214
DWIGHT MACDONALD
than in the preceding two millennia-poor Malthus, never has
a brilliantly original theorist been so speedily refuted by history!
And it subjected them to a uniform discipline whose only pre–
cedent was the "slave socialism" of Egypt. But the Egypt of the
Pharaohs produced no Masscult any more than did the great
Oriental empires or the late Rome of the proletarian rabble,
because the masses were passive, inert, submerged far below the
level of political or cultural power. It was not until the end of
the 18th century in Europe that the majority of people began
to play an active part in either history or culture.
Up to then, there was only High Culture and Folk
Art.
To
some extent, Masscult is a continuation of Folk Art, but the
differences are more striking than the similarities. Folk
Art
grew
mainly from below, an autochthonous product shaped by the
people to fit their own needs, even though it often took its cue
from High Culture. Masscult comes from above. It is fabricated
by technicians hired by businessmen. They try this and try that
and if something clicks at the box-office, they try to cash in with
similar products, like consumer-researchers with a new cereal, or
like a Pavlovian biologist who has hit on a reflex he thinks can
be conditioned. It is one thing to satisfy popular tastes, as Robert
Burns' poetry did, and quite another to exploit them, as Holly–
wood does. Folk
Art
was the people's own institution, their
private little kitchen-garden walled off from the great formal
park of their masters.
5
But Masscult breaks down the wall, inte–
grating the masses into a debased form of High Culture and
5 And if it was often influenced by High Culture, it did change the
forms and themes into its own style. The only major form of Folk Art
that still persists in this country is jazz, and the difference between Folk
Art and Masscult may be most readily perceived by comparing the kind of
thing heard at the annual Newport Jazz Festivals to Rock 'n Roll. The
former is musically interesting and emotionally real ; the latter is--not. The
amazing survival of jazz despite the exploitative onslaughts of half a century
of commercial entrepreneurs is, in my opinion, due to its folk quality. And
as the noble and the peasant understood each other better than either
understood the bourgeois, so it seems significant that jazz is the only
art
form that appeals to both the intelligentsia and the common people. As for
the others, let them listen to
South Pacific.
