THE AME"RICAN INTELLIGENTSIA
477
self-importance, thus compensating to some degree for the group's
greater alienation from society as a whole. With respect to the sub–
ject matter of these magazines, there is an overlapping with that
which the academic minority, mentioned previously, is concerned with
-the minority which considers formal academic outlets too narrow,
not allowing for that free flow of ideas and the awareness of new
intellectual currents which, in the official journals, too often harden
into the patterns of sterile, ritualistic epigonism.
The term bohemian should not be considered a derogatory one.
Both as a set of intellectual attitudes and as a way of life bohemian–
ism has its roots in the social trends of Western culture since the
French
R~volution.
The breakdown of the patron system has strongly
influenced the status and role of the artist-intellectual, who can no
longer count, as in the past, on a definite audience, and is therefore
insecure both economically and psychologically. In America, of course,
the absence of this cultural break-for the patronage sy8tem never
existed here-has produced a hybrid kind of bohemianism.
Bohemia includes commentators on the arts as well as critics of
literature and social critics who write from a broader humanistic
standpoint. Formally speaking, the critics remind one ·of the medieval
theologians who concentrated upon highly sophisticated ratiocina–
tion of the ineffable religious core in contrast to the mystics who
were in communication with the Godhead through direct nonrational
means. This distinction, elaborated upon by Rudolf Otto in his
I dea
of the Holy,
carries through to the world of art where the artist not
given to verbal expression plays a part parallel to that of the medieval
mystic. But of course some, like T. S. Eliot, act out both roles.
The avant-garde bohemian intellectual lives in a state of estrange–
ment from the population at large. Deprived of recognition in the
social scheme, this type of intellectual, to assure his survival, has
tended to drift into defined areas of a few large cities, or has formed
communities of his own on the fringes of such cities as New York
and San Francisco. Marginal men, the bohemians are paradoxically
enough an elite proletariat in the original sense of the word. Out-
. side the minuscule world of their shared values and manner of life
they are regarded either with benign philistine amusement or as a
threat to faith and morals.
Those of the avant-garde not fortunate enough to possess private
means lead a truncated existence. To survive they must at some point
compromise by taking a job for some months in the despised com–
mercialized pursuits, but as soon as they accumulate some small
