Box populi
Sir: You have published nothing better from the pen of Simon Raven than 'Milton Shulman and the box populi ' (March 17) — a superb philippic on philistine values. Of course much of what Mr Raven had to say about the defects and limitations of the masses had already been said in his book The English Gentleman (notably in the chapter headed 'The Age of Resentment ') but it is no less valid for that. Anyone concerned for England's survival in this world of development, supermarkets and Access cards must concede his claim that mass prosperity means pollution and destruction," of much that is not only valuable but irreplaceable. In other words, as Kingsley Amis put it, more means worse.
What I find contestable in Mr Raven's philosophy is the suggestion that " they " deserve nothing better than the second and third rate, exemplified in this case by commercial television. This is surely a conclusion of despair, which I must respectfully reject. Nevertheless, there has .been, and
still is, reason to suppose that the ' man in the sreet ' is capable of responding to merit of some sort — if not to an ideal, then to something he knows deep down to be right. The success of such an appeal must always depend on both presentation and integrity.
John Buchan, to whom Mr Raven has been compared, once wrote: " England, you know, demands whole-heartedness in her public men. She will follow blindly the second-rate if he is in earnest, and reject the first-rate if he is not." The point being, of course, not a preference for the secondrate but the instinct for the genuine. The public, even in these affluent times, can now and then see when it is being conned. That it seems to accept so enthtisiastically the second-rate is no proof that it might not (at least part of it) prefer the first-rate — if it were ever offered. To suggest, as Mr Raven does, that the present standards of commercial television are the fault of the mass-viewer, not the promoter, does him less than justice as a critic and is, in effect, a public insult.
The temptation these days is to aim at a preconceived, ad-softened market and it is this lowestcommon denominator approach that is the basic flaw in commercial television. It accounts, too, for the appalling level of its advertising. The specious provision of the ITV Act that nothing shall " offend against good taste and decency" seems to me meaningless, when we are daily confronted in the " natural breaks " by ill-bred children with chocolatesmeared cheeks, snatching pastry from the kitchen table or raiding their mother's larder. I have little doubt that a competent scientific study would reveal that at least half the wage claims of recent years were attributable to these insidious pressures.
Unfortunately, though, such meretricious policies are no longer confined to the sleazier sector of commerce. We have recently been treated to the undignified spectacles of the Church of England and the National Trust scrambling to be 'with it' in the mass market — rather like two well-born dowagers getting into a striptease act. Swinging vicars crying the merits of Godspell and pop junketings in St Paul's Cathedral now match the Trust's elephantine attempts to compete with its natural enemies, the showman-peers, by prostituting its own properties in a campaign of vulgar publicity and shameless pressure selling. Both institutions are essentially idealistic in purpose and far from well equipped to do battle in the world of cut-throat
commercialism. They have, though, certain assets denied to their rivals in their publicly recognised aims and standards. Only by remaining true to these and avoiding all compromise can they hope to survive and continue in their proper roles — as moral forces.
James Brach Old Angel, Woodhill, Stoke St Gregory, Taunton
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