The Legacy of Raymond Williams

Author(s): Cornel West

Source: Social Text, No. 30 (1992), pp. 6-8
Published by: Duke University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/466463 .
Accessed: 28/06/2014 19:09

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Duke University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Text.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 141.101.201.138 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 19:09:17 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
The Legacy ofRaymondWilliams
CORNEL WEST

RaymondWilliams was the last of thegreatEuropean male revolutionary

socialist intellectualsborn before the end of the age of Europe (1492-
1945). I use this long stringof adjectives not to pigeonhole the complex
and multipleidentitiesof Williams,butratherto examineand evaluate his
grandachievementsand incompleteeffortsin lightof thesocial crises and
political travailsof his time.To do honorto him is to keep the legacy of
his workand life alive. And to keep this legacy alive is, in part,to keep
in view how he made and remade himself-cast and recast his ways of
life and ways of struggle- under circumstances(usually adverse cir-
cumstances) not of his choosing.
In my briefcomments,I shall suggest thatthe major contributionof
Williams to our present-daychallengesis notsimplythathe taughtus how
to thinkhistoricallyabout culturalpracticesor how to approachpolitical
matterswith a subtle cultural materialistorientationin a mannerthat
stands head and shouldersabove any of his generation.RatherWilliams
speaks to us today primarilybecause he best exemplifieswhat it means
fora contemporary intellectualleftistto carve out and sustain,withquiet
strength and relentless reflection,a sense of prophetic vocation in a
period of pervasive demoralization and marginalizationof progressive
thinkersand activists. His career can be seen as a dynamic series of
critical self-inventoriesin which he attemptsto come to termswith the
traditionsand communitiesthatpermithimto exercise his agency and lay
bare the structuraland personalconstraintsthatlimitthe growthof those
traditionsand communities.
These critical self-inventoriestake the formof powerfulculturalhis-
toriesand fictionsand oftenpersuasiveculturalcritiquesof theEuropean
past and present,in orderto create new possibilitiesforleftthinkersand
activities. In this sense, Williams's deep historical sensibilities were
groundedin a prospectiveoutlook thatneverloses sightof humanstrug-
gle against transientyet formidablelimits. Whatever the intellectual
fashionof theday - fromF. R. Leavis to Louis Althusser,Jacques Lacan
to Michel Foucault - Williams remainedwedded to subtle humanistno-
tions of struggleand hope foundin traditionsand communities.In fact,
one of his distinctivecontributionsto Marxist theorywas to revise the
understandingof class conflict- inseparablefrombutnot identicalwith
class struggle- by highlightinghow, in relatively cold moments in

This content downloaded from 141.101.201.138 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 19:09:17 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 Williams
TheLegacyofRaymond 7

human societies, class conflict is mediated throughsocial, cultural or

educational changes that insure the muting of class struggle. Like
Gramsci,Williams injects notionsof contestationand incorporationinto
the understanding of class conflictwhile reservingclass struggleforthat
hot momentin societies in which structuralchange becomes a conscious
and overtengagementof forces.Again his aim is to tease out theconcrete
and credible lines of action forprogressivethinkersand activists.
Williams's creativeattemptsto make and remakehimselfby means of
criticalself-inventories occurredon threemajorterrains.On theideologi-
cal terrainhe had to navigatebetweenthe deformationof communismin
the name of stalinismand the degenerationof socialism in the name of
fabianism.The formerwas a vicious autocraticstatismthatrepressedcivil
society and regimentedits citizens- an undeniableaffrontto Williams's
socialist democratic values; the latter- a naive gradualism which as-
sumed that the enemy was a mere partyratherthan "a hostile and or-
ganized social formation" - an unacceptable conclusion given
Williams's historicalmaterialistanalysis.
On the academic terrain,Williams sought to counter conservative
traditionsof thinkingabout culturerepresentedby T.S. Eliot and F.R.
Leavis by refiningcrude leftreflectionsabout therelationof cultureand
democracy, art and socialism. And on the political terrain,Williams
soughtto reconceive the notionof revolutionsuch thatculturalpractices
were neitheroverlookednorviewed in a simplisticmanner.The pointwas
not only thatculture- includingpopular culture- was to be viewed as
a crucial site of struggle,but also thattheveryways in whichculturewas
understoodin capitalistsocieties had to be demystifiedand transformed.
In readingWilliams's masterpieces,Cultureand Society(1958); The Long
Revolution (1961); The Countryand the City (1973); and Marxism and
Literature(1977) we get a sense of the evolutionof his own democratic
socialism, culturalmaterialismand revolutionaryactivism.
Yet, in all honesty,what also attractedme to Williams's workwas his
refusal to sidestep the existentialissues of what it means to be a left
intellectualand activist- issues like death,despair,disillusionmentand
disempowermentin the face of defeatsand setbacks.He understoodon a
deep level thatrevolutionaryactivitywas as mucha matterof feelingsas
facts,of imaginationas organization,of agency as analysis. Thereforehe
highlightedwhatmostleftthinkerstendto ignore:theneedfor vision and
the necessityof linkingvision to visceralformsof humanconnectedness.
His preoccupationwithvital traditionsand vibrantcommunities,sustain-
ing neighborhoodsand supportivenetworks,reflectedhis sensitivityto
how ordinarypeople in theireverydaylives are empoweredand equipped
to deal with defeats and setbacks. In his six novels as well as his often
overlooked gem Modern Tragedy (1966), Williams explores the highly
mediatedlinksbetweenhumanstruggle,bondingand place. This explora-

This content downloaded from 141.101.201.138 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 19:09:17 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
8 CornelWest

tion is neitheran extraneousaffairof nostalgic yearningfor the Welsh

Gemeinschaftof his youth,nor an escapist inclinationto displace the
political forthe personal. Ratherhe is grapplingwithone of the central
problematics of our moment: how to articulate visions, analyses and
formsof praxis thatanchorsocialist politics to the contingentconstruc-
tions of identitiesof degraded and downtroddenpeoples. These new
identities - often associated with the "new" social movements of
women, people of color, formerlycolonized persons,gays, lesbians and
greens- emerge fromvarious culturalpolitics of differencethatput a
premiumon bondingand place, commonexperiencesin timeand similar
situationsin space. In the late sixties,Williams began to visiblystruggle
withhis WelshEuropean identity- as manifestin his novel The Fightfor
Manod (1979). Yet it is precisely at this point where Williams's grand
example falls short;thatis, wherehe appears morea creatureof his time
than a creatorwho links us to the coming epoch. Edward Said has made
this point in termsof Williams's "relative neglect of the affiliationbe-
tweenimperialismand English culture"(Nation,March 5, 1988). I would
add that though Williams provides indispensable analytical tools and
historicalsensibilitiesforreflectionson empire,race, color, genderand
sexual orientation,the relativesilences in his workon these issues bear
the stamp of his own intellectualand existentialformationand his later
attemptsto accent a Welsh nationalistidentitywithinhis socialist project
bear thisout.
Those of us born and shaped afterthe end of the age of Europe must
begin with the legacies of the European empire- legacies of deeply
inscribedwhitesupremacistand male capitalistmetropoles- as well as
withthedecliningU. S. and Soviet empires.And as expandingculturesof
consumptionslowly erode traditions,communities,neighborhoodsand
networks,new culturalconfigurationsmustbe createdif any substantive
sources of struggleand hope for fundamentalsocietal change can be
preserved and sustained. In this regard,the last problematicWilliams
gallantlyyet inadequatelyconfrontedbecomes our major challenge. And
if we plan to meetit, we mustdo so by,in part,standingon his shoulders,
and hope we meet it as well as he did others.

This content downloaded from 141.101.201.138 on Sat, 28 Jun 2014 19:09:17 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions