Dead clichés?
Sir: Ronald Butt's article 'The Politics of fashion' (15 December) raises more ques- tions than it answers. He is right, of course, in what appears to be his main, rather pedantic point, and Hugo Young is wrong. The Sunday Times of the late Sixties was political, if not politicised (what difference is there between these two words?), as how could it fail to be? The argument is between two kinds of politics, not between politics and neutrality, which in the sphere of newspaper journalism would mean sil- ence. When we come to examine these two kinds of politics, however, Mr Young's equivocation on this point seems to be very much the lesser of two evils.
In his last paragraph, Ronald Butt comes out into the open from behind the lofty screen of his mandarin-style prose (which seems to claim for itself exactly the kind of neutrality he himself denies to Mr Young). He questions the notion that a `more open, civilised,' compassionate and caring (all those words), society has been under- mined. Behind those lying words, he inti- mates, lay something more sinister, cor- rupt and promiscuous. In its place has come 'a new sort of realism and responsi- bility'. New words for old. Are Mr Butt's any better than the ones he criticises? In some respects I think they are worse. 'Caring' and 'compassionate' are admitted- ly hackneyed, or rather should be used strictly of individuals, not of societies, but should 'open' and 'civilised' be lumped with them and thrown on the same pile of dead clichés? Take 'open', for example: is there an 'opposition front bench' in the present Sunday Times leader-writing policy group, or would 'realism and responsibil- ity' rule that out? Any comment from Mr Butt on the present Sunday Times would of course, as he says, be 'otiose'.
Harry Eyres
Corner House, Eton, Windsor, Berks
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