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Raymond Williams @raymondkeywords.bsky.social · 13h

As Orwell wrote in 1939:

What we always forget is that the overwhelming bulk of the British proletariat does not live in Britain, but in Asia and Africa

- The Country And The City, 1973

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Raymond Williams @raymondkeywords.bsky.social · 14h

The term [structures of feeling] is difficult, but 'feeling' is chosen to emphasize a distinction from more formal concepts of 'world-view' or 'ideology'

- Marxism and Literature, 1977

Raymond Williams @raymondkeywords.bsky.social · 1d

It was a very great shock for a whole generation of socialists to live through from the 1930s to the 1950s with the steady accumulation of overwhelming evidence of all that had gone wrong with the Russian Revolution

- 'You're a Marxist Aren't You?', 1975

Raymond Williams @raymondkeywords.bsky.social · 2d

Nothing is more significant, in the continuing formation of the Labour Left, than the centrality of Parliament as the main - indeed often the only - agency for [social democratic] changes

- 'Notes on #Marxism in Britain since 1945' in @newleftreview.bsky.social, no. 100, 1976

Raymond Williams @raymondkeywords.bsky.social · 5d

It can be said that the Welsh people have been oppressed by the English State for some seven centuries. Yet it can also be said that the English people have been oppressed by the English State for even longer

- Wales and England, 1983

Raymond Williams @raymondkeywords.bsky.social · 6d

People were physically massed, in the industrial towns, and a new class structure (the names of our social classes, and the word ‘class’ itself in this sense, date only from the Industrial Revolution) was practically imposed

- Culture Is Ordinary, 1958

Raymond Williams @raymondkeywords.bsky.social · 7d

'Nationalism', he said, precisely, 'is in the sense like class. To have it, and to feel it, is the only way to end it. If you fail to claim it, or give it up too soon, you will be merely cheated, by other classes and other nations

- Second Generation, 1964

Raymond Williams @raymondkeywords.bsky.social · 8d

It was #Gramsci’s whole object to see and to create by organization the hegemony of a proletarian kind which is capable of challenging the bourgeois hegemony

- Base and Superstructure in Marxist Cultural Theory,
@newleftreview.bsky.social, 1973 (later republished in Culture and Materialism)

Raymond Williams @raymondkeywords.bsky.social · 8d

Can we agree, perhaps, before passing to the more difficult questions, that #football is indeed a wonderful game, that jazz is a real musical form, and that gardening and homemaking are indeed important?

- Freedom and Ownership in the Arts, @newleftreview.bsky.social, 1960 #NSHD2025

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Reposted by Raymond Williams

inblacknwhite @imagetree.bsky.social · 9d

We're Only Powerless If We Believe We Are.

-Chairman Fred Hampton / #marxistmonday

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Raymond Williams @raymondkeywords.bsky.social · 9d

Working with the @weaadulted.bsky.social is not just a matter of committees, important as they are [but] also a matter of constant experiment in teaching, and the WEA is one of the very few institutions in which this is possible

- An Open Letter to WEA Tutors, 1961

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Raymond Williams @raymondkeywords.bsky.social · 11d

He had done all he meant to on Spain, and was now working more generally on the Mediterranean

'Not even one last little book on the Civil War?' Monkey asked, after some eager questioning on the Mediterranean work.

'It could hardly be little'

- Loyalties, 1985

Reposted by Raymond Williams

Red Pepper @redpeppermag.bsky.social · 12d

Issue 4 of Left Cultures out now featuring a piece by Red Pepper co-editor @siobhan.bsky.social

In Issue there's over 50 stories discussing a dazzling array of past and present cultural moments to create a Lexicon of the Left, fully illustrated throughout.

leftcultures.com/collections/...

Issue 04

In Left Cultures 4 there's over 50 stories discussing a dazzling array of past and present cultural moments to create a Lexicon of the Left, fully illustrated throughout.B5 in size128 pagesConcession…

leftcultures.com

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Raymond Williams @raymondkeywords.bsky.social · 12d

There is the problem of democratic control of these #media, for here it is a straight choice, because of the capital involved, between existing types of ownership and some kind of social ownership

- Working Class Culture, in Universities & Left Review Summer, 1957

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Raymond Williams @raymondkeywords.bsky.social · 13d

Many British working-class people welcomed American culture, or the Americanised character of British commercial television as an alternative to a British 'public' version which, from a subordinate position, they already knew too well

- Television, second ed. 1990

Raymond Williams @raymondkeywords.bsky.social · 14d

Throughout the history of European culture, civic responsibility has often been more important than national responsibility

- 1984 interview with Stephen Heath and Gillian Skirrow, in 'Cultural Materialism on Raymond Williams', 1995

Raymond Williams @raymondkeywords.bsky.social · 15d

"We're the power, we the working class are defying the bosses' government, going to build our own social system"

- Morgan Rosser in Border Country, 1960

Raymond Williams @raymondkeywords.bsky.social · 16d

It is not surprising that many people now see in the
Labour Party merely an alternative power-group, and in the trade union movement merely a set of men playing the market in very much the terms of the employers they oppose

- The Long Revolution, 1961

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Raymond Williams @raymondkeywords.bsky.social · 20d

Throughout the history of European culture, civic responsibility has often been more important than national responsibility

- 1984 interview with Stephen Heath & Gillian Skirrow, in 'Cultural Materialism on Raymond Williams', 1995

Raymond Williams @raymondkeywords.bsky.social · 21d

In one way, the basic choice is between control and freedom, but in actual terms it is more often a choice between a measure of control and a measure of freedom, and the substantial argument is about how these can be combined

- Communications, second ed., 1966

Raymond Williams @raymondkeywords.bsky.social · 22d

The long argument about Soviet Communism and its consequences, though it has many vested interests on both sides, is no longer central: its lessons, rather than its enclosed antagonisms have been placed in a new perspective

- The Red and the Green, LRB, 1983

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v0...

Raymond Williams · The Red and the Green

www.lrb.co.uk

Reposted by Raymond Williams

Red Pepper @redpeppermag.bsky.social · 23d

A new Red Pepper - Red Pepper Media!

Accessible, high quality writing and an independent, non-partisan editorial line.

Print and Digital that prioritises quality over quantity

Join the Red Pepper Media Revolution: www.redpepper.org.uk/culture-medi...

Red Pepper Media: Join the revolution! - Red Pepper

Following an extensive community consultation, the new-look RPM has been guided by our readers and is set to reshape the left media landscape

www.redpepper.org.uk

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Raymond Williams @raymondkeywords.bsky.social · 23d

We should be thinking, now, about ways of paying for our common services which will guarantee proper freedom to those who actually provide the service, while protecting them and us against a domineering minority whether political or financial

- Culture Is Ordinary, 1958

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Raymond Williams @raymondkeywords.bsky.social · 26d

Berin son of Clutacos walked slowly up the stony track to Banavint. The old defence banks and ramparts of the stronghold had been slighted

- People of The Black Mountains: The Eggs of the Eagle, 1990

Raymond Williams @raymondkeywords.bsky.social · 27d

The argument that the Nation State of Britain is too large derives from the given unevenness of development and the diversity of areas within

- Nationalisms and Popular Socialism, Radical Wales (2), 1984