Dwight Macdonald
MASSCULT AND MIDCULT: 11*
As
I noted in the first part of this article, the separa–
tion of Folk Art and High Culture in fairly watertight compart–
ments corresponded to the sharp line once drawn between the
common people and the aristocracy. The blurring of this line,
how!!ver desirable politically, has had unfortunate results cultur–
ally. Folk
Art
had its own authentic quality, but Masscult is at
best a vulgarized reflection of High Culture and at worst a
cultural nightmare, a
Kulturkatzenjammer.
And while High
Culture could formerly address itself only to the
cognoscenti,
now it must take the
ignoscenti
into account even when it turns
its back on them. For Masscult
is
not merely a parallel formation
to High Culture, as Folk
Art
was; it is a competitor. The prob–
lem is especially acute in this country because class lines are
especially weak here.
If
there were a clearly defined cultural elite
here, then the masses could have their
kitsch
and the classes
could have their High Culture, with everybody happy. But a
significant part of our population
is
chronically confronted with
a choice between looking at TV or old masters, between reading
Tolstoy or a detective story; i.e., the pattern of their cultural lives
is "open" to the point of being porous. For a lucky few, this
openness of choice is stimulating. But for most, it
is
confusing
and leads at best to that middlebrow compromise called Mid–
cult, to which this part of my essay is directed.
- 'The turning point in our culture was the Civil War, whose
• Part I
of
this article appeared in the Spring, 1960 issue
of
PRo
