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Socialist Review Index (1993–1996) | Socialist Review 183 Contents
From Socialist Review, No. 183, February 1995.
Copyright © Socialist Review.
Copied with thanks from the Socialist Review Archive.
Marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
I may have misunderstood Mike Rosen’s article on The Lion King (December SR) but he seems to be implying that this and other Disney films are somehow progressive because they are opposed to middle class English culture. Mike sets up a convenient ‘Aunt Sally’ by asserting that well known works of children’s literature, such as Alice in Wonderland or Winnie the Pooh, represent a uniform political and cultural entity, based upon a set of certainties that ‘haven’t changed in over 100 years’. The implication is that to expose children to literature of this kind will incline them to be uncritical of British capitalism and imperialism, whereas Disney films are somehow liberating.
The middle class and their cultural preferences are constantly changing. I should imagine, for instance, that the kind of people who currently run the stock exchange and sit on the Tory backbenches would be much more at home watching The Lion King than reading Alice in Wonderland. But more importantly I think it’s a mistake for a widely respected educationalist like Mike Rosen to imply that one kind of capitalist culture is somehow better, from a socialist point of view, than another.
Trotsky argues, in Literature and Revolution, that the highest form of culture attainable under capitalism is bourgeois culture. The achievements of bourgeois culture are individuality, variety, pluralism, not the relative progressivism or conservatism of its message. Our job as educationalists is to help children to become critical readers and viewers of all bourgeois culture.
The political traditions of the British working class movement are extremely feeble; this expresses itself, among other things, in anti-intellectualism, a hostility to ‘posh’ culture. Socialists should resist the temptation to wax lyrical over cultural forms like Disney films or television soaps or pop music simply because we imagine they irritate Daily Telegraph readers.
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Howard Medwell |
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