OUR COUNTRY AND OUR CULTURE
587
So much for the signs of change. But what do they mean? Poli–
tically, I think there is no doubt the shift marks an adjustment to
social reality, since the Soviet threat has made the writer aware of
his stake in the survival of American civilization, however critical he
may be of it.
In
some cases, however, as pointed out by several con–
tributors to this symposium, there has been an overadjustment to
reality, marked by an uncritical acceptance of everything American;
and it has been depressing to see so many intellectuals discover the
blessings of the most philistine aspects of our political and cultural
life.
If
a reconciliation with the fatherland were to lead intellectuals
to cherish every one of its blemishes, then the case for total and
permanent alienation would be immeasurably strengthened.
The literary effects are much more complicated. The political
shift is not directly translated into the values of poetry, fiction, or
even most literary criticism. But there is an indirect influence which
may be seen in such things as the dispersal of the avant-garde, and a
loss of interest and respect for the new, experimental and unpopular.
In
general, the gulf between entertainment and literature has become
smaller, and many critics have gone so far as to argue that the
mass production of "art"-Malraux has suggested a new term to
distinguish the new product from traditional art-is the basis for
a genuine literature. On the positive side, we have become aware
that literature cannot subsist only on advanced attitudes and tributes
to internationalism; it must also relate itself to the indigenous and
homely strains of a culture. An avant-garde is necessary to keep the
spirit of intransigence alive, but by some irony of the imagination
the best literary works have also gone back to more classic and
conservative influences.
In
the modern period, for example, writers
like Proust, Kafka, Mann, Eliot or Faulkner cannot be defined sim–
ply as rebels. Not that they have been in any sense conformists,
but their new vision has been tied to many myths of the past and
to the idea of a common experience. Even Joyce, who produced a
kind of monumental avant-gardism, is a rock-ribbed traditionalist as
compared with his co-experimenters in
transition.
While most avant–
garde writing of the Joycean school was aimed chiefly at the break–
down of syntax, Joyce himself tried to recreate the folklore of
consciousness.
