72
PARTISAN REVIEW
whether such practitioners can claim our sympathy in the name of
their devoted but luckless striving. Formerly the question would not
have arisen at all, because their lesser numbers would have led un–
pretentious lives as craftsmen. Today, the crafts having succumbed
to the machine, these men must be Shakespeare or nothing.
Yet one ought not to decide their fate too hastily, even in
thought. We must grant that since these pseudo-artists are usually
good citizens and hard workers, since their imitation is unconscious
and may serve an educational purpose by diluting the strong doses
of originality they find in others, thus preparing the public stomach
for coming great works; finally, since we must grant that it is seldom
easy to tell at a glance who is a genius, who a carrier of tradition,
and who an empty academic-for all these reasons, this fat cushion
of mediocrities in all the arts is entitled to its central place in our
scheme of things. But there is no reason why they or anyone else
should feel that their competitive position is unjust and intolerable.
Exactly as the entertainers must compete for trade, the mediocre,
who turn
art
into a profession, must compete for the managerial posts
of artistic big business. Why should this type of practitioner be fav–
ored over the lawyer or the engineer? Why subsidies or a guaranteed
monopoly? The only claim strong enough to upset the normal
order is the claim of genius. But this is precisely the claim that is
hardest to validate and that professional mediocrity is almost the
last to recognize. Their record in history should make them modest,
though they never are, and it is they who, in any government Bureau
of Fine Arts, will hold, for themselves and their friends, the mono–
poly of supplying the nation with artifacts that might have passed for
new fifty years ago.
Certainly any plea on behalf of this group must take into ac–
count the existing freedom which is already their unique privilege.
No man can install an electric light plug, or give legal advice, or
pull teeth without suitable training and the testing of his acquire–
ments; but whoever wants to practice, teach, or criticize the arts need
ask
no one's permission-a freedom still further enhanced by the
cheapness of the equipment and materials for setting up in the busi–
ness. Add the possibilities of combining a career in pseudo-art with
one in commercial or popular art and you need not wonder that the
cultural market is flooded with an amount of high-finish low-quality
goods which no detergent but Time can rid us of.
