Stuart Hall's "Cultural Studies: Its Two Paradigms" (Summary)

 

 

In serious intellectual work, we don't believe in absolute beginnings because things rarely start completely fresh. Instead, we focus on important moments where old ideas are shaken up, and new ideas come together with them in different ways. These changes in how we think about things drastically alter the kinds of questions we ask and how we ask them. This reflects the ongoing relationship between knowledge and power.                                                           Cultural Studies, as a distinctive problematic, emerged from such a moment in the mid-1950s, characterized by significant breaks with previous traditions.

 

Key texts like Hoggart's "Uses of Literacy" and Williams's "Culture and Society" played pivotal roles in staking out this new terrain. While initially appearing as continuations of earlier concerns, retrospectively, their breaks with past traditions were equally, if not more, important. These texts departed from previous modes of thinking by rejecting polarized cultural debates and emphasizing the significance of culture in reflecting social, economic, and political changes.

 

Williams's subsequent work, "The Long Revolution," further signaled the need to move beyond the established culture-and-society mode of reflection towards a different kind of analysis. Similarly, E.P. Thompson's "Making of the English Working Class" contributed to this moment by foregrounding questions of culture, consciousness, and experience, breaking away from deterministic and reductionist frameworks.

 

These seminal texts were not intended as textbooks for a new academic subdiscipline but were responses to the immediate pressures of their time and society. They highlighted the importance of culture in understanding historical transformations and emphasized the intersection of culture with industry, democracy, and class dynamics.

 

The early New Left, to which these writers belonged, placed the "politics of intellectual work" at the center of Cultural Studies from its inception. The "settling of accounts" in these texts defined the space from which a new area of study and practice emerged. This moment of "re-founding" laid the groundwork for the institutionalization of Cultural Studies in the 1960s and later, with its characteristic gains and losses.

 

The concept of "culture" within Cultural Studies emerges as a complex and multifaceted domain, defying simple or unproblematic definitions. Instead, it serves as a site of convergent interests, reflecting a convergence of ideas rather than a clearly delineated concept. Through the seminal work of Raymond Williams, two main problematics concerning the conceptualization of culture can be discerned.

 

The first problematic conceptualizes culture as the sum of available descriptions through which societies make sense of and reflect their common experiences. This definition democratizes and socializes the concept of culture, rejecting earlier notions that emphasized the "best" of civilization. Instead, culture is understood as ordinary and encompasses the giving and taking of meanings in social processes. Art and literature are no longer privileged forms but are integrated into a broader cultural framework, reflecting shared meanings and activities within communities.

 

The second problematic approaches culture from a more anthropological perspective, emphasizing its aspect related to social practices. This view defines culture as a "whole way of life," integrating various social practices into a cohesive whole. Culture is not merely descriptive but is threaded through all social activities, revealing patterns of organization and relationships. The study of culture involves analyzing the interactions between these patterns and understanding how they are experienced as a whole within specific historical contexts.

 

Williams's exploration of culture challenges idealist and elitist definitions while also critiquing certain strands of Marxism. He rejects simplistic base/superstructure models and economic determinism, advocating instead for a radical interactionism that sees all practices as interconnected forms of human activity. This perspective emphasizes the dynamic and complex nature of culture, transcending rigid determinacy and recognizing the intricate relationships between various social practices.

Several radical revisions of early positions in Cultural Studies have significantly contributed to redefining its scope and objectives. Despite the exemplary nature of Raymond Williams's project in continuously reassessing and refining older arguments, a marked line of continuity can be observed through these seminal revisions.

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One significant moment in this evolution is Williams's recognition of Lucien Goldmann's work, which introduced him to an array of Marxist thinkers focusing on superstructural forms. This encounter prompted Williams to depart from the Marxist tradition he knew and to develop a theory of social totality that emphasizes the study of culture as the study of relations within a whole way of life. He replaced the base/superstructure formula with the idea of a field of mutually determining forces. Williams's emphasis on a structure of feeling converged with Goldmann's genetic structuralism, highlighting the interactivity of practices and underlying totalities.

 

Another pivotal moment occurred when Williams incorporated E. P. Thompson's critique of The Long Revolution, leading him to rethink issues of determination and domination through Gramsci's concept of hegemony. Williams elaborated on dominant, residual, and emergent cultural practices, returning to the problematic of determinacy as "limits and pressures." Despite these revisions, Williams maintained earlier emphases, stressing the interconnectedness of literature and art with other social practices and rejecting the notion that any dominant culture exhausts human practice.

 

The dialogue between Williams and Thompson, although initially sharp, gradually converged around common problematic terms. Thompson's distinction between social being and social consciousness resonated with Williams's concept of real, binding practice. Both scholars rejected reductionist interpretations of determinacy and emphasized the dialectical intercourse between culture and non-culture in understanding the historical process.

The dominant paradigm in Cultural Studies, despite its significant differences, conceptualizes culture as intertwined with all social practices, emphasizing sensuous human praxis as the activity through which individuals shape history. This paradigm opposes the base-superstructure formulation, preferring a dialectic between social being and social consciousness. Culture is defined as the meanings and values that arise among social groups based on historical conditions, expressed through lived traditions and practices.

 

Raymond Williams and E.P. Thompson epitomize this paradigm, emphasizing experience as central to cultural analysis. They view culture as inseparable from human activity and emphasize historical agency. Despite variations in terminology, both scholars stress the importance of understanding how people experience and respond to their conditions of life.

 

However, this culturalist strand in Cultural Studies faced interruptions with the emergence of structuralist approaches. Structuralism, influenced by figures like Claude Lévi-Strauss and Louis Althusser, broke from the base-superstructure model and emphasized the constitutive primacy of superstructural domains. Lévi-Strauss focused on culture as categories and frameworks in thought and language, emphasizing signifying practices. Althusser, similarly, viewed ideology as unconscious categories shaping individuals' relation to their conditions of existence.

 

While both culturalism and structuralism reject reductionist and economist interpretations, they differ in their conceptualizations of culture and determinacy. Culturalism emphasizes historical agency and the interconnection of practices, while structuralism focuses on internal relations within signifying practices. Despite their differences, both paradigms contribute to a nuanced understanding of culture in Cultural Studies.

One of the most significant points of divergence between culturalism and structuralism lies in their contrasting views on the concept of "experience" and its role in shaping understanding. In culturalism, experience is seen as the ground where consciousness and conditions intersect, emphasizing the lived aspect of human existence. However, structuralism rejects the notion that experience can be the foundation of anything, arguing instead that individuals can only experience their conditions through the lens of cultural categories, which themselves are unconscious structures. Thus, in structuralism, experience is viewed as an effect rather than a source of understanding.

 

This fundamental difference leads to various other distinctions between the two paradigms. Structuralism tends to emphasize determinate conditions, highlighting the ways in which individuals are positioned within social structures that shape their agency. This perspective discourages naive humanism and emphasizes the necessity of understanding the structural constraints within which individuals operate. Moreover, structuralism recognizes the importance of abstraction as a tool for understanding complex social relations, acknowledging the need to develop concepts to navigate the intricacies of social reality.

 

However, structuralism's tendency towards absolutism in prioritizing theoretical abstraction can lead to oversimplifications and overlook the dynamic interplay between different levels of abstraction present in Marx's own work. Culturalism, on the other hand, pushes back against excessive abstraction, emphasizing the concrete experiences of individuals and the complexity of historical reality.

 

Ultimately, a synthesis between these two paradigms is necessary to construct a more comprehensive approach to the study of culture. Such a synthesis would acknowledge the importance of structural analysis while also recognizing the significance of lived experience in shaping social reality. By avoiding the extremes of abstraction and anti-abstraction, and by transcending false dichotomies between theory and empiricism, a more nuanced understanding of cultural phenomena can be achieved.

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Structuralism offers another strength in its conceptualization of "the whole." While culturalism emphasizes the radical particularity of practices, its understanding of totality retains a simplicity grounded in the fluidity of practices moving in and out of each other. Structuralism, however, advances by acknowledging the necessary complexity within the unity of a structure. It introduces the concept of overdetermination, which better captures this complexity than the combinatory invariance of structuralist causality. Moreover, structuralism enables us to think of unity constructed through differences between practices rather than their homology, echoing Marx's insight into the unity of a social formation constructed out of difference.

 

However, structuralism's emphasis on difference can lead to conceptual heterogeneity, undermining the sense of structure and totality. Post-Althusserians like Foucault have emphasized the non-correspondence and heterogeneity of practices, but this approach risks losing sight of the overall unity. Yet, if properly developed, structuralism can facilitate a more nuanced understanding of specific practices without losing sight of their interrelatedness within the larger ensemble.

 

A third strength of structuralism lies in its decentering of "experience" and its elaboration of the category of "ideology." While culturalism tends to prioritize the affirmative moment of conscious struggle and organization, structuralism highlights the importance of ideology in reproducing a particular mode of production. Although some structuralist conceptualizations of ideology may lean towards functionalism, recent work has suggested ways to conceptualize ideology as a terrain of struggle, aligning with structuralist principles.

 

Culturalism's strengths often stem from the weaknesses of structuralism and its strategic absences. It rightly emphasizes the dialectic between unconscious cultural categories and conscious organization, recognizing the role of conscious struggle in shaping history, ideology, and consciousness. However, culturalism's overemphasis on consciousness can lead to a neglect of structural determinants. Despite their differences, both paradigms offer valuable insights, and a synthesis that acknowledges their respective strengths and weaknesses may lead to a more comprehensive approach to cultural studies.

The third position in Cultural Studies, closely linked to structuralism but embracing radical heterogeneity, is exemplified by Foucault's work. Foucault's suspension of determinacy has enabled a return to concrete analysis of ideological and discursive formations, aligning with culturalism's strength in analyzing concrete historical instances. However, Foucault's skepticism about determinacy can lead to a problematic non-correspondence of practices to one another, hindering the adequate conceptualization of social formations and the state.

 

While Foucault's work contributes valuable insights, a synthesis of the best elements from structuralism, culturalism, and Gramsci's concepts appears most promising for Cultural Studies. Structuralism and culturalism, despite their flaws, address the core problem of Cultural Studies—the relationship between culture and ideology, the specificity of practices, and the unity they constitute. They also engage with the dialectic between conditions and consciousness and the relation between the logic of thinking and historical processes. Their sustained antagonisms define the space and limits within which a synthesis might be possible, making them central to the field of Cultural Studies.