Leviatha ...the other two extremes here BIG POLITICS & little literature

[Terrance]

WRITERS AND LEVIATHAN (1948)

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/o/o79e/part50.html


Blair says, 

"Of course, the invasion of literature by politics was bound to happen.
It must have
happened, even if the special problem of totalitarianism had never
arisen, because we
have developed a sort of compunction which our grandparents did not
have, an
awareness of the enormous injustice and misery of the world, and a
guilt-stricken
feeling that one ought to be doing something about it, which makes a
purely aesthetic
attitude towards life impossible. No one, now, could devote himself to
literature as
single-mindedly as Joyce or Henry James." 

Obviously, for about fifteen years past, the dominant orthodoxy,
especially
among the young, has been “left”. The key words are “progressive”,
“democratic”
and “revolutionary”, while the labels which you must at all costs avoid
having
gummed upon you are “bourgeois”, “reactionary” and “Fascist”. Almost
everyone
nowadays, even the majority of Catholics and Conservatives, is
“progressive”, or at
least wishes to be thought so. No one, so far as I know, ever describes
himself as a
“bourgeois”, just as no one literate enough to have heard the word ever
admits to
being guilty of antisemitism. We are all of us good democrats,
anti-Fascist,
anti-imperialist, contemptuous of class distinctions, impervious to
colour prejudice,
and so on and so forth.


I am not, of course, suggesting that mental dishonesty is peculiar to
Socialists and
left-wingers generally, or is commonest among them. It is merely that
acceptance of
ANY political discipline seems to be incompatible with literary
integrity. This applies
equally to movements like Pacifism and Personalism, which claim to be
outside the
ordinary political struggle. Indeed, the mere sound of words ending in
—ism seems to
bring with it the smell of propaganda.






  


Terrance wrote:

 The justification for this power is set out by  whatever
> minister of propaganda: The actions of the people are determined by
> their opinions, and whoever directs their opinions in the right
> direction will also direct the actions to support peace and harmony.
> Anything disrupting the peace and harmony can not be true.