NOTES ON CULTURE
149
but equally obstinate, prejudices: the first, that culture is a matter
of museums, of academic research, or a pastime for a small and futile
group; the second, (which I may call the mercantile view of culture)
that it is something which has heretofore been the possession of a
privileged few and which will, in a new order, be shared by all equally.
The shrinkage of the area of culture is accompanied by a shrink–
age of the meaning of the word. I have already suggested that, while
the disappearance of popular culture has concentrated the meaning
of the word to the culture of the "privileged classes," the whole of
even that culture has become so split up, that it is doubtful whether
many members of the privileged classes are in possession of more than
one or another fragment of it. Culture has come to mean hardly
more than an appreciation of the arts, and this small area is again
divided into that of those who interest
them~elves
in contemporary
art and that of those who care only for established art. When
The
Times,
in a leading article, some time ago, made an indiscriminate
attack upon modem literature, it was clear that the "common man"
for whom it professed to speak was the common upper middle class
man--who, having presumably had unreserved opportunity for
acquiring that culture whlch is inaccessible to his inferiors, is appar–
ently the most implacable enemy of the "highbrow." The point I
wish to make would be quite lost if it were supposed that I made it
for the purpose of defending contemporary literature. While I object
to criticism which either praises or denounces
au~hors
as a group,
instead of on their individual performance, I am quite willing to
admit (though without necessarily admitting the moral charges with
which
The Times
confused its case) the frailties of modern art and
literature. The artist is, at best, making the best he can of a disinte–
grated state of society; at worst, he is merely the victim of it.
He
has
not the advantage of participating in a larger society in which his
own activities, together with others, receive critical appreciation,
and he has no such society to write for. So the background is reduced:
and if the artist in such a situation is inclined to exaggerate the im–
portance of his art, that is his reaction to a world which is indifferent,
scornful, amused or frightened.
The shrinkage of the meaning of the word "culture" to culti–
vation of art and the restriction of interest in the arts to small and
somewhat isolated groups in various capitals, is not unrelated to the
disappearance of original culture from the larger areas of the globe,
and the very slight development of original culture in areas of colon–
ization. In the field of the arts, it has become noticeable for at least
a generation, that success in painting and sculpture means success in
