"BROOKS-MACLEISH THESIS"
45
tine who attacked Baudelaire, Rimhaud, Joyce. In fact, few Philistines of
the past ever descended to a lower level than that of Van Wyck Brooks.
For he has compared serious writers with Hitler and Mussolini--even with
rattlesnakes. And then, in order to show that he is really tolerant, he
assures us that some of his best friends are writers.
Brooks' recent fulminations parallel the current reaction against
Marxism. Brooks' diatribe against dead geniuses is really a means of
attacking living writers: Max Eastman's personal war against Karl Marx
seems to be a means of achieving the same end. Such attacks cannot dis–
turb the bones of dead men: they can only injure the living. And herein,
we observe one of the traits which the Philistine shows in all ages.
Now, from all sides, the Philistines are coming together, and they
wail for a
Weltanschaung.
They are disturbed because they do not see
sufficient faith in their fellow men. Max Eastman declares that his con–
temporaries lack faith in democracy: Brooks states that modern writers
have lost faith in "the idea of greatness." They are looking for some
soul-saving hope which will no longer require them to meet problems
patiently, with discipline, and with courage. They want a faith which will
save them the onerous difficulties of thinking. I observe, for instance,
that when Eastman criticizes dialectical materialism, he seems to be more
disturbed because it seems to him to be a fighting faith, than he is because
it is an inadequate statement of scientific method, and an unwarranted
description of nature. What these men are really trying to do is to create
a metaphysics of the war. But they do not pursue this task systematically,
and with a real inter:t to tackle the problems which it poses for them.
Instead, they snipe at those who disagree with them. Eastman discusses
the beard of Karl Marx. Brooks indulges in his petty psychological
assumptions about writers whose books he would like to burn. These men
render trivial the discussions and the controversies which rage over the
most serious problems which the human race faces in this era.
The statement that Brooks lacks historical understanding is very
appropriate. His recent studies of the past merely make a doily out of
American history; he wants American literature-after all that has hap–
pened in this century-to extend this simple design. He wishes that a new
Saint Augustine would rise from out of our society. It is characteristic of
men lacking any historic sense that when they come face to face with
serious social problems in a troubled age, they always turn their eyes to
some renowned thinker of the past, and they wish that he would be resur–
rected in order that he might solve for them, the problems which they
cannot solve for themselves. And alas, there is no Saint Augustine: there
is only Van Wyck Brooks. The similarity between Saint Augustine and
Van Wyck Brooks is to be found in the zeal which they have both shown
in hunting out heretics. But there, the similarity both begins and ends.
P.R. should continue to criticize such men as Brooks and Archibald
MacLeish. They are attacking the entire basis on which modern literature,
thought, and science is founded. And in doing this, they are most assur-
