Herbivores and Carnivores: the Struggle for Cultural Values in Post-war Britain

In Herbivores and Carnivores, John Astley offers insights on closed or cloaked subject: the struggle for democratic cultural values in post-War Britain. The materials vary in content, but a central theme emerges: as individual members of society, we so often seem to adhere - the author suggests - to strictly limited choices with pre-packaged versions of the way we live our lives. If this is so, then why, and from where, do cultural values spring? Whose interests are being promoted? And, if this is so, who writes the scripts? In his flagship essay, with support from companion pieces as contexts, the author explores aspects of these complex questions, which seem to have slipped from view in today's media-drenched consumer society. If cultural values - i.e., what is, and what is not, important - have become part of this consumer frenzy, then is it not time to ask again: whose interests are being promoted? And why? For that matter, who are the Herbivores and Carnivores of the author's beguilding title in this ongoing struggle? The reader is offered a cud or two to chew on, while ruminating over the larger fodder of the themes presented in these essays and papers.