Page 43 - Decoding Culture

36 DECODING CULTURE

civilization by encouraging discrimination. In so doing they deeply
influenced the character of literary education in Britain.
The similarity of this analysis to that found in the mass soci­
ety / media effects tradition is quite obvious. Both views see
modern society in crisis; both see that crisis as emerging from
specific features of industrial societies; both see culture and taste
as stratified; and both are deeply unsympathetic to the products of
new, twentieth-century forms of popular culture. The Leavisite view
is distinctive, however, in three main respects. First, it supposes
that an ideal form of social organization is possible, an organic
community within which people may live as 'integral parts'. The
positive value placed on this way of life is apparent in the use that
Leavis and Thompson (1933) make of the work of Sturt who, as
'George Bourne', had written somewhat romantically of the rich
traditions of rural civilization. However, lest the wrong impression
be given, it should be noted that Leavisism is more inclined to
bemoan the loss of organic living (and praise its expression in D.
H. Lawrence) than to propose utopian alternatives to modernity.
Theirs is not a revolutionary doctrine in pursuit of primitive
communalism.
Secondly, they are distinctive in the emphasis they place upon
education and the promotion of critical awareness. In spite of the
tone of apocalyptic dismay that pervades the 1930s work,
Leavisism retains a degree of optimism about the possibility of
defending and developing culture. Although clearly elitist in their
views about the role of the educated minority, they were not back­
ward in condemning the pretensions and lack of discrimination
among those who conventionally laid claim to 'high' culture. The
capacity for discrimination was not inherited, or a necessary func­
tion of class - it was learned. So, if critical awareness could and
should be taught, as they argue, then that suggests an implicit
humanist commitment to, if not the perfectibility, then at least the

Copyrighted Material