LATE NEW LEFT THE
read* ew People have the lucky distinction of to ring their own obituary, and I am naively glad read* ew People have the lucky distinction of to ring their own obituary, and I am naively glad a, 'call that most of them have become even more '4stin g [shed afterwards. If, as a member of the .aye, New Left, I may comment on Mr. Stephen dill: article, I think I would pick out two main (clotilcsIceertIncinesg the vnieawturebeotwf between hpirmeseanntdeitmuaytsieolnf,, and
briee°,,ncerning the whole nature of politics.
tester "Y, I do not believe that protest and pro- hinks,haye, as he says, faded away, and I do not to tie Would on a more precise analysis, wish 4cedoriguitie that doubt if he would like to fill out his indeed t of our relations with the Labour Party- addre the last time the London NLR Club was herd ease by a member of the LP executive, the en of the address was our entire unreasonable-
ness in being still dissatisfied when so much of our outlook had been incorporated in official LP policy. One of the few things this does not suggest to me is that we have been firmly 'dealt with.' These would be only minor points if they did not focus the peculiar difficulties of present-day politics, further expressed in Mr. Fay's charge that the New Left is 'wholly without political influence.' Who isn't? There is a savour of influence in the wind all right— airline contracts, federations, the reception of the Pilkington Report, all have a smell of it; but is it a political influence? In effect, certainly yes, but the genesis of such and similar phenomena is right outside political activity. Unless we are to deny that our established framework of politics is democratic.
With the increasing meaninglessness of our political forms, not only has Mr. Gaitskell himself become a political 'peanut, but, as far as the real decisions are concerned, so has the House of Commons. It was not the frustrations of being in the New Left, for instance, that sent me too into INDEC, but the frustration of being concerned with politics at all.
IN DEC is, after all, another attempt at reviving democratic process, however much of a dream Mr. Fay may find it—and here I begin to examine our differences concerning the whole nature of politics. Mr. Fay makes great play with our alleged vague- ness about the effect of the mass media on the work- ing class and, presumably, others. It is interesting that in his copious quotation he omits Raymond Williams's comment: 'There are no masses, only ways of regarding people as masses.' This seems to me the essential rubric for any attempt to revive our political or cultural life. In accepting it, we are indeed innocent of many artificial schematics, which will mean that our views do lack a certain kind of completeness. Only a very apocalyptic view of history could expect us to be otherwise. Most of us are equally innocent of the experience of the Thirties—therefore we are not so ridden by fears and memories of worse that we are unable clearly to say that present conditions are not good enough. Of course many consumer goods are worth while, but why should so many of them be obtainable by favoured employees of Grandaddy Big Firm? Has ICI a patent on security? Cars are useful— there is not enough road for everyone to have a car. Refrigerators are useful, even necessary—the people who need them most, buying for big families or to eke out a tiny income, alone, are just the ones who can't afford them.
But even if these illogicalities should prove not to be inherent in the nature -of our society as it now is, we must still have a disgust for its cultural content. Mr. Fay finds it possible to divide the 'literary quality' of an expression from its power to corrupt. I do not believe that literary quality (by which I suppose he means written style) is meaningful, divorced from the whole being of a culture. Nor 'literature,' nor 'Art' either. We must find or re-create a whole cultural experience for our society, commensurate with the kind of possi- bilities we have now and have never had before, or go on twittering down ever-narrowing alleys of dillettante criticism. No, we haven't done it yet. Have you?
Those who dislike us, or who fail to understand the importance of what we try to say, turn here from the style of our politics to the politics of style. If I may do so too. I find something disturbing in the neat accumulation of Mr. Fay's paragraphs. Like a pack of cards, highly polished and with only pre- dictable differences, they fall into place with the authentic click of well-planned strategy. We have not found that genuine explorations fall so pat, or sum up so slickly. We are painfully used to obser- vations on our inability to be publicly gay. But I find it hard' to understand the curiously crude characterisation of drawing and style that presents our 'founding fathers' image. The image is pos- sible, even acceptable, but need it be used so vulgarly'? Most of your readers must have pro- gressed beyond the level of argument shown in the average 'Cavalier and Roundhead' story for child- ren. If we are puritans, it is because we have the puritan urge that all people should become all that they might be. This our present society all too fre- quently forbids, but it does not and cannot make the search for new Americas (was that a back- handed compliment, after all?) a comic or even a perishable ideal. Geography is against us. perhaps, since the world grew uncomfortably small, but so much greater, therefore, is our need to remake a new society on the old ground. It will take more than the New Left—of course.
RACHEL POWELL
Secretary London New Left Review Club, 7 Carlisle Street, WI
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