RICHARD HOGGART: PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL

Abstract

This article argues that Richard Hoggart is an exemplary public intellectual of the social democratic consensus that prevailed in Britain – and, indeed, elsewhere – from the Second World War until the 1970s. His public engagements have been many and various, including arts and broadcasting policy. The article also examines Hoggart’s role in the formation of cultural studies and its often problematic relationship with policy issues. A key theme of Hoggart’s work over the past thirty years is relativism in the sense of an undiscriminating and, in effect, uncritical attitude to cultural developments in society that has become especially marked with the rise and hegemonic reach of neoliberalism. Hoggart’s position on cultural value is interrogated and his dismissal of the “good of its kind” argument called into question.

KEYWORDS:

• cultural studies
• arts and broadcasting policy
• relativism