I am dismayed frequently by the slowness with which ideas come to permeate the awareness of the population. This is the case most frequently with ideas that have been the bread and butter of social science for ages, but are suddenly “discovered” and become the latest common wisdom. It is equally a problem with the arts.
Listening to the news on the radio this morning I was astonished to hear a young woman being interviewed, introduced to us as a significant “influencer”, who was expounding views about feminism that I was teaching back in the ‘sixties. (It was not only rediscovered John Berger, but even rehashed Anne Oakley.)
“Race” and ethnicity are everywhere at the moment, but I was rather taken aback last week when somebody I know was talking about the issues in terms that would have been not only familiar to Stuart Hall in the ‘seventies, but even to Michael Banton in the ‘sixties.
I suppose it will not be long before somebody in the media pontificates about the “social construction of identity” which was staple concept in the last decade of my time as a university teacher. (I retired in 2001!)
It was always a problem teaching students who came to university having already studied some sociology before starting the course. Their knowledge was imparted to them by lecturers in further education colleges, who had learned these ideas when they themselves were students. Pre-degree-level textbooks were invariably a generation out of date, and we had to spend our time ensuring that students were “unlearning” what they thought they knew.
Working in the garden this afternoon, removing the remains of a large clematis damaged by the recent winds, it came to me suddenly that something similar operates in the field of art. It is amusing to remember that when I was doing art history at school Picasso was so much an innovation that the teacher couldn’t really handle his work. (The curriculum stopped at the Great War, as did history lessons.) Things have moved on a bit now, but for many people the Californian David Hockney is still regarded as pretty innovative. If you don’t believe me take time to thumb through the pages of any of the current art magazines, such as The Artist. Readers are still being told how to paint like Laura Knight!
In all areas, I’m afraid, cultural diffusion is a very slow process.
As a black person and graduate in social science. I am surprised that people are “discovering” these issues for the first time!
So am I, but I am constantly surprised by the slowness with which things trailed for granted in social science gain general recognition. Almost the first lecture I attended in sociology at Leicester was devoted to debunking the concept of “race”, and yet there are still people, supposedly educated, who continue to take it seriously. I emigrated to Canada in 1963, and the form I was sent by the High Commission asked me to indicate my race. I wrote “human”. The form was returned as inadequately completed. When I questioned this decision I was told that what they wanted to know whether I was English, Irish, Scottish or Welsh!