ABSTRACT
The following contribution deals with the significance of Raymond Williams’ works for a critical social theory. Like Jean-Paul Sartre, to whom he has been compared frequently, or Pierre Bourdieu, Williams also does not live up to the cliché that a young radical usually turns into a reactionary as they grow older. Not only did all three of them remain true to their ideals, but both their social critique and their political involvement increased during the course of their lives. At first, Williams was committed to a left-wing reformism but his ideas became more radical towards the end of the 1960s. He showed his solidarity with both the student movement and the protest against the Vietnam War, he emphasized the dangers of the nuclear threat and reflected on a socialist democracy. Having belonged to the left wing in the tradition of Leavis first, he developed a cultural materialism after a long-lasting critical analysis of Marx’s ideas. Science and politics merged in his works, which followed the intention of ‘making hope practical, rather than despair convincing’ (Williams 1989h). It is the aim of a critical social theory to understand and to transform the
socio-historic context of the (global) society (see Pensky 2005) along with its power dynamics and forms of social injustice by asking questions which are necessary for a thorough analysis and by searching for answers and solutions which establish social and economic justice and contribute to a radicalization of democracy (see Kellner 1989). However, critical theory must not be considered as a completed project with ultimate knowledge and ultimate answers. It is altered by the confrontation with new social circumstances as well as by the formation and the development of new theoretical insight and interpretations (see Winter and Zima 2007). According to Paolo Freire’s oppositional pedagogy, it is sustained by the idea of a transformative dialogue, of the mutual creation and the sharing of meanings, knowledge and values which are supposed to contribute to living together in a constructive way, to altering power structures, to an ‘empowerment’ and to emancipation (see Hardt 1992; Fiske 1993; Denzin 2003; Kincheloe and McLaren 2005).
