PARTISAN REVIEW
pathetically insisted on-that his genetic investigations of creative
pro–
. cesses were not intended as value judgments of art-is blandly ignored.
' And so much for Freud.
Instead our professor launches a nasty and obtuse attack on modem
art as a "withered skeleton" of cynicism and irresponsibility in order to
plump for his synthesis: an "organic" view of art as based on a "benefi–
cient unity of belief" within a "general welfare state." Such phrases are
already enough to give one a bad chill, but when Gotshalk hails the
"great burst of fresh artistic activity of considerable promise" in Stalinist
Russia and declares that there "the arts have had a position not unlike
that in the best 'organic' societies," then we know the discussion is at
an end.
As usual the style keeps pace with the ideas. Here is an example
of what passes for English prose in the academy:
This subordination of overt action to the amplification of intrinsic percep–
tion is a fundamental feature of the negative side of the aesthetic experience, and
ita explicit recognition is required, along with putting at a distance nonaesthetic
interests, in any adequate description even of this side of the picture.
It
is
depressing
to
realize that the university presses will chum
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