Hi everyone, I just saw this article today and the sub-title caught my eye;
“How did our culture became so polarised – and what can Richard Hoggart’s The Uses of Literacy, written 60 years ago, teach us about how we live today?”
It seemed like it might be interesting in light of our module and seminar discussions, so I read on…
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/feb/18/lynsey-hanley-brexit-britain-divided-culture-uses-of-literacy
“The Uses of Literacy, published 60 years ago next month, was his second and by far his most famous book. In it, Hoggart argued that collective engagement in a project of civic literacy would grow naturally out of the increasing education of the working classes, and that knowledge really would translate into power.”
This has similar themes and concept to some of my Sociology work on mass culture production, including the mass-production of literature. The article describes how the ‘marketing man’ began to “take an unalloyed good like universal literacy and turn it into an expedient for selling mass culture – books, movies and songs created as if in a laboratory with a clinical focus on appealing to the greatest number.”
…”Hoggart’s definition of mass product was something that contained no emotional truth – nothing that could be measured or felt as real, however painful that reality might be to confront – because it was produced by people who believed their audience had no ability or desire to detect that truth. “Sex-and-violence novels,” he wrote, epitomised “an endless and hopeless tail-chasing evasion of the personality”, a description that could have been taken from a review of Fifty Shades of Grey.”
In particular, the comment about ‘sex and violence novels’ reminded me of our lecture and seminar discussions yesterday. To what extent is it true that writers just write what the publishers want to publish? For me, this doesn’t feel like the way that Robinson has approached Lila, and gathering from the seminar discussions this is partly why we all valued her integrity and writing style.
Anyway, I just thought that the article was an interesting link between reading, community and contemporary culture, and wanted to share it with you all,
Emily
Thanks so much for letting us know about this article, Emily. Richard Hoggart was/is one of my heroes. He was briefly a lecturer when I began English at Birmingham uni before he went off to work with UNESCO, but luckily he had helped set up the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies and I was one of the first undergrads who could do Cultural Studies as a part of the English degree course, with Stuart Hall. An amazing course and pioneering popular culture for serious study. So interesting that what Hoggart had to say all that time ago is so relevant for one of the key issues of the 21st century (but also a bit depressing!).
I think I first read Hoggart’s book about 55 years ago, probably recommended by my older brother, who was at Birmingham University as a postgrad. I’ve still got my copy somewhere, just like I’ve got Northanger Abbey somewhere! I lived in a working class community in Birmingham and my first thought was that his idea of a working-class community described an out of date idea. And so it was for a big city like Birmingham. The mill towns and mining towns were another matter, though, as I found out later. I think I picked up my first sociology from Hoggart too, with the idea that in smaller communities there is social redundancy: the man who cuts your hair is also the amateur car-fixing expert, and the brother of the postmistress. It wasn’t like that in the city.
I think Linsey Hanley interprets the age difference on the Brexit vote slightly wrongly. The essential difference between people under and over 45 is that the former were educated in comprehensive schools and the latter largely in the very much poorer secondary moderns. We “lucky” few who went to grammar schools and even university are still much more likely to have voted to remain. John Stafford