Page 46 - Decoding Culture

THE WAY WE WERE 39
that they might agree that yes, indeed, the critic has revealed that
all-important coherence.
This last stage is the interrogative method, the famous 'this is
so, is it not?' The critic works with concrete judgements, detailed
analyses of the text, and appeals to the readers' shared experi­
ence to 'get them to agree': This - doesn't it? - bears such a
relation to that; this kind of thing - don't you find it so? - wears
)
better than that' (l-eavis, 1952: 215 . But, as Anderson (1968: 52)
points out, [ tlhe central idea of this epistemology - the interroga­
'
tive statement - demands one crucial precondition: a shared,
stable system of beliefs and values'. Where critic and readers do
not hold to the same beliefs, presuppositions, theoretical commit­
ments, then - as with all forms of inductive empiricism -
meaningful discourse is no longer possible except (perhaps) at
the level of meta-analysis. Hence the need for explicit theoretical
and methodological discussion. If there is a community of culture
shared by critic and reader the detailed textual argument can be
experienced as persuasive. But if there is no such community,
then the critic's claims will seem to the unsympathetic reader to be
no more than arbitrary assertions of one viewpoint over another.
In this way Leavis' faith in the significance of the 'organic commu­
nity' finds an odd reflection in his epistemology, and his method, in
turn, forms the basis for Leavisism's educational mission. If we
could only be educated into embracing Leavis' values and critical
perceptions, the argument runs, then we would indeed come to
constitute a cultured community.
In the end, then, and for the moment leaving to one side his pos­
itive commitment to the significance of human agency, the
underlying ideas of Leavisism have similar limitations to those of
the mass society/media effects tradition. Both traditions are firmly
empiricist, in Leavis' case in an openly inductive and anti-theoreti­
cal form, and in the case of effects research somewhat disguised

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