574
PARTISAN REVIEW
adjustment that is as satisfactory as possible within a world which
is
not often tractable to basic wishes and desires"-if Peabody represents
to them the hope of Springdale, Vidich and Bensman might as well
have advised Sodom and Gomorrah to institute classes in interpersonal
relations. Condemned by its vices of falsehood, boredom and pointless–
ness, Springdale deserves to disappear and no doubt will. Or,
if
this
is not to be its fate, other men must appear there than those described
in
Small Town's
groupings, and these can emerge only by tearing apart
Springdale's fetters of belief. What the town needs
is
not better cafe–
teria management but struggle, the fiercer the better. Without a war
banner, the few dissenters noted in
Small Town-a
couple of ministers,
a school teacher-turn into Peabodys or take their place as harmless
oddities, intellectual equivalents of the shack people.
As the reward of their unity, the citizens of Springdale are in bad
shape. "Adhering to publicly stated values while at the same time facing
the necessity of acting in immediate situations places a strain on the psy–
chological make-up of the person." They have gained the terrain of
The American Dream but lack the means of laying hold of its promise.
Each social layer has its own way of giving up and going to pieces. As
for the town as a whole, it "simply adjusts to mechanisms which are
seen only dimly and rarely understood.... Indeed because of the ex–
perience of war, depression, unemployment and an uncertain dairy
market, almost the entire community is sensitized to the underlying forces
which create the chasm between objective realities and socially stylized
illusions."
You may find it hard to take the socioterminorororhetorical rag of
"sensitized to the underlying forces which create the chasm." But the
Springdale credo which
Small Town
repeats near the end is more than
compensation. I hereby proffer it in slightly versified form as an incan–
tation to be chanted every Saturday afternoon at 2 P.M. in front of the
A
&
P under the leadership of the ladies selling raffle tickets on the
twotone Chrysler hardtop for the benefit of the L.V.I.S.
Springdale is a wholesome friendly place
The best place to bring up children
Made up of ordinary people, just folks
Trying to make their community a better place
To live. Nobody here has to worry
About having friends, all you have to do
Is be friendly yourself. No problems are too big
For Springdale it's the outsiders that cause all the trouble.
People here have a lot of community spirit
