Suchergebnisse

The role of the imaginative writer in politics has been too little studied. A number of imaginative writers, such as G. B. Shaw, H. G. Wells, & G. Orwell declared that they wrote principally to promote the cause of socialism as they saw it. One criterion of their success would be to try to discover how influential they had been among British Labor Members of Parliament. To measure their influence, a questionnaire was sent to all Labor MP's & indepth interviews were conducted with 20. Imaginative writers had a substantial influence upon a significant number of MP's, especially those from a Wc background whose education had resulted from their own initiative. Because of the extension of the state education system these tended to be older than average. The nature of the influence that imaginative writers had upon politicians was a direct consequence of their ability to capture in miniature a whole landscape of political & social commitment, & thus to provide vivid symbols of a whole ideology. The scope of their influence is much wider than that of the political philosopher; as a consequence they are important in shaping the general climate of opinion in which political decisions are taken. AA.