THIS AGE OF CONFORMITY
II
All of life, my older friends often tell me, is a conspiracy against
that ideal of indep(mdence with which a young intellectual begins;
but if so, wisdom consists not in premature surrender but in learning
when to evade, when to stave off and when to oppose head-on. Con–
formity, as Arthur Koestler said some years ago, "is bften a form of
betrayal which can be carried out with a clear conscience." Gradually
we make our peace with the world, and not by anything as exciting
as a secret pact; nowadays Lucifer is a very patient and reasonable
fellow with a gift for indulging one's most legitimate desires; and we
learn, if we learn anything at all, that betrayal may consist of a
chain of small compromises, even while we also learn that in this
age one cannot survive without compromise. What is most alarming
is not that a number of intellectuals have abandoned the posture of
iconoclasm: let the
Zeitgeist
give them a jog and they will again be
radical, all too radical. What is most alarming is that the whole idea
of the intellectual vocation-the idea of a life dedicated to values
that cannot possibly be realized by a commercial civilization-has
gradually lost its allure. And it is this, rather than the abandonment
of a particular program, which constitutes our rout.
In a recent number of
Perspectives
Lionel Trilling addressed
himself to some of these problems; his perspective is sharply different
from mine. Mr. Trilling believes that "there is an unmistakable im–
provement in the American cultural situation of today over that of,
say, thirty years ago," while to me it seems that any comparison be–
tween the buoyant free-spirited cultural life of 1923 with the dreari–
ness of 1953, or between their literary achievements, must lead to
the conclusion that Mr. Trilling is indulging in a pleasant f.antasy.
More important, however, is his analysis of how this "improvement"
has occurred: "In many civilizations there comes a point at which
wealth shows a tendency to submit itself, in some degree, to the rule
of mind and imagination, to apologize for its existence by a show of
taste and sensitivity. In America the signs of this submission have for
some time been visible.... Intellect has associated itself with power,
perhaps as never before in history, and is now conceded to be in
itself a kind of power." Such stately terms as "wealth" and "intellect"
hardly make for sharp distinctions, yet the drift of Mr. Trilling's
remarks is clear enough-and, I think, disastrous.
It is perfectly true that in the government bureaucracy and in-
