{The Middle Classes [continued (5)]}[23rd August 1990]

[Redbook7:229][19900823:1142b]{The Middle Classes [continued (5)]}[23rd August 1990]

19900823.1142

[continued]

So far as Britain{’}s backwardness* is concerned, the suggestion is (and this is not new) that we are indeed hidebound by an excess of that middle-class, middle-of-the-road, pragmatism which has always seemed to us to be one of our greatest virtues (perhaps that is why our eccentrics are so eccentric, so rare and so treasured, if [they are] harmless).

This pragmatism tends towards peace in trouble times, and stubbornness and reliability in war; but in times of peace and prosperity, it fails to nurture the creative developments which only specialised eccentricities can produce, and which are essential to material and moral evolution.

*[See [Redbook7:226-229][19900823:1142]{The Middle Classes}[23rd August 1990](ff)]

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