The psychology at the back of the various styles or modes we have been
considering is to that extent political, therefore, in that sense that the child-
cult is a political phenomenon, and without the child-cult men and women
of letters would not be expressing themselves in the language and with the
peculiarities of infancy; and certainly ‘journalese’ is, as much as the subject-
matter of a newspaper report, contingent upon the ‘greatest happiness of the
greatest number.’It is a perfidious flattery of the multitude, though whether it
is really appreciated or indeed necessary at all, is open to question.
1927 book in which he launches “a virulent attack on what [he] calls the ‘time-cult,’ which he perceived to be the dominant philosophy of the early twentieth century promulgated by Henri Bergson (and his followers Samuel Alexander and Alfred North Whitehead), and practised by authors such as James Joyce and Gertrude Stein.
Stimulating stuff, makes you re-think a few things or, more likely, thing of some for the first time.
