictive sociological
determ inism and the argum ent in Culture and Society (1958) which
em phasizes the value of culture as an active force in society, standing
against the narrow ness of m aterialism and the injustices and poverty
of vision of Ind u strial Capitalism . Several replies m ay be m ade
to B radbury’s claim . Firstly, there is nothing in The Long R evo­
lution th at sm acks of crude predictive determ inism , as should be
already clear. Secondly, the study of art in the way outlined by
W illiams is far from a “passive” activity, even if the art were
viewed as “passive” und er the weight of determ inism . Thirdly,
W illiam s’ analysis of the culture versus society conflict where it
occurred in B ritish literatu re and thought in the nineteenth and
tw entieth centuries fits his second category of “cultu re” In the
light of The Long Revolution it is clear th a t this kind of “ culture”
can be studied by explication m ainly and th a t degree of sociological
study th a t W illiam s finds valuable for purposes of illum ination,
this latter m ethod occurring particularly in C hap ter Two. It would
be quite possible to study the intellectual history in Culture and
Society sociologically, or at least m ore sociologically th a n W illiams
does, to see how fa r the w riters he chose are representative of
society generally. W illiam s’ very point, how ever, is th at they are
unrepresentative and th a t is w hat m akes them valuable because so
much about their society can be gleaned from their social criticism.
W illiam s says th a t w ith the Industrial R evolution the m eanings of
five im portant w ords changed: industry no longer just m eant a
hum an attribute associated with h ard w ork b u t a collective word for
m anufacturing and productive institutions: democracy ceased to be
just a literary term an d w ith the F rench R evolution becam e a part
of political term inology in practice; class ceased to be a division
o r group in schools and colleges and referred to bro ad social
61
divisions; art ceased to m ean skill and becam e the im aginative
and creative arts; culture changed in the follow ing way:
Before this period, it had meant, prim arily the “ tending of natural growth,"
and then, by analogy, a process of hum an training. But this latter use,
which had usually been a culture of something, was changed, in the eighteenth
and early nineteenth century, to culture as such, a thing in itself. It came to
mean, first, "a general state or h abit of the m ind,” having close relations with
the idea of hum an perfection. Second, it came to mean “the general state of
intellectual development, in a society as a whole.” T h ird , it came to mean
“the general body of the arts.” Fourth, later in the century, it came to
mean “a whole way of life, material, intellectual, and spiritual.” (Culture and
Society, pp. 13-18).
W illiam s’ aim is to show the em ergence of “culture” as an
abstraction and an absolute. Firstly, there was the recognition
of the practical separation of certain m oral and intellectual activities
from the driven im petus of the new kind of society; secondly,
em phasis o n the activities, as a co u rt of hum an appeal, to be set
over the process of practical social judgm ent and yet to offer
itself as a m itigating and rallying alternative. W illiams goes on to
say th at the idea of “culture” w ould be sim pler if it were a response
to industrialism alone but it is also a response to dem ocracy.
T he contents of Culture and Society reveal the wide range of
political philosophers, journalists, poets, philosophers, m en of
letters, novelists, politicians, theologians, art historians, literary
critics, essayists and historians whom W illiam s explicates. A nd
there is im plicit, and som etim es explicit, evaluation in his explica­
tions. A lthough the w riters vary and w ould often disagree w ith
each other, certain sim ilar trends em erge; they all criticize their
society and all regard art or “culture” as a repository of hum ane
values. T hey condem n industrialization, Capitalism , urbanization,
laissez-faire econom ics, m aterialism , ugliness, pollution and division
of labor. They advocate m any solutions such as H ero-w orship,
G od, the State, nature, handicrafts, M edievalism , Socialism, C om ­
m unism , u rb an planning, beauty, F ascist authoritarianism , sex,
doing nothing, English D epartm ents b u t above all, they advocate
art — the w riting, the reading, the reverencing and the study of
art. F o r a rt is seen as the opposite of all those com plex and
often interlocking features th at characterized and characterize in
large p a rt a society they h ated o r hate.
B ecause it traces a p articular trad itio n the book is repetitive
but, since it refers to 170 years, this repetition serves only to
dem onstrate its significance. Some reservations, however, m ust
be entertained in the nam e of perspective. Culture and Society
has at least th e following faults. I t uses extrem ely small aspects
of the to tal o utput of a p articular w riter often w ithout m entioning
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1971
his other concerns in such a way that a reader com ing to the
w riter only in term s of W illiam s’ view of him may take a part
of his o utput as his m ajor concern. This applies particularly to
J. S. Mill. So long as it is realized that th a t W illiam s is selecting
only the w riter’s view on “culture” and society, this delim ited
area of selection is not a problem . W illiam s’ selectivity becomes
dishonest, how ever, when he ignores those passages of C arlyle where
the latter condem ns art and “culture” as a waste of tim e.* W illiams
selects only those passages where Carlyle considers “culture” as
the repository of hum an values. Finally, W illiam s virtually omits
O scar W ilde who b o th wrote and enacted the m ost extrem e
dichotom y betw een “cu ltu re” and society, betw een art and life,
of any w riter in B ritain in the nineteenth century. W illiam s failed
to see, then, th a t the sociological basis of the art for a rt’s sake
theory was a violent, if hilarious, attack on B ritish society.
If w hat has been noted above shows W illiam s as intellectual
historian, C h ap ter Tw o, “T he R om antic A rtist” , reveals penetrating
insights into one aspect of Rom anticism — th a t p art of it that was
a reaction against late eighteenth and early nineteenth century
B ritish society. T his reveals a sociological, inter-disciplinary
m ethodology; it dem onstrates the theory of The Long Revolution.
T he m ilieu of the R om antic artist contained several im portant
changes. Firstly, w hile the rise of the m iddle class brought a
bigger reading public, this m ass audience was a “m arket” for the
w riter, his relationship w ith it being im personal com pared with
individual patronage th a t had existed previously. (W illiam s does
not claim that th e artist’s relationship with his audience is worse;
only th a t, in im p o rtan t ways, it is different.) Several of the
R om antics spoke disparagingly of their “ P ublic” . Secondly, there
was a new notion in the air th a t art was the production of a
specialist which followed the institution of com m ercial publishing.
A rt becam e a com m odity like bottles, produced by the artist who
m ight be viewed, or view him self like a bottle m anufacturer. (This
view differs not at all from M arcuse’s in One D im ensional' Man.)
T hirdly, at th e sam e tim e as these changes there developed also a
system of thinking ab o u t the arts of which the m ost im portant
elem ents were em phasis on the special natu re of the art-activity
as a m eans to “im aginative” tru th and a stress on the artist as a
special and superior sensibility. W illiam s said th at it was tem pting
to view these la tte r tw o points as direct response to the actual
change in relations betw een artist and society. This w ould be to
* Carlyle, Thom as Latter-Day Pamphlets, London, Chapm an and Hall, 1905,
pp. 143, 272-3; and Critical ancl Miscellaneous Essays, London, Chapman and
Hall, 1903, Vol. 5, p. 24.
63
simplify, however, for these latter two developm ents were p a rt of
the em bodim ent in art of hum ane values which the changes of
society to Industrial Capitalism and tow ards dem ocracy were felt
to threaten or to destroy. The consequences of this for the English
R om antics were th at art becam e a sym bolic abstraction because a
general social activity was forced into th e status of a departm ent
o r aspect and the w orks of art w ere nothing b u t self-pleading,
self-pitying ideology:
T he last pages of Shelley’s Defence of Poetry are painful to read. T he bearers
of a high imaginative skill became suddenly the "legislators”, at the very
mom ent when they were being forced into practical exile . . . (Culture and.
Society, p. 63).
W illiam s’ achievem ents in the books and chapters stressed in
this article are as follows. H e has developed a sophisticated way
of coping with dehum anized quantification in the social sciences
with his notion “structure of feeling”. H e has explained the
socio-historic genesis of the false dichotom y “ individual versus
society” , th u s facilitating an alternative way of viewing m en in
society — his organism and organization. H e has highlighted
the lack of attention given to the com m unications area of social
existence, assisting the developm ent of th e study of m ass m edia
and “ p o p u lar” culture. Conversely, he h as charted the “high”
culture versus society argum ent from late eighteenth century to
m id-tw entieth century Britain. H e looked at and analysed the way
in which the role of the artist in the R om antic period could be
profitably viewed as interacting w ith b ro a d social changes. A ll
these notions he views as im p o rtan t for universities, general
education and Socialism. H e is a living challenge to tim id
academ ics caught in their specialities, terrified to respond to
questions about the m eaning of com prehensive education. A nd
he has proved th a t inter-disciplinary m ethodology need n o t be
superficial. T here are w riters in several fields of the Social Sciences
and H um anities who have m oved to interdisciplinary perspectives
from different starting points. W illiam s has done this b etter than
anyone else in B ritain who has started w ith the basis of L iterary
Criticism .
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