The topic: Only Pinter Remains; British literature's long and rich
tradition of politically engaged writers has come to an end
Should instead be;
Only one ideologue Remains; British literature's long and rich
tradition of politically engaged leftist/marxist writers has declined
noticably.
This is probably a matter of different "degrees" of ideological
framing maybe inversely proportional to bipolarly opposed views,
instead of different "kinds" of times of expression. There has been
verying degrees of ideological expression all along and you have not
shown how this has reached a point of no return or cannot reverse in
direction.
In communication theory, and sociology, framing is a process of
selective control over the individual's perception of media, public,
or private communication, in particular the meanings attributed to
words or phrases. Framing defines how an element of rhetoric is
packaged so as to allow certain interpretations and rule out others.
Media frames can be created by the mass media or by specific political
or social movements or organizations. The concept is generally
attributed to the work of Erving Goffman, especially his 1974 book,
Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience...
...In politics, linguists point to an example of framing in the phrase
"tax relief"; the use of the word "relief" implies a notion that the
prevailing level of taxes put strain on the citizen, and casts those
who oppose it as insensitive to taxpayers; similarly, when tax
reductions are framed as "giveaways to the rich," this casts those who
support reduced taxation in a bad light.
Terms which frame debate seek to limit the possibilities of discourse
by setting the vocabulary and metaphors by which an issue can be
discussed. In this view, framing cannot be avoided-it is an inherent
part not just of political discourse, but of literally all cognition,
both conscious and unconscious-but the effort should be made to do it
consciously.
According to Klandermans, a sociologist, the "social construction of
collective action frames," involves "public discourse, that is, the
interface of media discourse and interpersonal interaction; persuasive
communication during mobilization campaigns by movement organizations,
their opponents and countermovement organizations; and consciousness
raising during episodes of collective action." (1997: p. 45)
Cultural anthropologist Jeffrey Feldman, writing about framing and
politics in his Framing the Debate suggests that frames are cognitive,
cultural and historical. Feldman demonstrates that for framing to be
effective as strategic politics, it must be rooted in rhetorical
tradition. Feldman makes his case by drawing on historic speeches
(e.g., Presidential addresses) to understand and define contemporary
debate challenges...
...Buzzword Communication theory Code word (figure of speech)
Demagoguery Figure of speech Frame analysis Framing effect Language
and thought Meme Newspeak Political frame Power word Stovepiping Trope
Argumentation Theory;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_%%28communication_theory%%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_%%28psychology%%29
Framing effect is a phenomenon observed when a decision maker, faced
with a dilemma, becomes susceptible to the manipulation of context,
where choices are controlled by how risky decision-frame options are
presented. A decision-frame is a subjective conception of the actions,
outcomes and contingencies associated with decision options. The
(mis-)representation of options, due to the framing effect, often
influences the choices of decision makers.
The context or framing of problems adopted by decision makers is
controlled in part by extrinsic manipulation of the decision options
offered, as well as by forces intrinsic to decision makers, e.g.,
their norms, habits, and unique temperament.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demagoguery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buzzword
Framework for Ethical Decision Making & Justification of Ethical
Standards
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.philosophy/msg/c6bcff1194250a28
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/two-wrongs-make-a-right.html
> By Terry
Eagletonhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2120880,00.html
> Guardian (UK)
> July 7, 2007
>
> For almost the first time in two centuries, there is no
> eminent British poet, playwright or novelist prepared
> to question the foundations of the western way of life.
> One might make an honourable exception of Harold
> Pinter, who has wisely decided that being a champagne
> socialist is better than being no socialist at all; but
> his most explicitly political work is also his most
> artistically dreary.
>
> The knighting of Salman Rushdie is the establishment's
> reward for a man who moved from being a remorseless
> satirist of the west to cheering on its criminal
> adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. David Hare caved in
> to the blandishments of Buckingham Palace some years
> ago, moving from radical to reformist. Christopher
> Hitchens, who looked set to become the George Orwell de
> nos jours, is likely to be remembered as our Evelyn
> Waugh, having thrown in his lot with Washington's
> neocons. Martin Amis has written of the need to prevent
> Muslims travelling and to strip-search people "who look
> like they're from the Middle East or from Pakistan".
> Deportation, he considers, may be essential further
> down the road.
>
> The uniqueness of the situation is worth underlining.
> When Britain emerged as an industrial capitalist state,
> it had Shelley to urge the cause of the poor, Blake to
> dream of a communist utopia, and Byron to scourge the
> corruptions of the ruling class. The great Victorian
> poet Arthur Hugh Clough was known as Comrade Clough for
> his unabashed support of the revolutionaries of 1848.
> One of the most revered voices of Victorian England,
> Thomas Carlyle, denounced a social order in which the
> cash nexus was all that held individuals together. John
> Ruskin was the great inheritor of this moral critique
> of capitalism; and though neither he nor Carlyle were
> "creative", they influenced one of the mightiest of
> English socialist poets, William Morris. In Morris's
> entourage at the end of the 19th century was Oscar
> Wilde, remembered by the English as dandy, wit and
> socialite; and by the Irish as a socialist republican.
>
> The early decades of the 20th century in Britain were
> dominated by socialist writers such as HG Wells and
> George Bernard Shaw. When Virginia Woolf writes in
> Three Guineas of "the arts of dominating other people
> ... of ruling, of killing, of acquiring land and
> capital", she places herself to the left of almost
> every other major English novelist.
>
> Not all rebukes were administered from the left. DH
> Lawrence, a radical rightist, denounced "the base
> forcing of all human energy into a competition of mere
> acquisition". Possession, he thought, was a kind of
> illness of the spirit. High modernism, however
> politically compromised, questioned the fundamental
> value and direction of western civilisation. The 1930s
> witnessed the first body of consciously committed left
> writing in Britain. Taking sides was no longer seen as
> inimical to art, but as a vital part of its purpose.
>
> In the postwar welfare state, however, the rot set in.
> Philip Larkin, the period's unofficial poet laureate,
> was a racist who wrote of stringing up strikers. Most
> of the Angry Young Men of the 50s metamorphosed into
> Dyspeptic Old Buffers. The 60s and 70s - the second
> most intensively political period of the century -
> produced no radical of the status of a Brecht or
> Sartre. Iris Murdoch looked for an exciting moment as
> though she might fulfil this role, but turned inwards
> and rightwards. Doris Lessing was to do much the same.
>
> It was left to migrants (Naipaul, Rushdie, Sebald,
> Stoppard) to write some of our most innovative
> literature for us, as the Irish had earlier done. But
> migrants, as the work of VS Naipaul and Tom Stoppard
> testifies, are often more interested in adopting than
> challenging the conventions of their place of refuge.
> The same had been true of Joseph Conrad, Henry James
> and TS Eliot. Wilde, typically perverse, challenged and
> conformed at the same time.
>
> The great communist poet Hugh MacDiarmid died just as
> the dark night of Thatcherism descended. Rushdie's was
> one of the few voices to keep alive this radical
> legacy; but now, with his fondness for the Pentagon's
> politics, we need to look elsewhere for a serious
> satirist.
>
> There are a number of factors in such renegacy. Money,
> adulation and that creeping conservatism known as
> growing old play a part, as does the apparent collapse
> of an alternative to capitalism. Most British writers
> welcome migrants, dislike Tony Blair, and object to the
> war in Iraq. But scarcely a single major poet or
> novelist is willing to look beyond such issues to the
> global capitalism that underlies them. Instead, it is
> assumed that there is a natural link between literature
> and left-liberalism. One glance at the great names of
> English literature is enough to disprove this
> prejudice.
>
> ---------------
> Terry Eagleton is John Edward Taylor professor of
> English literature at Manchester University.
