R3 Sunday Feature 12/11/23 Afterwords Richard Hoggart

[eighthobstruction]

Most Sociology students of 60-80's would have had Richard Hoggarts book The Uses of Literacy slapped on their desks, as did I.

I cannot praise this programme highly enough....it wins and pleases on so many levels and I am sure many would enjoy....for how it sounds if nothing else....beautiful voices....with a touch of Reith........Richard Hoggart, fine man....https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001s5r9

[Frances_iom]

It was excellent once got over the strange introductions - I had thought that his concept of decency would make a good discussion on the Ideas section but recent events have persuaded me that such seem no longer appropriate for this board as very likely they would stray into critiques of certain individuals.

[french frank]

Most Sociology students of 60-80's would have had Richard Hoggarts book The Uses of Literacy slapped on their desks, as did I.

Not a sociology student, but I had that too - 1957. Also, more recently (2004), à propos R3 and the direction it was taking Mass Media in a Mass Society:

[Ein Heldenleben]

A lot of Eng Lit students read the Uses of Literacy . Hoggart was the sort of reasonable and serious minded public intellectual that you don’t see around too much these days. The likes of him and Jacob Bronowski have been ceded to the delights of Lucy Worsley. I think the programme was a repeat- if not there’s been something similar in the last few years.

[Serial_Apologist]

I've just listened to this programme, and it has made me realise that on my journey I must have skipped Hoggart by going straight from Existentialist ideas about authenticity, by way of Zen and Palo Alto group encounter/Reichian/Laingian ideas of alienation being intermediated subjectivity, to Marxism and class struggle, and on to a more general holding to Marx as providing a grounding framework in which to situate all these disciplines - ontology, psychology, structuralism and post-structuralism, semiology and sociology: a critique for making sense of them and making them make sense. By setting out a theoretical position I don't think I'm saying anything that contravenes the re-instated rules of the forum - well I hope not!

[smittims]

Thanks, eihgthobstruction , for drawing my attention to this programme, which I would have missed. We could do with a Richard Hoggart today, in this crazy world of misused language.

[eighthobstruction]

I've just listened to this programme, and it has made me realise that on my journey I must have skipped Hoggart by going straight from Existentialist ideas about authenticity, by way of Zen and Palo Alto group encounter/Reichian/Laingian ideas of alienation being intermediated subjectivity, to Marxism and class struggle, and on to a more general holding to Marx as providing a grounding framework in which to situate all these disciplines - ontology, psychology, structuralism and post-structuralism, semiology and sociology: a critique for making sense of them and making them make sense. By setting out a theoretical position I don't think I'm saying anything that contravenes the re-instated rules of the forum - well I hope not!

As I read the above Serial, I imagined you being kidnapped, bound and gagged strung up to a pole and hurried into the jungle - ready for indoctrination school, stripped of one personality, supplied with another ,like a suit of clothes. The words were pith and gristle - but goodness the food was good........glad you are back unscathed....

I'd just like to say I didn't place that emoji in the text - it just appeared and now will no delete...

[eighthobstruction]

....inform - educate - entertain....

[Serial_Apologist]

As I read the above Serial, I imagined you being kidnapped, bound and gagged strung up to a pole and hurried into the jungle - ready for indoctrination school, stripped of one personality, supplied with another ,like a suit of clothes. The words were pith and gristle - but goodness the food was good........glad you are back unscathed....

I'd just like to say I didn't place that emoji in the text - it just appeared and now will no delete...

When I first got involved on The Left in 1973, eighth, I had to decide on which group I would feel most at home in. Eventually I decided on a nefarious strategy I'd recommend of inviting a representative from each of the groups I thought reasonably plausible round for tea. The first one arrived and said, "Well, are you going to join us?" I said to wait a few minutes and I'd decide. When the second persuader arrived, he said, "What's HE doing here??" I said all would become clear within the next few minutes hopefully. The third person arrived, and said, "Why have you invited these sectarians? I'm not prepared to stay in the same room with this lot a moment longer", and he left . The fourth person was the last to leave, and she said, "Well we're not asking you to make up your mind one way or another; just come along to our branch meeting at the student's uni on Thursday and see the sorts of issues we're campaigning on, how we organise ourselves, and the kinds of people we are. You have all the time to make or not make any decision one way or the other". So I went along, introduced myself and was welcomed into the meeting. First item on the agenda was who should chair the meeting. "I propose ********** (my real name!)" "What? me? I'm not even a member; and I'll be a terrible Stalinist, allowing only one contribution per person!" But it was seconded and passed. Afterwards the comrade calling himself Pedro explained that by putting me in the hot seat they had wanted to gauge my attitudes might be towards inclusive disciplined discussion within parameters set by topic. In this and every case these and their extent were to be treated flexibly, even (or especially) though accusations were sometimes levelled heatedly, and when it came to possible expulsions and resignations. After eleven years both sides amicably accepted my resignation on grounds of political disagreements.

[eighthobstruction]

....if Pedro was his real name I might have known him....and even been in a sit in or 2 with YOU.....( I used to go to sit in's and offer points of information informing folk that their egoes were showing....`

[Serial_Apologist]

....if Pedro was his real name I might have known him....and even been in a sit in or 2 with YOU.....( I used to go to sit in's and offer points of information informing folk that their egoes were showing....`

Not so sure about that - "party names" were for internal purposes only. We might have crossed paths at the empty office block occupation, my first "action". We regarded these and similar as arenas in which to get our wider ideas across, whereas others (the Maoists and SWP, or IS as then was) saw them as diversionary - the main focus of power had to be the shop floor - and wasteful of human resources.

[eighthobstruction]

....we Anarchists just used go to Senate House to shut it down [twice]....and we weren't even at university....didn't have text books and wouldn't have read them if we did have them....

....infiltration was so easy in those days....no cctv....security was old men drinking tea in their mess hall....at that time you were not considered possible terrorists or things like that....and we ourselves were not extreme or violent....just cheeky....