66
PARTISAN REVIEW
mind, constitute the chief reasons for warning American artists
against the lure of government support of the
arts.
Many artists and their well-wishers will retort that my bird's–
eye view of the facts ignores the desperate plight of culture at the
present time. I shall be told that the varions endowments and
agencies just enumerated do not suffice, and that artists actually
suffer want and lack of recognition. This is why modern democratic
society, when it is taken as the equivalent of the rich patron, is ap–
proached and assailed on behalf of the artist; the vision of plenty
haunts the generous mind as always, but with the added poignancy
that for the first time in history we think technology will yield the
means if we only learn how to manage the technology.
This is the point where the particular desires of the advocates
of art branch off from the general desire of the majority. Since
the new abundance springs from the soil of industrial democracy,
it goes with the ideals of fair distribution, equal opportunities, and
deliberate choice of social ends, as opposed to the good old catch–
as-catch-can. This means, among other things, that the elite no
longer rules. There is no elite, it has dissolved into the great mass,
even though the number of cultivated persons who compose it
has probably increased. But their weight is now negligible. It
is not simply our new ideal but also our practical life that compels us
to hold it negligible. Take the familiar instance of the literary
per–
iodical. A public of five or even ten thousand readers will not sup–
port a magazine. Why not? Because, first, the costs of printing are
high-they are hitched to our high standard of living for work–
men; and second, because the income from small-range advertising
is low-it follows the standard set by the mass distribution of
mass-produced goods. The small magazine must therefore be sub–
sidized; but even with a subsidy it will certainly not influence the
mind of the nation. Too many other things are going on for it to be
heard. Consequently we sigh for the days when a British Quarterly
could sway the universe by virtue of its grip on a few hundred
readers. What has happened is that the total number of people
who count, or
who must be counted-it
now comes to the same
thing-has so enormously increased that the tastes of ten thousand
are to the total what the tastes of a single man would have been to
