44
PARTISAN REVIEW
grounds that his heart is in the right place (on the Left side of his body) ;
but if the attack itself is not Leftist in perspective, if it loses all interest
in the analysis of capitalist dilemmas and the ways of surmounting them,
the attacker thereby incidentally adopts a position that "places" him
decidedly elsewhere.
KENNETH BURKE
IS MR. BURKE SERIOUS?
I
N MY
review of his book, I paid Burke the respect of taking his work
seriously. His rejoinder makes me wonder whether he desires me to do so.
I cannot understand him except on the assumption that--despite his
statement to the contrary-he
does
believe allowance should be made for
the fact that his heart is politically in the right place. Now were I evalu-
ating Burke's intentions, as distinct from the validity of his assertions,
I certainly would have given him credit for them. Provided, of course,
I believed his heart was politically in the right place. In my review, at
any rate, I did indicate its location accurately enough. But it so happens
that I do not believe it is in the right place. Therefore in a serious attempt
to do him justice, I addressed myself to what might more legitimately be
regarded as the off-spring of his
mind,
i.e., his ideas.
Burke's protest includes other things besides the demand that his
intentions and allegiance be evaluated. He also claims (1) that I have
completely misrepresented the nature of his book (2) that my criticism
of his relativism is without merit, and (3) that my own position is suspect
because I do not approach
hzs
position from the proper angle. I wish to
consider these claims before returning to his intentions and allegiance.
( 1) Primarily the function of a critic is to consider, not whether
the author says what he means, but the meaning of what has been said.
Burke may be the best judge of what he
wanted
to say. But on the mean-
ing of what he
has
said-he is not necessarily more competent than
other intelligent readers. Every reader can test the accuracy of my de-
scription of Burke's position by reading the book and my review of it.
I invite the comparison.
Burke's own evidence that I have misread his book does not establish
his claim. I did not "pass over" the material concerned with the psy-
chology of art because I "have never paid attention to such matters."
Does Burke really believe that my published work is "ample evidence"
of my inattention to such matters? What a wordy world this would be
if the only way we could show we were interested in anything was to
rush into print about it! Indeed, I wish to assure him that I pay a great
deal of attention to such matters. And precisely because I do, I found
his psychology of art not worth more than the casual reference I made
