Volume 24, Number 17 · October 27, 1977
Compacted Doctrines
By William Empson
Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society
by Raymond Williams
Oxford University Press, 286 pp., $3.50 (paper)
The book is continually interesting; never more so, from my point of view, than when it is plainly wrong; but it is usually right, I could not deny. More than 100 familiar words, usually with some derivatives and opposites thrown in, are examined for a few pages each, so that it goes at a fair pace. The primary aim is to clear up confusion, so the author describes not only the varieties of meaning in a word but the various controversies in which they get used. Also he recognizes that these different meanings within one word are liable to interact, so that they form 'compacted doctrines,' as when native was taken to imply 'all subjected peoples are biologically inferior'; and he decides that many of our common words regularly tempt us to accept wrong beliefs, usually political ones. He does not say that resistance to them is beyond human power, which would make his book useless, but his introduction offers very little hope from the technique he provides. For example: 'to understand the complexities of the meanings of class contributes virtually nothing to the resolution…of actual class disputes'; 'what can really be contributed is not resolution but perhaps, at times, just that extra edge of consciousness'—meaning perhaps that an enlightened orator might swing votes by understanding the psychology of his audience. It is a dark picture as a whole.
Review, 2323 words
To read the full text of this piece, please choose one of the following options:
|
If you are already a subscriber to the Review's electronic edition, please sign in: |
To subscribe to the electronic edition, please press the button below. |
To purchase access to this article for $3, please press the button below. |