It is as if a really secure nationalism, already in possession of its nation-state, can fail to see itself as 'nationalist' at all. Its own distincti… - Raymond Williams

My own view is that if, in a socialist society, the basic cultural skills are made widely available, and the channels of communication widened and cleared, as much as possible has been done in the way of preparation, and what then emerges will be an actual response to the whole reality, and so valuable.

Shaw's association with Fabianism is of great importance, for it marks the confluence of two traditions which had been formerly separate and even opposed. Fabianism, in the orthodox person of Sidney Webb, is the direct inheritor of the spirit of John Stuart Mill; that is to say, of an utilitarianism refined by experience of a new situation in history. Shaw, on the other hand, is the direct successor of the spirit of Carlyle and of Ruskin, but he did not go the way of his elder successor, William Morris.

Every aspect of personal life is radically affected by the quality of general life, and yet the general life is seen at its most important in completely personal terms.