Hall Antinomic Tradition ROJEK

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International Journal of Cultural Studies
DOI: 10.1177/136787799800100104
1998; 1; 45 International Journal of Cultural Studies
Chris Rojek
Stuart Hall and the antinomian tradition
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45
Stuart Hall and the antinomian
tradition
Chris Rojek
Nottingham
Trent
University
Stuart Hall has
always
insisted that the main theoretical
influences on his
thought
flow from the
continent, notably
Marxism and
Gramscianism. This
paper argues
that there are
pitfalls
in
taking
Hall at face
value. Halls education in Jamaica bore the
stamp
of the British
public
school
system.
This was reinforced
by
his
early
educational
experience
in the UK as a
Rhodes scholar.
Despite
his much mooted internationalism, the focus of his work
has
always
been British culture and British
experience.
This
paper
draws
parallels
between Halls work and the antinomian tradition in British
history.
This tradition
speaks
for another Britain - an
imaginary country unrecognized
or
spurned by
the establishment. Hall
may
not
belong
to this tradition, but
ignoring
its
influence
exaggerates
the
singularity
of his
socio-political approach.
Halls
considerable achievements must not be allowed to obscure the continuities
between his work and
deep-rooted
themes in British cultural criticism.
break ; class
;
dissent ;
hegemony ;
nationalism ;
new times ;
postmodernity
How are we to
explain
the
slippage
in the
writings
of Stuart Hall on
culture? That
slippage
has occurred is now
widely alleged (McGuigan,
1992; Chen, 1996).
Until the mid-1980s Hall was
generally
seen as one of
the emblematic
figures
of the New Left.
Courageous,
articulate and com-
mitted to the socialist transformation of
society,
Hall stood as one of the
46
intellectual leaders of a
generation
that seemed not
only
to
possess
more
spark
than their
political opponents
in the Universities and
society
at
large,
but who also seemed to have better and more relevant
arguments.
Hall was
particularly receptive
to
writings
drawn from the continental Marxist tra-
dition, especially
the work of Gramsci and Althusser. While some of the
giants
of the British Left in the
postwar years
seemed to wander no further
than the work of Karl Marx and the condition of the British
working
class
to
gain
theoretical
inspiration,
Hall
ranged widely
in the Marxist tradition
to
adopt concepts
and
political
solutions to bolster his
analysis
of British
society.
It is
important
to stress the British
emphasis. Despite
his
origins
in
Jamaica
and his interest in the Marxist traditions of
Italy, Germany
and
France,
Hall did little to
incorporate
a
global
dimension into his
analysis.
Of
course,
he
recognized
that Britain is a
capitalist country
and that
capital-
ism is a worldwide
phenomenon.
But he did not follow
through
the
impli-
cations of this in
any
detailed fashion. In this
period,
Halls work is
clearly
telling
a
story
and it is a
story
of British class
struggle
and for
emancipation.
By
the
early 1980s,
and the
engagement
with
Thatcherism,
the tone of his
writing
has
changed.
The old
emphasis
on class cultures of
oppression
and
cultures of resistance has shifted to a new and
burgeoning
interest in eth-
nicity, discourse, metaphor and, eventually, floating signifiers.1
Class
analy-
sis was
gradually
overshadowed
by
a new interest in
identity politics.
The
move climaxed in the controversial New Times thesis
(Hall
and
Jacques,
1989)
which was criticized
by
several of Halls former associates for
appear-
ing
to embrace
many
of the
arguments
made
by
the
postmodernists. Specific-
ally,
it
proposed
that the
key concepts
for
making
sense of
contemporary
capitalism
are
difference, mobility
and multiculturalism. Hall
(1988: 27)
refers to a shift
occurring
in
society
from a
struggle
over the relations of
representation
to a
politics
of
representation
itself. The
implication
is
unmistakable: class
analysis
can no
longer
be
privileged
in the
analysis
of
capitalist society.
In
particular, ethnicity, gender, hybridity
and difference
must be
placed centre-stage.
This
change
of
emphasis
was
painful
for
many figures
in the New Left
who had become accustomed to
counting
Hall as a beacon of socialist criti-
cism. For the
generation
of Marxists who had
grown up
with him in the
1960s and
1970s,
Halls
apparent
conversion to some of the central
propo-
sitions of
postmodernism
seemed akin to
making
a
pact
with the devil. But
there is another
way
of
reading
Halls
progress
and it is one that I intend to
enlarge
on in the rest of this
paper.
Instead of
seeing
a break or
slippage
in Halls
work,
it is
possible
to see an
important continuity.
This
continuity
has to do with the
long
tradition of antinomianism in British
political
thought.
As we shall
see,
the term antinomian means
against
the law. It
is a
non-party
tradition of dissent and radical
thought
which is not necess-
arily
committed to
utopian goals,
but which is
highly
critical of the
limiting
47
effects of
existing economic, political,
cultural and
religious
conditions.
Reading
Hall in relation to this tradition
challenges
the orthodox view that
he is
primarily
an
exponent
of Gramscianism
(Harris, 1992; McGuigan,
1992).
Instead it
suggests
that Hall is a
typically English (not Scottish,
Welsh
or
Irish)
thinker who used Gramsci to
systematize
traditions and vocabu-
laries of dissent which are
deeply
embedded in
English
culture.
What, then,
are the main characteristics of antinomianism?
1he antinomians tradition
The term antinomianism is most
commonly
associated with the amor-
phous
collection of radical
religious
and humanist sects
operating
in the
metropolitan
centres of
England
in the late 17th and 18th centuries.
Antinomian
literally
means
against
the law. As Bakhtins
(1968) study
of
Carnival
demonstrates,
elements of antinomianism are evident in medieval
society through mocking
the
law, lampooning authority figures
and
prick-
ing
officialdom. In the 17th and 18th centuries antinomianism was used as
a term of abuse. The Puritan
objection
to antinomians was that
they
were
alleged
to
replace
the rule of law with a doctrine of free
will,
difference and
the
possibility
of a
general
secular salvation in this world. Antinomians were
thought
to believe that
they
existed in a state of divine
grace
and hence were
free to
engage
in sin and vice without
endangering
their souls
(Aylmer,
1986:
138). Thompson (1993) argued
that the antinomian tradition of free
thought,
dissent and sensuousness was a
major
influence on the
art, poetry
and
philosophy
of William Blake. There are also clear intimations of it in
the
English
Romantic
tradition, notably
in the
writings
of
Byron, Coleridge,
Wordsworth and Hazlitt.
Most commentators follow
Aylmers (1986: 138) judgement
that antin-
omians were
isolated,
eccentric
figures
who exerted a
relatively negligible
influence on
English
culture.
However,
the
concept
of a strand in culture
which is
symbolically against
the law seems to me to be an
immensely
fruit-
ful
way
of
thinking
about secular
dissenting
and non-conformist traditions
in Britain and
also,
I would
add,
about the twists and turns in Halls work.
At this
point
it
may
be worth
referring
in more detail to
Thompsons (1993)
study.
For it
provides
a vivid reconstruction of the
vitality
and
variety
of
dissent in
18th-century
London and also offers a useful
way
of
theorizing
this historical tradition.
According
to
Thompson,
antinomianism is
generally agreed
to be trace-
able to some
passages
in St Pauls
epistle
to the Romans and to the Gala-
tians. These
passages appear
to criticize the slavish observance of
Jewish
ceremonial and ritual
regulations.
But
they
were
generously interpreted
as
a criticism of the Mosaic Law and the moral
system
and administration
48
which surrounded it. The first
antinomians, then,
were
against
canonical
readings
of texts and traditions.
They
valued the
importance
of
interpre-
tation and critical discourse.
As
Thompson (1993: 12-14) shows, by
the 18th
century
antinomian
dissent had
expressed
itself in three
general religious positions
which
queried
the law of the Church and the land.
First,
Calvinism which subscribed to
the doctrine of
predestination. Second,
advocates of free
grace,
who
believed in the
pureness
of
heart, lightheartedness
towards observances and
edicts and the
certainty
of divine
mercy. Third, antagonists
who believed in
applying
antinomian
principles
to
challenge
the rule of law. In the words of
a
contemporary letter,
cited
by Thompson (1993: 13), antagonists object
to
the law as the rule of the
good
mans life
(emphasis
in
original).
As
Thomp-
son makes
clear,
the
religious
foundation of antinomian beliefs and
argu-
ments is dominant until the 1630s. Thereafter it assumes
spiritual
and
secular forms in the demand for the restoration of
equality
and
justice
in
this world. For
example,
the Ranters in the mid-17th
century applied
ele-
ments of antinomianism to
spread
the secular
gospel
of Reason
against
superstition
and the
corruption
of the
temporal
order.
It is not
necessary
to follow
Thompson
in
sifting through
all of the doc-
trinal
disputes
and the
complex
cross-fertilization between
religious
dissent
and
political
dissent. The
key point
is that
by
the
early
18th
century,
with
the defeat of the
Levellers, Diggers
and
Ranters,
the antinomian tradition
survived in
England
in the form of a
variety
of
dissenting groups,
esoteric
sects, mystic gatherings
and millenarian societies. There was little consen-
sus between the doctrines
preached
in this
patchwork
of
non-party-based
opposition. Interestingly,
in terms of recruitment and
group composition,
most antinomians were artisans and
tradesmen,
but their number
repre-
sented a wide
variety
of
occupations
and trades. While their
intermediary
position
between the establishment and the lowest orders
may
have been
significant
in
engendering
a
spirit
of
dissent,
it is not
possible
to claim some
sort of
nascent, pre-industrial
class consciousness on their behalf.
However,
libertarianism, expressed loosely
as a dissatisfaction with the
ruling
order
of
things
as
unnecessarily limiting upon
human
capacities
and
aptitudes,
was a
prominent
theme in their beliefs and transactions. For
example,
Thompson (1993: 55-64)
mentions the Sweet
Singers
of Israel who held
that there was no sin in them and that
eating, drinking
and
society
were
blessed;
the
Heavenly
Father Men who
emphasized
the
necessity
of
mercy;
the Adamists who called their
meeting place
Paradise and who
worshipped
naked;
the
Coppinists
who
rejected
the
concepts
of the devil and eternal hell.
The list reads like a collection of eccentrics and seems to confirm
Aylmers
observation.
Certainly
their views were labelled thus
by
the authorities of
the time. Antinomians were
subjected
to
censure,
harassment and
imprison-
ment.
Thompson
is careful to avoid the
proposition
that
they
constituted an
organic political
movement. Their beliefs and values were too diverse
and,
49
in
many cases, mutually antagonistic.
Even
so,
he
(1993: 63)
sees in the
antinomians a multitude of radical Dissenters
[who]
saw in Church and
State the Whore and the Beast.
As such
Thompson ( 1993: 109)
maintains that antinomianism constituted
a resource and a stance
against
the law. It acted as a defence
against
the
authorities in
quietest periods,
but was also mobilized for the
purposes
of
active criticism in more turbulent
periods.
One can do no better than let
Thompson (1993: 109-10)
summarize the conclusions to be drawn in his
own words:
Antinomian doctrine was
expressive
of
profound
distrust of the reasons of
the
genteel
and the
comfortable,
and of ecclesiastical and academic insti-
tutions,
not so much because
they produced
false
knowledges
but because
they
offered
specious apologetics (serpent reasonings)
for a rotten social
order
based,
in the last
resort,
on violence and material self-interest ... it
struck
very precisely
at critical
positions
of the
hegemonic culture,
the
common sense of the
ruling groups,
which
today
can be seen to be
intellectually
unsound and sometimes to be no more than
ideological
apologetics.
This is to
speak
of a tradition in British
political thought
which has clear
roots in the 18th
century
and which continues to the
present day.
At this
point,
I want to insist
particularly
on the
living presence
of antin-
omianism in
contemporary
culture. The
history
of offensive literature in
Britain recounted
by
Sutherland
(1982),
the
legal challenges
mounted
against contemporary unpopular
cultures
(Redhead, 1995),
and the con-
tinued
vitality
of anti-road
protests, poll
tax
riots,
new
age groups
and the
demonstrations
against
the Criminal
Justice
and Public Order Act
(1994),
the
emergence
of rave cultures which celebrate lawlessness and classless-
ness
(McKay, 1996),
and the Eco-warriors of tunnel-makers and tree-
dwellers who have
campaigned prominently against
road
building
in areas
of
outstanding
natural
beauty, provide
reason
enough
to
propose
that antin-
omian traditions and sentiments continue to
thrive,
albeit in
radically
rede-
fined,
secular forms. It is
perhaps legitimate
to maintain that these cultural
forms have intensified the antinomian tradition of
being against
the law
and
pure
of
heart,
at the
expense
of
neglecting
the traditional
emphasis
in
antinomian
thought upon
transcendence. Even
so,
the resonance with the
18th
century
is unmistakable. These
dissenting groups
stand for a different
Britain which contrasts with established
configurations
of the nation-state.
Their cultural
significance
is that
they practise
different
ways
of
being
which
refuse to
recognize
the ordinance of
existing
nation-state axioms and rules.
This is now the
point
at which the relation of Halls work to the antinomian
tradition should be tackled.
First,
I want to set the context
by making
a few
remarks about the economic and cultural conditions in which Hall and the
New Left
originally
came to
prominence.
50
Old times and the break in Halls work
The 1960s and 1970s were times of turbulent
change
in the fabric of British
society.
From the
vantage point
of the late 1990s where the
politics
of differ-
ence and
mobility
are
prominently stressed,
it is difficult to
recapture
the
sense of
unity
and
purpose
that
possessed
Halls
generation
of New Left
activists.
They
entered a labour market which delivered full
employment
and
expanding public
services. Some of the
key figures gained
tenured lec-
turing posts
in their
early twenties,
and were
presented
with a secure career
structure in
higher
education that would be
unimaginable
for
anyone
born
after the mid-1950s. This is to take
nothing away
from their criticisms of
University
education and the
controlling aspects
of the curriculum. The
staff/student
protests
at the LSE and other British universities in the late
1960s
placed many jobs
on the line. Yet the
schdden freude
with which
they
faced down Vice-Chancellors and denounced the
repressive machinery
of
the state owed much to the
prevailing
affluent economic conditions and
general
sense of social
improvement.
Hall was a
figure
of national
importance
in
expressing
socialist criticism
and
inspiring
others to
challenge
class domination in Britain. As a
Caribbean
immigrant
he
signified
the new
multiracial,
meritocratic Britain.
The internationalist
thought
that he
espoused
also
challenged many
of the
sacred cows of the traditional nationalist British Left. He had learnt from
Gramsci the
importance
of
recognizing
fissures and schisms within the cat-
egories
of
class,
and the
highly
influential
analyses
of
youth culture,
school-
ing
and state control which he
produced
in the late 1970s owe much of their
power
to these distinctions
(see
Hall and
Jefferson, 1975; Hall, 1977;
Hall
et
al., 1978). Nevertheless,
the
analysis clearly belongs
to the Marxist tra-
dition
and, despite
Halls
sympathies
for
internationalism,
in its
dogged
focus on British
experience
and British
issues,
to the more narrow field of
British Marxism. Gramsci and Althusser are
pressed
into the service of
demystifying
British
questions
and British
possibilities.
The
strategic
aim is
to destabilize the
ruling capitalist
order and
pave
the
way
to the transition
of
power
to the associated
producers.
The character of Halls work at this
time,
which seemed over-reliant on a
reading
of the Grundrisse rather than
Capital,
left most of his readers
unpre- ,
pared
for the break in his
position
in the mid-1980s. The shift towards New
Times was
widely regarded
to be a
betrayal.
Hall seemed to bid farewell to
the
possibility
of
working-class action,
let alone the
prospect
of
working-
class revolution. Instead his work now
questioned
whether it was
meaning-
ful to
analyse
social
reality
in terms of universal
categories
and collective
actors.
Instead,
he stressed the
multiplicity
of identities and the internal div-
isions and
ambiguities
within
categories
such as
capitalism
and class.
This, together
with his new-found enthusiasm for the
concepts
of
hybridity,
diaspora
and
postmodern nomadism,
was hard to swallow for a
generation
51
of readers that had identified him as an
agitator
for the transcendence of
capitalist society.
For his
part,
Hall
vehemently rejected
the accusation of
betrayal.
He con-
tinued to insist that he is a
left-wing
critic
working
in
deep
and
recogniz-
able
left-wing
traditions. His
sympathies
remain with the
oppressed
masses.
He abhorred the
snappy pessimism
of
poststructuralist
and
postmodern
intellectuals who
regarded
the
May
events in Paris in 1968 as the effective
collapse
of class action. As Hall
(1996a: 139-40) put
it:
What raised
my political
hackles is the comfortable
way
in which French intel-
lectuals now take it
upon
themselves to declare when and for whom
history
ends,
how the masses can or cannot be
represented,
when
they
are or are not
a real historical force ... The silent
majorities
do
think;
if
they
do not
speak,
it
may
be because we have taken their
speech away
from
them, deprived
them
of the means of
enunciation,
not because
they
have
nothing
to
say.
I would
argue that,
in
spite
of the fact that the
popular
masses have never been able
to become in a
complete
sense the
subject-authors
of the cultural
practices
of
the twentieth
century,
their
continuing presence,
as a kind of
passive
his-
torical-cultural
force,
has
constantly interrupted,
limited and
disrupted every-
thing
else.
These are not the words of someone who believes in the Baudrillardian
implosion
of the masses. For
Hall,
the
oppression
of the masses
evidently
remains a tenable
category and, by extension,
he retains a commitment to
emancipation.
But
crucially,
he extends and refines the
project by arguing
that the traditional Marxist focus on the
proletarian subject operated
to
marginalize
ethnic
minorities, women, gays,
lesbians and other
oppressed
groups.
The conditions of the 1950s and
early
1960s masked the
signifi-
cance of the discontinuities associated with these
groups
and reinforced the
tendency
of critics from the Left to
prefigure analysis
in the
concept
of class.
However,
a weakness of this
analysis
was its failure to
recognize
the
strength
of the cultural formations attached to the
relatively ignored
identities and
lifestyles
associated with
ethnicity
and
sexuality.
It was a mistake to treat
them as
dependent
variables of class. The New Times which Hall
pro-
pounds
consist in
recognizing
that Britain is now a multicultural
society
rather than a class
society
and that there are no bankable common denom-
inators
uniting
the
groups pursuing identity politics. Thus,
Hall
(1996b:
467)
writes:
Within
culture, marginality, though
it remains
peripheral
to the broader main-
stream,
has never been such a
productive space
as it is now. And that is not
simply
the
opening
within the dominant
spaces
that those outside it can
occupy.
It is also the result of the cultural
politics
of
difference,
of the
struggles
around
difference,
of the
production
of new
identities,
of the
appearance
of
new
subjects
on the
political
and cultural
stage.
This is true not
only
in
regard
52
to
race,
but also for other
marginalized ethnicities,
as well as around femin-
ism and around sexual
politics
in the
gay
and lesbian
movement,
as a result
of a new kind of cultural
politics.
Of
course,
I dont want to
suggest
that we
can
counterpose
some
easy
sense of victories won to the eternal
struggle
of
our own
marginalization -
Im tired of those two continuous
grand
counter-
narratives. To remain within them is to become
trapped
in the endless
either/or,
either total
victory
or total
incorporation,
which almost never
happens
in cultural
politics.
This is a
long way
from some of the classic works of the
Birmingham years,
notably
Hall and
Jefferson (1975)
and Hall et al.
(1978).
The
implications
of the new
argument
are clear: the
language
of
unity
must be
critically
recon-
ceptualized.
The
only unity
that we now
possess
is our
respect
for difference
and our insistence on the
open
character of debate. Class
struggle
in the
sense that Hall had used it as
recently
as
Policing
the Crisis
(1978)
must be
rethought
and redefined.
All of this has been delivered with the elan and moral seriousness that we
customarily
associate with Halls
writings.
Yet it has done little to disarm
his traditional Marxist critics. While no one
disputes
that he remains a
figure
of the
Left,
there is
widespread puzzlement
about the kind of socialist
alternative he now favours. The clues he sows in his
(1992a, 1992b, 1994,
1996a, 1996b)
recent work
point
to an
improbable
rainbow coalition of
multicultural
groups, feminisms,
national
liberation,
anti-nuclear and
environmental movements. At least when Mrs Thatcher and President
Reagan
were in
power
it was easier to decide what Hall stood for. His criti-
cism of the status
quo
is still
pungently expressed,
but it is now much harder
to make sense of Halls
strategic position
or his
political
vision.
Hall and the Marxist tradition
It is
especially
hard for students interested in Halls
relationship
to Marxism
to understand the new accent on
discourse, hybridity
and
metaphor
in his
approach
to culture. Halls
apprenticeship
to Gramsci left him with a
sophisticated position upon working-class
revolution. He never followed a
simplistic base/superstructure analysis
of
revolutionary
transformation.
Rather, using
Gramscis
concepts
of
conjunction
and
hegemony
he
sought
to draw attention to the
concrete,
diverse and
shifting struggles
of resistance
and
change.
Unlike other Marxist
contemporaries
who
thought
in terms of
epochs
and
operated
in the
longue dure,
Hall is an enthusiast of the
moment. At the theoretical level this enabled him to react
quickly
to new
developments.
The
compliance
of the Wilson
government
in the 1960s with
capital,
and the
Callaghan
administration with the International
Monetary
Fund in the
1970s,
could be
explained
in terms of
conjunctural
shifts both
53
within the British
working-class movement, especially
some of the more
powerful
trade
unions,
and
global power
formations.
Similarly,
while some
traditional Marxists
expressed dismay
at the
collapse
of the Berlin wall
because it
signalled
the end of a
presently existing
alternative to
capital-
ism,
Hall
rejoiced
at the
opportunity presented
to think
through
New
Times. This
adaptability
enabled Halls work to remain relevant to the shift-
ing political
and cultural crises between the 1970s and 1990s.
Indeed,
in
some
respects
it makes sense to view Hall as a Gorbachevian - still social-
ist but committed to the reform of Marxism.2
But there is a
price
to
pay.
If the
writings
of Hall on culture and
politics
tend to resemble a mazurka of
rapidly changing steps,
his work on the
capi-
talist mode of
production
was more like a
slow-moving
waltz which became
ever more ambient and neutral in its effect. In
particular,
Halls
position
on
the vexed Marxist
questions
of
totality
and class revolution became seri-
ously
understated and
consequently
hard to
interpret.
As
Jay (1984) demonstrates,
the Marxist tradition has had a difficult
relationship
with the
concept
of
totality. Engelss {1883: 427) claim,
uttered
at the
graveside
of Karl
Marx,
that Marx had discovered the law of
development
of human
history logically depended
on the
proposition
that
the
base/superstructure dynamic
identified
by
Marxism
applied
to the total-
ity
of
reciprocal
relations
throughout society. However, subsequent gener-
ations of Marxists have been inconsistent in their
application
of this thesis.
In
particular,
there has been an influential trend to treat cultural relations
as
relatively
autonomous from the economic base. With
respect
to Halls
work,
the
question
of the relative
autonomy
of culture is the most
signifi-
cant issue. Williamss famous
base-superstructure paper (1973)
had
given
students in the nascent area of cultural studies the theoretical
pretext
for
shunning
economic determinism as an
approach
to
explaining
culture.
Williams
argued
that it is
wrong
to
analyse
culture as the reflection of the
economic base. The rationale for his
position
derived from his belief that
culture is
always
based in material conditions. For
him, language
itself is a
material
practice.
Classical Marxism tends to
equate
culture
narrowly
with
the realm of
ideas, ideology, religion
and faith.
According
to Williams this
neglects
the two senses in which culture
operates
in the material
production
and
reproduction
of
everyday
life.
First,
it is the means
through
which the
conditions of
everyday
life are transformed
by
communication.
Second,
it is
a source of economic value in its own
right through
the wealth created
by
the
communication,
information and cultural industries.
Implicitly,
Williams was
pitting
his
position against
the work of Lukacs
and Korsch which had
privileged
the economic in the
explanation
of
every-
day
life. At the same time he was
aligning himself,
albeit
tacitly,
with the
thought
of
Gramsci,
the Frankfurt
School,
Goldmann and
Lefebvre,
in
which culture and the economic are conceived of as
having
an
integral,
inter-
active
relationship.
Hall is
clearly sympathetic
to Williamss
general
54
position.
From the mid-1970s his work is
increasingly preoccupied
with
mapping
the instances and articulations of the interaction between culture
and
economy
in concrete life relations. As
McGuigan (1992: 33)
comments:
Society
was conceived of as
inherently complex:
the various instances of the
superstructure
irreducible to a
single
basic
contradiction,
that of the forces
and relations of
production. Ideological
formations were
separated
out more
rigorously
and their articulation to the state and
(possibly)
the mode of
pro-
duction traced rather than
presumed.
Where did this leave the
questions
of
totality
and
working-class
revolution?
In Halls work both remain
largely
in the
background.
Even in what is
perhaps
his most
incendiary work, Policing
the Crisis
(Hall
et
al., 1978 ),
which was conceived and written in the
prelude
to some of the worst riots
that have convulsed British
society
in the
postwar period,
there is no sense
that Hall believes
working-class
revolution to be
imminent,
let alone
poss-
ible.
Moreover,
there is little in this work or in
anything
that Hall
published
in the 1970s and
early
1980s to indicate how the destabilization of social
and economic life in the UK connects
up
with wider shifts in the
reconfigu-
ration of
global capital.
This is
why
I described Halls attachment to the
tenets of the Marxist tradition as a
slow-moving
waltz
compared
with the
rapid step-switching
of his
engagement
with the
crisis, Thatcherism,
racism
and, eventually,
New Times. In this
regard
it
is,
I
think, significant
that
Hall never initiated a
theory
of
post-Fordism,
rather he assimilated
aspects
of the
theory developed by
others.
Provocatively
one
might say
that the
pro-
found
changes
of the
post-Fordist economy
and their
implications
for cul-
tural
practice
came as
something
of a
surprise
to Hall.
Certainly, despite
Halls
growing
interest in discourse and
signifying practices throughout
the
1970s and
early 1980s,
his work in this
period
sat well with the traditional
Marxist concern with class
struggle.
After the New Times thesis
(Hall
and
Jacques, 1989)
this was no
longer
the case.
The old Althusserian
question
of the
significance
of the economic as an
interactive
category
with culture remained a feature of his
approach.
But it
was now made more nebulous than ever
by
a
consuming
interest in the new
modes of cultural
formation, metaphor, discourse, diaspora
and
hybridity
(Jessop
et
al., 1984; Harris, 1992; McGuigan, 1992).
As a result the con-
cepts
of
totality
and class revolution in Halls work ceased to have much
force. The clauses and subclauses of
articulation,
the conditions and
provi-
sos of critical
conjunctions,
became so elaborate that even Hall seemed to
have trouble in
making
sense of them. The accent continued to be
placed
squarely
on the
analysis
of cultural
practice. However, although
he
regularly
insists that these
practices
must be understood as
interacting integrally
with
economic
relations,
Hall has done little to illuminate the details of this
interaction.
Instead,
he now seems most concerned to
map
the contours of
multicultural
society.
His
(1992a, 1992b, 1993)
recent work is full of
55
references to
hybridity, mongrel identity, diaspora, fragmentation,
multi-
dimensionality
and
floating signifiers.
If there is a
totality operating here,
it is situated at the level of
communication,
conceived of
loosely
as a mode
of
interaction,
and not at the level of the
interplay
between culture and
economy.
Arguably,
this
preoccupation
with
representation
and
signifying practice
was evident in Halls
writing
from the
very
start. His dissertation work in
the 1950s was on the fiction of
Henry James.
In an interview he
(1996a:
497)
claims to have abandoned the
literary
thesis after 1956 when the real
world of the Soviet
crushing
of the
Hungarian uprising
demanded a con-
crete
political response
from him.
Moreover,
the research
programme
initi-
ated under his
directorship
in
Birmingham during
the 1970s
gravitated
towards an
understanding
of culture as a
shifting
network of
texts,
narra-
tives and articulations that need to be
constantly,
and
always provisionally,
decoded. The classical Marxist identification of the
capitalist
mode of
pro-
duction with the economic base and
totality
became
slowly
reduced in
favour of a
consuming
interest in
trying
to understand the role of
hegemony
in
politics.
The accentuated stress
upon
the neo-Gramscian
concepts
of
ensembles and
power
blocs
suggested
a much more conditional under-
standing
of the class
struggle.
Yet it also carried with it the
danger
of
weakening
the
cogency
of the attack
upon capitalism.
One
might say
that
without the
proposition
that the
struggle
between
capital
and labour is the
engine
of
development
in
capitalist society,
Marxism becomes little more
than another branch of conflict
theory.
In
particular,
it loses its
grand
claim
to be a scientific
theory
of the social and economic
totality.
ade in
England?
.
The New Times thesis acted as an
epochal disjuncture
in Halls
thought.
As Hall
(1996a: 271)
himself
put it,
the
refiguring
of
theory,
made as a
result of
having
to think
questions
of culture
through metaphors
of
language
and
textuality, represents
a
point beyond
which cultural studies must now
always necessarily
locate itself. Halls basic defence of the thesis is intellec-
tual
honesty.
The conditions of
post-Fordist society
have
simply engendered
new cultural forms and
practices
and revealed
hybrid
constellations and
identities which the
battery
of
concepts forged
under classical Marxism is
incapable
of
capturing.
For critics like Clarke
(1992),
instead of concen-
trating
on the
reality underlying
the evanescent and
superficial signifying
practices produced by capital,
Hall has allowed himself to become entranced
by
them. He is
widely thought
to have confused the
epiphenomena
of
change
with basic
ruptures
in the
process
of
capitalist development.
This in turn raises the
general question
of the nature of the
relationship
between the British Left and Marxism in the
postwar period
and
further,
the
56
question
of Halls
relationship
with the British tradition. Thousands of
students in the 1960s and 1970s sat
through
classes in which the Marxian
case was
presented
as the
only
realistic
way
of
understanding
culture and
society.
Yet the
relationship
of the British Left with Marxism has
always
been troubled.
Although
Marx lived for most of his adult life in
London,
the
suspicion
of a
foreign philosophy being imported
into the tradition of
British
pragmatism
has
always
been at the heart of the British assimilation
of Marx. As a
variety
of commentators
(Robertson, 1988; Mann, 1986;
Turner, 1990)
have
argued,
the British tradition of
studying
culture has been
overwhelmingly shaped by
a twin commitment to
pragmatism
and
empiri-
cism. The
way
of life of the
people
has
always superseded questions
of
theoretical
integrity. Among left-wing critics,
this is evident in E.P.
Thomp-
sons
(1979)
ferocious denunciation of Althusserianism and Samuels
(1994)
approving
account of British cultural
populism.
In a famous
paper,
Anderson
(1964) explains
this attitude in
England
in
terms of the historical failure of the
English
critical
intelligentsia
to achieve
a decisive
position
in
English
cultural life. The conditions of life in the Celtic
fringe
of
Scots,
Welsh and Irish intellectuals were dominated
by
the brute
fact of
English occupation.
Their historical circumstances translated into an
accentuated
receptivity
to the Marxian
concepts
of class
struggle, ideologi-
cal domination and historical materialism. In
contrast, England
moved from
an
agrarian
to industrial
society
in a
relatively peaceful
manner. Turner
(1992:196)
submits that a radical
intelligentsia
is
usually
the result of a
pro-
found cultural crisis
arising
from
major
structural transformation. For
example, military occupation,
chronic economic failure or national
epi-
demic are
propitious
to
generating
a vision of a radical alternative to
society.
The
English
Civil War in the mid-17th
century
is the last
significant
revol-
utionary episode
in
English history. Revealingly,
it culminated in a restora-
tion of the
monarchy
and the renewal of
age-old
tradition. As Anderson
(1964)
and Mann
(1986) demonstrate,
in the
English case,
a
variety
of
favourable circumstances combined to ensure
gradualism
in the state for-
mation
process:
the
English upper
class was demilitarized at a
relatively
early stage;
a laissez-faire rather than
regulatory economy
was established
with the common-law tradition to
provide
a sheet anchor in the
develop-
ment
process;
the
political system championed
values of individualism and
liberalism;
the
expansion
of
empire provided
a mechanism for
exporting
radical
agitators,
such as Tom
Paine;
and the
English
Church
proved
more
adaptable
than continental Catholicism in
bending
to the necessities of the
market.
English
intellectuals who remained in
England
were never
required
to theorize an alternative or to defend freedom
against
a
proletarian
revol-
ution or fascist
onslaught (Corrigan
and
Sayer, 1985).
Even the
utopian
philosophies espoused by
the Levellers and
Diggers
in the 16th and 17th
centuries
espoused
the rhetoric of a
family
or brotherhood of
mankind,
as the
preferred
future for
England (Hill, 1972).
57
English
intellectual life was dominated
by
the utilitarianism of Bentham
and
Mill,
the
empiricism
of
Hume,
the
political philosophy
of Locke
and,
later, by
the middle-class idealism of T.H. Green and the welfare socialism
of William
Beveridge (Turner,
1992:
196-7). True, continental-style
radi-
calism was
expressed among
some elements of in the British labour move-
ment,
most
notably
the
physical
force Chartists before 1834 and the
unskilled mass unions formed after the 1880s. Yet the
significant point
is
that these elements were
voluntarily co-opted
into the ascendant new model
unionism of the labour
aristocracy.
Of
course, popular uprisings,
disturb-
ances and riots
peppered
national
history (Hill, 1972; Underdown, 1985;
McKay, 1996).
But
popular
sentiments of rebellion have been
pre-eminently
articulated at a discursive level
through
the rhetoric of
ideas, drama,
litera-
ture,
marches and
processions (Williams, 1958). Although
British Marxist
refer to the violence of the class
struggle
the amount of blood
actually
spilled
on British streets over the last 250
years
has been
remarkably
small
when
compared
with the
story
in continental
Europe
and the
USA,
which
was founded on the decimation of one race
(the
American
Indians)
and the
subhuman treatment of another
(the
African slave
class). s
It
goes
without
saying
that to
suggest
that this is the context in which Hall
came to
maturity
as a thinker and activist itself
begs
the
question
of his
Eng-
lishness and his
relationship
with
English
culture. Hall
(1996a: 490)
is on
record as
insisting
that Im not and never will be
English.
Yet
England
has
been his home since
arriving
from
Jamaica
in 1951. His involvement in
English
culture
goes
back much further. The curriculum at his school in
Jamaica
was modelled on the elite
English public
school
system. By
his
(1996a: 498)
own account his formal
secondary
education was based in a
rigorous training
in
Latin, English history, English
colonial
history
and
English
literature. Halls
exposure
to the elite values of British culture was
far more
systematic
than most children in the
English
state
system
would
have received in the 1940s and 1950s.
They
would have been
taught
the
mixture of muscular
Christianity
and deference which was
typical
of the
rational,
middle-class
management
and educational reform of the
working
class and the
aristocracy
of labour
(Borzello, 1987).
In
contrast,
Hall
may
have been
taught
to defer to the values of the mother
country,
but he was
also educated to enter the elite colonial class of leaders and administrators.
Halls
pre-university
education was
clearly
elitist in the context of
colonialism and it was reinforced when he arrived in Oxford as a Rhodes
scholar.
Significantly,
the first book that he
thought
of
publishing (with
Alan
Hall)
was to have been a critical
enquiry
into British culture. The
project
was abandoned as Hall
gradually
became involved in the
group setting up
the New
Left
Review. The latter was itself dominated
by
disaffected
public
school and
Oxbridge
educated intellectuals.
Halls involvement with
England
and
English questions goes
far
deeper
than his involvement with the New Left. It is evident in one of his first
58
published
works on the
thought
of the Labour
strategist Anthony
Crosland
and the condition of
England (Hall, 1960).
It continues in his
subsequent
work. Hall
displays
the values of fair
play
and
irony
that are
typical
of
the
English intelligentsia.
This is not to
deny
that his
relationship
with
English
culture is
complex.
Hall made a
spectacular
rise as one of the most
prominent
social critics of his
day. Moreover,
this was
largely accomplished
not from the sidelines of white
culture,
but from within its heartland. Hall
has held
posts
in
higher
education since 1961 when he was
appointed
to
teach
media,
film and
popular
culture at Chelsea
College.
In an interview
(1996a: 497)
he
acknowledges
that the
job
was
perhaps
the
only
one of its
kind in the
country,
an
admission, perhaps,
of
privilege.
If so it also
applies
to much of his
subsequent
academic career. In 1964 he is invited
by
Richard
Hoggart
to become a Fellow at the Centre for
Contemporary
Cultural
Studies in
Birmingham.
After
Hoggart leaves,
Hall becomes the Director of
this
organization
and steers it
through its.golden years.
Indeed Hall
emerges
in this
period
as a formidable administrator. He staves off
intra-University
and external criticism of the Centres
activities,
and he
manages
to
keep
one
step
ahead of the
University
authorities in
securing
the Centres existence.
Yet he is also attacked
by
feminists for
failing
to
respond positively
and
openly
to the
challenges
that feminism
presented
to the formation of cul-
tural studies
(Brundson, 1996).
In 1979 he leaves to take
up
the Chair in
Sociology
at the
Open University.
In all of
this,
Halls adherence to the Gramscian ideal of the
organic
intel-
lectual is
prominently
stressed. The theoretical and
practical
links that he
makes with the
working-class
and ethnic cultures are
integral
to his theor-
etical work. His concern with
ordinary people
and concrete
everyday
life is
an
intensely
felt
part
of his
pedagogic
and
analytical approach.
He
( 1996a:
501)
cited the
opportunity
to talk to
ordinary people,
to women and black
people,
in an unconventional
setting
as one of the
leading
attractions that
tempted
him to
go
to the
Open University.
In
many ways,
his
support
for
the
pedagogic principles
of
widening access, recognizing
the
ordinary
and
appreciating
the
vitality
and content of
working-class
culture is
typical
of a
certain kind of reformist intellectual. Robertson
(1988: 13) argues
that the
interest in culture as a
way
of life of the
people
and the
intimacy
between
social
relationships
and structures is a characteristic
approach
of the criti-
cal tradition in
English
letters. Hall stands
squarely
in this tradition. The
attempts
to
categorize
him as a
diasporic
intellectual who has
helped
to
unmask
many
of the
peculiarities
of the
English exaggerate
Halls
margin-
ality
to
pre-Marxist English
traditions of cultural criticism.
By
the same
token, they exaggerate
Halls debt to continental Marxism.
Hall has contributed to this
misreading
of his work and not
only by
his
vociferous insistence that he does not count himself
among
the
English.
His
( 1980) description
of culturalism in the
widely anthologized
Two Para-
digms essay paints
the tradition in Marxist colours. Culture is
presented
59
almcst
wholly
in terms of class in the Althusserian sense of the
term,
above
ethnicity, gender
and subculture. In
addition,
the axis of the
essay
is based
around the
interplay
between culturalism and structuralism. He is con-
cerned to show how the historical and
ethnographic practices
of the cultural
tradition can be informed and enriched
by
structuralist ideas. It is a
portrait
which is
notably
at odds with the
descriptions
of culturalism made
by
other
prominent left-wing figures
of the
day.
For
example, Raymond
Williams
(1958)
and Edward
Thompson (1963)
make much more of the
cleavages
within cultures
arising
from
specific spatial
and historical conditions. These
authors write in
praise
of
locality long
before Hall
begins
to
champion
difference.
Thompson,
in
particular,
was
sceptical
of the value of the turn
towards structuralism. One of the last
pieces published
in his lifetime con-
tains an unmistakable
dig
at the
Birmingham
tradition
(1991: 13). Culture,
he
complains,
is a
clumpish term,
which
by gathering up
so
many
activities
and attributes into one common bundle
may actually
confuse or
disguise
discriminations that should be made between them.
Thompson
was in favour of a more concrete and
historically
informed
approach
to culture. He had in mind an
approach
which would allow for
differences between
rites, symbolic modes,
the cultural attributes of
hegemony
and local cultures. In
principle,
Hall would
probably
find little to
disagree
with in
Thompsons position. However,
in
practice
his own work
has tended to
privilege
immediate
living
relations understood as
being
bound
up
with class
struggle
over
concrete, local,
historical lived relations. For
example,
one searches in vain for a detailed historical
reading
of class con-
flict in his work.
Instead,
the issue is treated as a
given
of
capitalist
culture.
This attitude
probably
owes much to Halls
reading
of Gramsci
and,
to a
lesser
extent,
Althusser. Both recommend the
desirability
of
acting
for
working-class
revolution. Even before the New Times
thesis,
Hall is more
ambiguous.
For him
(1996a),
articulation is
clearly
a crucial
concept.
Yet
despite
his own advice to the
contrary,
his
operationalization
of the
concept
tends to confine it to the realms of discourse and
symbolic
action. There is
actually very
little in Halls work to
support
the view that the subordinate
classes have
successfully
wrested
power
from the dominant classes in
society.
Instead,
he
emphasizes
the conditional and
provisional
nature of class con-
cessions and class victories. Halls
understanding
of radicalism is
palpably
not
equivalent
to a revolt into
style. Nonetheless,
the
gestural
and the
sym-
bolic blows
against authority
tend to dominate in his
examples
of how
resistance occurs.
Again, despite
Halls earlier stated claim of not
being
English,
this view of resistance is
profoundly,
if not
suffocatingly, English.
It is an observation which raises the
question
of where to
place
Hall intel-
lectually.
More
precisely,
it
suggests
that it is a mistake to see him
categori-
cally
as a
representative
of the Marxist tradition. The
mobility
and lack of
consistency
in Halls work
implies
that it
may
be more accurate to situate
him in a
pre-Marxist
tradition of
English
criticism: antinomianism.
60
Conclusion
Why
devote so much
space
to the
history
of British antinomianism in a
paper
which
began
as an
attempt
to account for the
slippage
in the
writings
of Stuart Hall? The first
point
to make is a disclaimer: I am not
proposing
that Hall has been a covert
antinomian, burrowing away
to
protect
and
practise
the
mysteries
of the
faith,
while
living
in London and
holding
down
academic
posts
in
Birmingham
and Milton
Keynes.
The
proposition
that I
wish to make is more
circumspect, although admittedly
still rather bold. I
propose
that antinomianism is a crucial and
neglected
influence in the
content and
trajectory
of Stuart Halls
thought.
It reveals him to be a more
English
thinker than he or his circle have allowed. I think that this
helps
to
explain why
dissent and criticism have bulked
larger
in Halls work than
questions
of social
strategy
and construction. Dissent and criticism is the
customary
mode of the antinomian tradition and it is the trademark of the
British academic Left in the
postwar period.
The antinomian tradition in
English political
life is associated with
tremendous radical
vitality.
But it has not translated into a tenable form of
oppositional politics
that is
capable
of
changing
the character of the
system.
On the
whole,
dissent and sedition have been
peacefully co-opted.
This has
sharp parallels
with the
postwar history
of the academic Left in
England.
Putting
it
provocatively,
one
might say
that the academic Left in the
postwar years
has had an
uneasy relationship
with
authority
and consen-
sus in
any
form. One
only
has to think of the rifts in the New
Left
Review
under Halls
editorship
in the 1960s.
Many bitterly
criticized Hall for
engaging
with CND and other new social movements rather than renew-
ing
class
analysis. Sparks (1996: 78) shrewdly compares
this with the fall-
out
against
Halls New Times thesis in the 1980s. More
widely,
the
academic Left in Britain has shown a
persistent tendency
to
fight damag-
ing
wars in
public.
Think of the
acrimony
that followed the
May Drxy
Man-
ifesto
of 1968 edited
by Raymond Williams, Thompson
and Hall
(Williams,
1979:
373-4)
over the correct
social,
economic and cultural
strategy
to
apply
to the
crisis;
and also
Thompsons (1978) sulphurous
invective
against
Althusserianism which
barely
conceals his
contempt
for
the
Birmingham
School
project.
Halls life
politics
and cultural
theory
have
consistently rejected
bound-
aries. He has
always
been uncomfortable with the
attempts by
others to
categorize
his work as
representing
the New
Left,
Cultural Studies or
New Times.
By
his own
admission,
his
deepest
intellectual
passion
is for
the
thought
of Antonio Gramsci. This is no accident. Gramscis
advocacy
of
self-reflexive,
mobile critical
engagement
in
contemporary
culture is bound
to be attractive to
anyone
with Halls cast of mind. Yet it is also concomi-
tant with an antinomian outlook
since,
in
Gramsci,
the nexuses of control
and
authority
are
moving targets
which
change historically.
There is a
61
commitment to
change
in this
tradition,
but as with
antinomianism,
the
greater emphasis
is
upon
the need to combat axioms and laws which need-
lessly
inhibit human
capacities
and
aptitudes.
However,
to take Hall at his own
word,
in
placing
Gramsci as the ascen-
dant intellectual influence in the formation of Halls
thought,
is to mistake
the wider
importance
of
English
antinomianism in the
left-wing
culture of
political theory.
The whole
spirit
of Halls
writing
is
against
the law. This
is one reason
why
it is difficult to
extrapolate
from it
compelling political
strategies. Certainly,
it is difficult to see how the rainbow coalition between
the
working class,
the
underclass, women, post-feminists,
ethnic
minorities,
Third World countries in their
fight against
the
vagaries
of
colonialism,
gays
and
lesbians,
that Hall seems to
envisage
in the New Times
thesis,
makes
political
sense. Halls work
gives
the
impression
of
defending
all of
these
groups simultaneously. However,
it does not follow that these
groups
have
compatible
interests.
Anyone
who has attended a local council or com-
munity meeting
in
any
of Britains inner cities will know that it is
politically
naive to assume that the interests of
gays
and
lesbians,
the
working
class
and the ethnic
diaspora
constitute a common front. Hall
(1996a)
is aware
of the contradictions. His discussion of difference and
hybridity
is an
attempt
to
provide
theoretical
depth
to the
subject.
Even
so,
the
greatest
weakness of his
approach
to culture is that it
exposes
difference without
suggesting
a
convincing
basis for
solidarity.
Something
similar
applies
to his habit of
constantly modifying
his theor-
etical
apparatus
with new extensions and
qualifications.
His recent
empha-
sis on
hybridity, diaspora, sliding signifiers
does not fit well with the earlier
work on
hegemony,
class and
encoding/decoding.
The structure is too
unwieldy. Many things
which do not
necessarily
connect are forced
together.
Moreover,
the connections between the nuances and extensions are not
fully
justified by
Hall himself. Over the last decade and a half his theoretical work
has seemed rather defensive. It
appears
to be driven
by challenges
from
post-
structuralist and
postcolonial
theories rather than the inner
logic
of the neo-
Marxist model of the 1960s and 1970s. One has the
feeling
that Hall himself
is no
longer
able to
give shape
to his labours. In
reviewing
Halls work at
length,
I am struck
by
the
image
of a master builder who has added so
many
rooms,
doors and
passages
to his house that he is no
longer
able to find his
way
around the
premises.
Not
knowing precisely
what Hall stands for in theoretical terms
is,
of
course,
one reason
why
it is so difficult to
categorize
or criticize him. We
know that he believes in the
factuality
of class
consciousness,
white
rule,
and the
reality
of
hegemony
in
managing consent;
and we also know that
he is
against
the
linguistic
turn of
poststructuralism (his
comments on
Foucault are sometimes
remarkably one-sided),3
the relativism of
post-
modernism and the thesis of
hyperreality.
But whether this adds
up
to a
coherent theoretical
position
is another matter. Too often in
reading
his
62
work one is struck
by
the
impression
that his cultural
theory explains every-
thing
and
nothing
at the same time.
The most durable idea seems to be
resistance,
which is
something
that
the
18th-century
antinomians would have
recognized
and felt
quite
at home
with. Yet in Halls work the focus of resistance has become more
complex
and nuanced. As a result it is often
very
difficult to
extrapolate
a
practical
politics
from Halls cultural
theory.
His
approach
identifies so
many pres-
sure
points
of authoritarianism and
repression
in
everyday
life that the
ques-
tion of what to do becomes
frustratingly
elusive. I think that this is a
very
English complaint. English
critics have
always
been better at
discursively
confronting
and
investigating
the world than
taking practical steps
to trans-
form it.
Again, putting
it
provocatively,
the
English gave
the world Tom
Paine and
Shelley; they
never
produced
a
Lenin,
a Stalin or a Hitler.4
Doubtless the absurdities of British civil culture must be called to account
for this. The British
slip easily
into
gesture
and rhetoric and disdain the
alleged philosophical simplicities
of continental
realpolitik. History
has
played
a
part
in this. The success of
empire mortgaged
the
unique
combi-
nation of
individualism,
tolerance and
pragmatism
as the British
genius.
It
has left British culture with an unreasonable sense of civil and
political superi-
ority.
This
staggers
on
despite
the
flagrant
abuses of civil and
political power
conducted
by
official
representatives
of the
state,
and the
inability
of the
economy
to
properly
fund the
high
ideals of individualism and tolerance
any
more. Hall has been
exemplary
in
exposing
the
insularity
and self-delusions
of the British outlook. But his criticism uses rhetoric and
gesture
too often
to constitute a
genuine
alternative
political
and cultural
theory.
This is
why
I
propose
that the antinomian tradition is a
neglected
resource in
trying
to
understand his cultural
theory
and his
Englishness.
Notes ,
1 Halls lecture on Race as a
Floating Signifer
was delivered at Goldsmiths
College, University
of London in the summer of 1996 as
part
of a
programme
of
public
lectures
organized by Sage Publications,
London.
2
John Hartley suggested
Gorbachevian as a useful term to describe the twists
and turns in Halls
position.
3 See his comments in Chen and
Morley (1996: 135-6).
As Chen
(1996) per-
ceptively complains,
Halls attack on Foucault reveals more of Halls own
problematical concept
of
power grounded
as it is in traditional marxist
categories
of
power...
Halls
reading
of Foucaults
theory
does not take
it on its own terms.
4 I am not
arguing
that this is
necessarily
a cause for
complaint.
The
thought
of a British Hitler or Lenin is
unpleasant
to entertain.
My point
is that the
English
have
historically
been
very
bad at
planning
collective transformation.
63
The
deeply
rooted
respect
for individualism and difference has
always
counted
against
it.
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4m CHRIS ROJEK is Professor of
Sociology
and Culture at the
Theory
Culture and
Society
Research Centre, Nottingham
Trent
University.
He is
the author of
many books,
the most recent of which are
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Escape
(1993)
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Address: The TCS
Centre,
Room
175, Faculty
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Trent
University,
Clifton
Lane,
Nottingham
NG11
BNS,
UK
[email: TCS@ntu.ac.uk]
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