Oh an Excellent Fellow Traveller!

The trouble with N.G.'s use of Muir is that he doesn't say which side he is for, but we see his purpose as he tries to suggest that because Eliot asks sanctuary in a pub from long-haired intellectuals, he necessarily believes that the people cannot appreciate the best of Britain's literature. From this unfair and false conclusion N.G. moves to the statement "Eliot expands his thesis in his Notes Towards a Definition of Culture,' stating that 'the fundamental social processes...previously favouring the development of elites' but that now the opposite takes place, and culture degenerates 'because wider sections of the populations take an active part in the cultural activities.' " But N.G. dodged explaining Eliot's definition of culture and the summary of the "Notes." Instead he prefers the term out of its context and uses it as a term which could mean anything to anybody, an undefined abstraction.

It is important to know the way in which Eliot defines culture: "It includes all the characteristic activities and interests of a people: Derby Day...Dog Races....boiled cabbage cut into sections...the music of Elgar....the reader can make his own list. The term is used anthropologically and not in the narrow but still vague manner in which N.G. uses it.