OUR COUNTRY AND OUR CULTURE
597
lieve that America provides the real basis for such a survival is
precisely the opposite of believing in America right or wrong.
It is only
.as
part of a critical non-conformist minority that the
intellectual can make any adaptation to mass culture; although for the
creative artist other forms of adaptation are possible.
Again, whatever other sources of strength, recognition, and
renewal may exist, surely the chief one is in the community of a
critical non-conformist minority. The intelligence and the intel–
lectual can only exist where the actuality of critical non-conformism
also
exists. In the past, there was a genuine choice between exile in
Europe, which was a kind of non-conformism, and the attitude ex–
emplified in America in every period and in a variety of ways from
Emerson to Mencken. Now that there is no longer a choice, the
tradition and the vitality of critical non-conformism is more important
than ever.
By
HOWARD MUMFORD JONES
His latest book, analyzing
THE
~cct
THE
Jrf;t
and THE
V
as characterized in American
Literature of the 1920's, with
special attention to the
writings of F. Scott Fitzgerald
and Willa Cather.
Publication Date: September 29
Price: $2.50
At All Bookstores
Ili3
Published by
The University of Illinois Press, Urbana, Ill.
