MASSCULT AND MIDCULT
215
thus becoming an instrument of domination.
If
one had no
other data to go on, Masscult would expose capitalism as a class
society rather than the harmonious commonwealth that, in
presidential years, both parties tell us it is.
The same goes even more strongly for the Soviet Union,
like most statements about the evils of American capitalism. Its
Masscult
is
both worse and more pervasive than ours, a fact
which
is
often not recognized because in form Soviet Masscult is
just the opposite, aiming at propaganda and pedagogy rather
than distraction. But like ours, it is imposed from above and it
exploits rather than satisfies the needs of the masses-though, of
course, for political rather than commercial reasons. Its quality
is
even lower. Our Supreme Court building
is
tasteless and
pompous but not to the lunatic degree of most Soviet architec–
ture; post-1930 Soviet films, with a few exceptions, are far duller
and cruder than our own; the primitive level of
serious
Soviet
periodicals devoted to matters of art or philosophy has to be
read to be believed, and as for the popular press, it
is
as if
Hearst or Colonel McCormick ran every periodical in America.
Furthermore, while here individuals can simply turn their back
on Masscult and do their own work, there no such escape
is
possible; the official cultural bodies control all outlets and a
Dr.
Zhivago
must be smuggled out for foreign publication.
V
Masscult first made its appearance in eighteenth century
England, where also, significantly, the industrial revolution was
just beginning. The important change was the replacement of
the individual patron by the market. The process had begun in
Elizabethan times, when journalists like Nashe and Greene made
a hard living from the popular sale of their pamphlets and when
the theater depended partly on subsidies from noble patrons and
partly on paid admissions. But Masscult's first sizable body of
professionals were the hacks of Grub Street, .ready to turn their
hand to· ballads, novels, history, encyclopedias, philosophy, re-
