Alienation, Community, Freedom

In his attempt to define an organic “structure of feeling” in 19th century social thought, a structure capable of supporting the political Left and Right alike, Raymond Williams brings together much material that is of deepest interest to anyone who wants to rethink and refurbish socialist traditions. On the other hand, the very fact that he does bring such material together is a symptom of how dangerously vague and inchoate socialist traditions have become. In Williams’ view, the conservative-reactionary Wordsworth and the radical-revolutionary Blake, while pulling politically in opposite directions, are enveloped n a deeper, cultural unity of focus and insight: it is “the perception of alienation, even as a social fact, [which] can lead either way… But to assimilate the Blakean “structure of feeling” to the Wordsworthian, even in such a limited way, seems to me misleading. A little scrutiny will show two sharply distinct perceptions in operation here, rooted in profoundly different systems of values; the covering term “alienation” only covers up their fundamental alienation from one another.

Consider, first of all, the passages cited by Williams in which “...