Intellectual Contribution to the Understanding of Contemporary Society - Essay Example

For two of the following thinkers, evaluate their intellectual contribution to the understanding of contemporary society: Raymond Williams and StuartHall Raymond Williams was born in Pandy, a welsh village near English border. His father was a railway signalman and also a union activist. Though the rail connections were a modern development yet never displaced the customary village life. He later went to study at Cambridge and His leaning towards communism became stronger. During World War II Raymond worked as tank commander and campaigned for labour left. He supported the party as editor of a regimental paper. After the war he went back to Cambridge to resume his studies. Williams is criticised for overlooking the impact of gender on culture and society. He was first one to draw attention towards television as strong medium of culture though not in a positive way. His disgust at pop culture and such other criticism of modern cultures in the culture and society, the long revolution and the country and the city almost labeled him anti-modern and pessimist (Hubbard et al, 2004, p334) Stuart Hall was born in Jamaica and later went to Oxford University as Rhode scholar. During his academic years in Britain, he became chief proponent to British new left. His ideas led to development of Birmingham centre for contemporary cultural studies (CCCR). He has also been a prominent teacher at Open University and later much sought after authority on culture and identity. His essay on encoding/decoding related to media reports explained that at the time of production a meaning is encoded in media report which is decoded at the time of transmission, distribution, utilization and reproduction. The critics not only decode the intended meaning, they add many covert meanings to it. Otherwise also the listeners or viewers transform meaning according to their frames. The decoding or re-encoding depends on class and social status as these show differential requests and needs. His obviously geographic term, map of meaning was the means through which people made sense of the world. The production and reproduction of maps of meaning is highly varied. A new subculture type may develop by taking products and practices from the dominant culture and then reshaping them to give a new sub cultural group an identity (Hubbard et al, 2004, 163). Both the thinkers belonged to working class and have been prominent sociologists who developed cultural studies. Not only did they belong to same field but their interests were also similar, the new left meaning to society and culture. Hall is highly influenced by Williams as evident from his writings. In fact, Hall has also complemented Williams' work by adding dimension of race and gender to it. Their background, academic interests, views and complementary contribution to understanding of society besides the contemporary existence makes it logical to analyse their thinking together. Williams's 'structure of feeling': The notion of 'structure of feeling' was projected by Williams in the Long Revolution. He explained that cultural characteristic of a society is reflected in the routine social practices of that society. The cultural practices affect beliefs and behaviour of individuals in that society according to class patterns. Later Hall elaborated the meaning of structure of feeling stating it as experiences of all patterns and practices as lived in a particular period. In his Marxism and Literature, Williams argued that culture is to be understood in its past and future aspirations as well as contemporary lived experiences. Williams major concern was specific and national cultures and that British culture was considered ordinary in the sense that only considered 'lived' or present culture important (Taylor et al, 1996,5). Williams posited that historical changes in the society occurred through structure of feeling rather than prominent models of economic or cultural structures of that time. In this light, he considered study of cinema as integral part of sociology since it influenced the society strongly. Here, Williams differed from the orthodox Marxist who takes all forms of art as secondary to economic base. He clearly emphasised that art is medium to express the structure of feeling, art personifies it. Williams was first one from the left group to challenge the Marxist cultural theory and firmly including the mass cultural theory in the agenda of new left. Later Hall also acknowledged that the inclusion of cultural analysis in the politics of new left began with Williams views (Williams & Higgins, 2001, 5). Thus Williams diverted from typical left ideology and some what simplified the understanding of socialism for wider audience In the culture and society, Williams had shown commitment to politics of representation. The participatory democracy was declining in postwar Britain. In place of it, a class ruling was coming up in which democracy meant the way ruling class rules. In The long revolution, besides industrial and democratic revolution a third revolution has also taken place. It is Cultural Revolution with literacy being important for it. The cultural revolution and the revolution of literacy advocated extending the literacy to all rather than to select few (Williams & Higgins, 2001, 6-7). Literacy was considered an important attribute by Williams for adequate representation of the working class in the society. The terms individual and society both were abstract and intrigued Williams. The individual in the earlier times was identified with his occupation viz. A peasant, an artisan or a king. It was not expressed as an individual having this or that profession. So there was no distinction between individual and his social role. However, soon people began to move out for economic reasons and began to choose their occupation rather than performing the stereotype or fixed social role. Thus began a separation between individual and its social role. With the rise of capitalism a new term class originated, it was a term between individual and society. People related to society through their class. Though the different meaning was assigned to it, yet the society remained still an abstract term. Later Williams conceptualised it as means through which man's antisocial drives are either restrained or diverted and civilization established. Williams referred Freud and then Fromm to clarify the abstract nature of individual and society and stumbled upon a new term family. Thus the missing link between individual and society was found and these are the relationships that form basis of a society. It is the family that creates a social character in the individual (Williams, 2001, 92). Stuart Hall's 'cultural identity': Hall, particularly criticised the modern period as working class declined in it. He cited various reasons for such a decline. new times refers to social, political economic and cultural changes of a deeper type taking place in western capital world. The new times are also referred as post-industrial, postmodern or post Fordist etc. From social points of view, the new times signifies decline in the number of skilled male manual working class and increase in the service and white collar class. There is 'feminization' and 'ethnicization' of the work force as a result of flexible working and part-time options. The economy is dominated by multinationals. There is globalization of markets and new social patterns are emerging between public and private and for every 2/3 with rising expectations one-thirds new poor are generated who are left behind on every social opportunity (Hall et al 223). Thus Hall also accused the class pattern for subordination and decline of working class. This, in fact, is a positive sign according to left views which Hall referred frequently. Society is propelled forward through class struggle. Marx criticised Asiatic mode to which India, China and Islamic countries belong, because these societies can not be modern as these have stagnation, absence of dynamic class struggle and state acting as owner of rights and laws. Despite detesting capitalism, Marx found western capitalism forward looking and dynamic. Similarly Weber found Islamic society unable to be capitalist and modern since modernity required austere form of religion, rational laws, free labour and growth of cities. Weber found all these fundamentals of modernity absent from Islam (Hall et al, 1996, 221). The cultural identity discussion by Hall (2009) clearly indicated Williams's strong influence in the sense that culture of a social group is not only the present customs and beliefs, it also incorporates the past histories and future effects. The cultural identity of a society has two dimensions, according to Hall. The one, that is visible in the people sharing common ancestry and history. Such an identity is group identity shown by many people as collective true self. This shared identity is continuous and unchanging. For example the 'caribbeanness' is obvious despite many differences. Hall has encouraged caribbeans to bring out this unique aspect of their being to light, discover it to identify them with it. The second cultural identity is the one that refers to 'what we have become' as a result of interference of history, difference causing breaks and discontinuities. As a result the differences among caribbeans between being' and becoming' are obvious. This second type of cultural identity is as much for past as it is for future. Since cultural identities undergo transformations. Cultural identities are unlikely to be fixed in 'essentialised' past rather these constantly transform with changes in history, power and culture. Cultural identity at a particular time is our position relative to the past. The discussion would not be complete if Hall's geographic term maps of meaning are not mentioned in this discourse. Just like in a map we link some and exclude other things, the maps of meaning by Hall contains both the residues of past culture and history as well as new emergent influences which make a society modern and contemporary. The dominant hegemony, by the ruling class, subordinates alternative ideologies. Thus the subordinate class should create 'counter-hegemonic' ideologies to prevent their own structures from being 'hegemonised'. Hall while talking about hegemony and ideology was clearly influenced by Althusser as he referred him elaborately on the role of state. The state is above class interests so it acts indirectly (Davis, 2004). The 'Television': Hall was probably one of the first few truly mass media proponents. He had clear views about the impact of television on the society through its culture. Being extremely accurate on the technology front of this revolutionary medium of culture transmission, Hall stated that Television, unlike cinema, can not be considered a form of art thus it can not impart a sense of nation's culture. But today situation is different. There is not a single kind of human experience not expressed in television. Similarly internet was also criticised for spreading violence and nudity at its origin. Hall never shown interest in the technology rather he was concerned about its social value. As far as cultural functions of television are concerned, it performs in two ways. Firstly, it constructs its own cultural forms and secondly, airs televised form of the existing culture. Thus television modifies the existing culture and that irritated Hall immensely. Because of it the TV is not an artistic medium to spread culture. But transmitting the modified culture in vibrant colours to our living rooms makes strong impact on our own concept of culture (Davis, 2004). Thus technology did play a role in modifying or even deform our culture. Williams on the other hand did not accuse technology and maintained that technology is not to be blamed for our weaknesses. He stated that we often say that television has changed our life, brought about changes in our behaviour and psychology. We need clarify whether it is logical to describe the technology as cause. If a technology is the cause we can modify it to control its effects. The growth of mass television was due to economy whose interest remained to develop communication technology. It was a tool to enhance home based consumerism (Williams & Williams, 1990). Conclusion: Hall and colleagues at CCCS developed work of Williams on culture and society. They provided a simplified definition of culture as a level at which different social groups develop a distinct way of life. Culture is code through which meanings are constructed, conveyed and understood. They used a geographic symbol to explain culture and called it maps of meaning providing a way to understand world. Cultures are not merely systems and meanings carried in mind; these are prototypes of social institutions. Cultures reflect domination and subordination type of pattern of power. Hall and his colleagues found British culture ranking hierarchically in relation to dominance and subordination (Jackson, 1994). Both the thinkers viewed society and culture in the perspectives that followed similar paths. Though their discourses are not always following same path, there are sufficient differences and reading together they provide a complete explanation to the culture and society thinking they projected. References Davis, H (2004). Understanding Stuart Hall. SAGE Hall, S. Cultural Identity and Diaspora, From: http://www.lwbooks.co.uk/ReadingRoom/public/IdentityDiaspora.pdf Hall, S, Held, D, Hubert, D & Thompson, K (1996). Modernity: an introduction to modern societies. Wiley-Blackwell Hubbard, P, Kitchin, R & Valentine, G (2004). Key thinkers on space and place. SAGE Jackson, P (1994).Maps of Meaning: An Introduction to Cultural Geography. Ebook Library. Routledge Taylor, IR, Evans, K & Fraser, P (1996). A Tale of Two Cities: Global Change, Local Feeling and Everyday Life in the North of England: a Study in Manchester and Sheffield. Routledge. Williams, R & Williams, E (1990). Television: Technology and Cultural Form. 2nd ed. Routledge Williams, R & Higgins, J (2001). The Raymond Williams reader. Wiley-Blackwell Williams, R. (2001).The long revolution. Broadview Press Read More