CRITICISM
17
As we have suggested, one factor to which this chaos can be traced
is the absence of an esthetic of our own which could find its practical appli–
cation in the evalution of writers and currents. The devolpment of such an
esthetic, however, is being seriously hampered by the prevalent vociferous
aversion to theoretical analysis. Usually such analysis is dismissed as "bour–
geois estheticism," "academicism," and what not. This distate for theory
reveals a misconception of the role and nature of criticism. It amounts to
carrying over the poorest, rather than the best, traditions of bourgeois critics
and is not based on Marxian principles but on what is known as the "prag–
matic American temper." In literature as in politics Marxism faces the
task of fighting this "pragmatism," which familiar historical conditions
have produced in the United States. Those who attack theory invent, of
course, private "Marxian" rationalizations by making the intelligence of a
mythical reader-ignoramus the norm of the critical level. This reader–
ignoramus cannot understand involved analyses, it seems, and must he
protected from mental overstrain. But perhaps it is really themselves that
the rationalizers are protecting. Such arguments reveal an agitational con–
ception
o.f
criticism, confusing it with mediums like the drama, that are
easily accessible to mass audiences. One sector of critical writing simplifies
for the purpose ·of daily reviewing, but that is by no means the major task
of critics. Whether revolutionary or bourgeois, criticism is in the main a
form of conceptual analysis, and is primarily directed at readers familiar
with the problems of literature. "Criticism is not the passion of the in–
tellect, but the intellect of passion" (Marx). It is to be judged by its
validity, by its generalizing power, and not by its temperature, or by the
number of readers who can easily digest it. Its effect is a slow one, in
that through influencing actual creation as well as popularizations of
thought, it finally reaches its mass audience in an indirect form. In this
sense, if literature is a weapon in life, criticism is a weapon in literature.
Simplicity has its uses, but the degree of simplicity depends 8n the char–
acter of the specific content. Simple writing should not be confused with
primitive thinking. Among our reviewers the cult of popularity has turned
into a method of evading the more difficult problems of criticism by stig–
matizing the very problems as "bourgeois" and "academic." But what
is academic writing? It is not so much a quality of style as a content
marginal to important literary problems: a pedantic treatment of minor
ideas with the emphasis placed on "data" rather than on analysis. Hence
there is often a disparity between the gravity of the style and the triviality
of the ideas. To write a long article, as has been recently done, proving
that besides urban images, modern literature also contains rural images,
is
t~e
best example of academicism ; and to discover in several thousand
words that Shakespeare was influenced by the social forces of his time and
