© Roger M Tagg 2023
'Between the Lines' was one of the earliest books I can remember really enjoying - one of my uncles passed his copy on to me in my student years. It was aimed at ordinary readers of newspapers and magazines, encouraging them to take a more critical view of what they were reading. The book includes lots of 'exercises' where Thompson (DT) presents a set of alternative text extracts which address the same events or issues but from very different viewpoints or prejudices.The 'news items' discussed cover pre-war issues like re-armament, air raid precautions, the Spanish civil war, moves towards Indian independence and so on. There is a crib at the end of the book, identifying the sources.
'Reading and Discrimination' is a somewhat more learned treatment of much the same theme, although here he includes poetry and other literary forms, rather than just writing for the common reader. However DT follows much the same system of 'alternative' texts and highly contrasting styles.
From page 53 on the latter book is all 'Passages for Criticism' - there are some fabulous examples here. Here too DT offers a 'crib' afterwards showing sometimes the identity of the authors and his own assessments.
The first version of 'Reading and Discrimination' probably dates from 1934, so 'Between the Lines' is a later book aimed at a less academic readership.
DT collaborated with FR Leavis on a book 'Culture ad the Environment', as well as other books on English Language and Literature, and produced 'Change and Tradition in Rural England': An Anthology of Writings on Country Life.
| Chapter | Page | Highlights for 'Between the Lines' |
|---|---|---|
| Betw- een the | xi | Some people say "I never read much, except for a glance at the papers now and then - reading certainly hasn't any effect on me". DT says "it is on such a person that the printed word has its greatest influence, because he is not on his guard against it". |
| Lines | 17 | In World War 1, "no princes of the Church called a halt to this (biased British propaganda of the 'all Germans are semi-human' variety)". |
| 19 | "The Press can become an insult to its readers, but because readers take this treatment lying down they help to perpetuate it." | |
| 20 | "Newspapers do not exist to give news. Their purpose is to make profits from advertising revenue ..." [RT: This latter purpose won't apply in autocratic states where governments or powerful oligarchies can control what's written.] | |
| 22 | "No newspaper can give the whole truth even if it wants to." As well as genuinely not knowing, there are many people who may try to stop unwelcome truths being told. | |
| 37 | "The modern newspaper might be described as an ingenious device to prevent us receiving and understanding the real news." | |
| 38 | From guidelines given to new journalists: "An atmosphere of Plenty is good because it is stimulating [RT: and encourages readers to go out and buy stuff]; an atmosphere of Want is bad because it is depressing." [RT: this isn't as popular at the time of writing; we are now swamped with bad accidents and dastardly crimes, perhaps so that we can blub with the victims or their relatives.] | |
| 45 | "A death under abnormal circumstances is a tragedy, to be exploited from the Human Interest angle; ghoulish details, and the grief of the relatives are exhibited." | |
| 48 | "Ït is cardinal in newspaper policy that readers should not think." | |
| 50 | "Every few years there is an election when the citizen is supposed to help in choosing a government which, if there is any basic difference between the parties, may mean peace or war, will affect educational policy, and alter perhaps the lives of millions ....To this choice he [RT: or she] brings a mind nurtured on trivialities." | |
| 77 | "The credulity (believing something without good reasons) and the incredulity (not believing when there are good reasons) are exactly wrong in the natural man. I think if there is a department for original sin, it is perhaps in this direction ..." | |
| 78 | "Irrational belief forms a large bulk of the furniture of the mind, and is indistinguishable by the subject from rational verifiable knowledge." | |
| 80 | Margaret Cross, in a letter to The Guardian, gave a list of words used about 'our party' and about 'the other party' when reporting the same sort of actions of those parties. | |
| 82-99 | This section addresses catchwords. Examples in 1939 were Empire, Democracy, Defence, Fascist, Bolshevik, Patriotism, Millionaires. [RT: today I would mention Empowerment, Sovereignty, Terrorist, Atrocity, Carnage (on the roads), Choice, Culture ...] | |
| 101 | DT warns the reader about selective analogies. A different analogy for the same underlying assertion could lead the reader to a totally different impression. | |
| 103 | DT says there are many giveaways that suggest the speaker or writer is misleading us - or avoiding saying anything of substance; one example is over-worked or 'dead' metaphors like 'the ship of state' or 'put one's hand to the plough'. [RT: Peter Sellers' party political speech on the recoding 'The Best of Sellers' is a comic send up of this.] | |
| 104 | Another giveaway is the use of hackneyed, ready-made phrases, and overworked words. "Precisely!" [RT: also "Absolutely" and "Affirmative".] | |
| 105 | He mentions euphemistic cirumlocution - using too may words, especially long ones, to try to fog the reader or listener from simple (usually unpalatable) facts. | |
| 107 | He discusses the use of 'hyper' words, trying to raise more concern than might be justified; examples are tragedy, crisis, barbarism.. | |
| 108 | DT discusses the technique of flattering the reader or listener. | |
| 109-10 | He talks about the practice of invoking tradition and old-time certainties, in order to denigrate changes and encourage 'yearning for yesteryear'. | |
| 112 | Another ploy is taking a jokey, self-deprecating style, to attract readers and listeners who like to identify as 'battlers'. [RT: a bit like the Four Yorkshiremen sketch?] | |
| 115 | The word 'service' gets extended to many cases where the individual is simply having to pay for something. DT wrote "... how much more superior the money-making business sounds if you call it service". | |
| 117 | The next section is titled "The Reader's Unreason". | |
| 118 | "This catering for ill-conditioned imaginations will continue to be practiced so long as the demand is general enough to make such catering profitable ..." | |
| 119 | "Those who believe we have progressed say that gradually, the natural, animal man has been improved by religion, the arts and education, his merely bestial instincts subordinated or tamed into useful channels [RT: like footy?].To appeal to these primitive instincts is easy, and a normal method now of newspapers and propagandists. It looks as if the civilizing process is being reversed; because there is no profit to be had out of invoking his reason, man is losing his specifically human qualities." | |
| Bullshitters claim that their view is that of everyone, or at least of every reasonable person. | ||
| 120 | DT quotes someone else who said: "Nowadays, matters of national defence, of politics, of religion, are still too important for knowledge, and remain subjects for sertitude; that is to say, in them we still prefer the comfort of instinctive belief, because we have not learnt adequately to value the capacity to foretell." [RT: perhaps it would be better to say 'to make the best estimate and assess the possible risks' rather than 'to foretell'.] | |
| Physical attractiveness is a natural human concern, presumably originating from mating needs. | ||
| 121 | People [RT: perhaps more so in modern western civilizations] often have an urge to gain power, influence and property. | |
| 122 | "The bulk of such opinions (of readers, voters etc) must necessarily be without rational basis ...", especially as even experts don't have sure-fire answers to many current issues. | |
| 123 | Article in an English daily newspaper: "Other nations may sneer at the hypocritical English, but only we can carry it off in the grand manner." | |
| Humans are liable to find pleasure in reading about cruelty and destriction; they have a vicarious interests in serious accidents and atrocities; they delight in "the hunt" for something (especially manhunts), sex crimes and naughtiness in general. | ||
| 124 | Humans often, despite suppression through civilization, show an aggressive nature. | |
| Humans are addicted to rationalizing what they or others have done, and to finding arguments or excuses after something has happened | ||
| 125 | "Probably by now some readers suspect the author of this book of rationalizing his destructive impulses in compiling it. The suspicion may be well founded." | |
| "To enjoy the luxury of sympathy or momentary despair (like 'where is the world going to?') is only a way of evading one's responsibilities." | ||
| 126 | Finding and persecuting scapegoats is a natural human habit. | |
| 127 | In ancient times, keeping together as a herd was a biological necessity [RT: for humans no less than many animals], so we are inclined to prefer to think as a herd. [RT: is that what some people think of as a 'culture'? Some Aboriginal activists in Australia talk about what 'our mob' thinks.] | |
| DT was once spooked by reading a speech by a man called Morrison, which he wrongly denigrated because he thought it was by a different Morrison whom he didn't like. So we can be spooked by names. | ||
| "We need to recognize (the) irrational factors in our thinking." |
| Chapter | Page | Highlights for 'Reading and Discrimination' |
|---|---|---|
| Intro | 3 | The average person "reads uncritically ... he will live at second-hand". |
| 4 | "The supply of reading matter is now solely a matter of commerce; to pay, it must sell widely. The tendency is therefore for the author to appeal to the cheapest thoughts and feelings." | |
| "The individual is assaulted on an unprecedented scale; there are so many claims on his attention that it is no wonder if he is left with no power of discernment." | ||
| 5 |
"... people are duped and degraded by the advertiser, and 'democracy' fails because masses of people are easily manipulated by words - they are unable to recognize what politicians and newspapers are doing." [RT: This may still be true itoday, although more people are 'capable' of seeing through the rhetoric. However with so many time pressures on them, they may be thinking 'we know they are trying to manipulate us' and so they generally lose trust and take the line 'sod the lot of them'.] | |
| 5-6 | DT quotes a contemporary advert for a cruise to the West Indies, which starts with a "dreary narcotic rhythm" of "pseudo poetical order", and emphasizes the "personal touch ... 'you too can ...' ". | |
| 6 | For the ordinary reader, "a susceptibility to crude emotional appeals is disastrous ...". [RT: People still muddle through, and the authors of these appeals haven't thought of stopping them.] | |
| 7 | A speech exhorting our troops to 'finish off the wounded German soldier' - at a function in London - was loudly cheered, despite such action being totally contrary to the Geneva convention. The argument was 'that's what they would do to our wounded'. | |
| DT recommends Thouless's 'Straight and Crooked Thinking' and Norman Angell's 'The Press and the Organization of Society'. | ||
| In 'passage for criticism' #2, which is a reflection on the 1918 Armistice, the general critical opinion was that "the writer poses as a prophet" - describing it in 'biblical' rhetoric. [RT: I think this was the writer who pointed out the impracticality of many of the provisions, and events proved him right. So the prophet in question would have been a Jeremiah, or a Cassandra.] | ||
| 8-9 | DT proposed "The Rhythm Test" for how a text could be read aloud - this applies mainly, but not exclusively, to poetry. | |
| 12 | IA Richards (co-author of 'The Meaning of Meaning') identified four 'channels' of meaning': "1) Sense: writer presents items for consideration; 2) Feeling expressed by the writer about these items; 3) Tone: writer's attitude to readers; 4) Intention: the aims the speaker tries to promote." Even a dog can use numbers 2, 3 and 4. | |
| 17 | "The 'ivory tower' attitude towards poetry largely accounts for the disrepute and hostility it has met with for many years." | |
| Sentime- ntality | 19 | 'Sentimental' passages in text or speech may be good or bad, but we need a better definition of what 'sentimentality' is. What we don't want is "indecently false pathos" - as instanced by cinema heroes or public school 'spirit'. An example he quotes is the school song 'Dulce Domum'. |
| 22 | "Miltonics" [RT: presumably he means an overdose of classical allusions] is not suitable for minor poets. | |
| 23 | "... the most important poets are those who liberate themselves, and hence others, from the restraints of "poetic diction". | |
| 41-2 | DT asks: are "art or criticism" like behaving "too much like a passenger on a short-handed ship ..."? | |
| 42 |
But ... "the rearguard of society cannot be extricated until the vanguard has gone further". Art and criticism are to do "with the health of the mind". [RT: I guess he implies that even the educated people who could criticize and see through the fog (of what is so often written and spoken) are failing to do so, and so the rest of us don't have a good example to follow and are hence doomed to disasters caused by not thinking properly.] | |
| 43 | DT opposes "the heresy ... that one man's taste is as good as another's". | |
| Other tactics DT hates are "hearty, good 'mixer' accent, ... feeble-jocular tone, ... affectation of reverence, (and) ... mock humility". | ||
| 44 |
"... the writer with an air of splenetic boredom attacks criticism [as] disloyalty to the herd ...". [RT: DT is 'knocking' the 'knockers' - those who try to put down anyone who puts their head above the parapet and suggests that the 'groupthink' is weak, or riddled with contradictions. Presumably that would include anyone that questions the 'finish off the wounded German soldier' speech, or indeed any 'fashionable' trend, artist or poet.] | |
| 51-2 | Many speakers and writers are keen to use 'imagery', but it may often be too contrived or disjointed. | |
| Pass- ages | 150 | [RT: I haven't written these up, except one I particularly liked, where it is interesting how Thompson compares the two poems, Laurence Binyon's 'For the Fallen' with Ezra Pound's 'They Died in any Case'. |
Denys Thompson must have been a great guy - it's a pity I never followed up his ideas or listened to a talk by him.
It is still not very fashionable to think critically. Even in my former role as a University lecturer, there were not many students who had yet acquired a critical outlook. I wonder if that was because it was thought not to be important for Computer Science!
Regarding criticism in general, one can still find web pages (mainly of the fundamentalist Christian variety) that try to tell you that it's a bad habit. Mind you, I think those authors are more concerned about criticizing others as people.
My own opinion is that the human race is still in a transition. In historical times only a few individuals could think critically - or even write coherently. But the gradient between the 'vanguard' and the 'rearguard' in reading intelligently and thinking independently is flattening. But we are by no means 'there' yet, and there is probably still a majority of humans who prefer simple irrational beliefs to evidence-based reason. They prefer to go with the flow of what they are exhorted to think by what they read and hear. While this may not be 'disastrous' as Thompson claims, they won't be doing as well as they could be doing.
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This version updated on 12th November 2023