614.
DW!GHT MACDONALD
pIac!!
~iv~
1945.
~tatistically'.
a verygqod case canbe
ma~e
out
t.hat:
in
the last fifteen
y~ars
there has been
a .mo.r~
wiciely
cijf-:–
£Jl.~q .im~r.est
.m
JI~ghC.ulture
than ever. b.efo.re in Qur: histqry..
The cause is the same as that fo.r the develo.pment o.f Midcult,
namely, the accelerating increase in wealth, leisure and co.llege
educatio.n. All three have been gro.wing at an extrao.rdinary rate
since 1945, especially the last. Altho.ugh the populatio.n between
eighteen and twenty-o.ne has increased o.nly two. per cent in the
last ten years, co.llege enro.llment has almost do.ubled. There.
are no.w as many postgraduate students as there were under–
graduates when I went to. college in the late 'twenties. This
eno.rmo.us co.llege populatio.n- o.ne must add in several hundred
tho.usand teachers--is the mo.st important fact abo.ut o.ur cul–
tural situatio.n today. It is far bigger, abso.lutely and relatively,
than that o.f any o.ther co.untry. So.me o.f its potentialities are
being realized, but the most important- the creatio.n and sup–
port o.f a living culture o.n a high level-is as yet hardly
embryo.nic and perhaps never will co.me to. birth. Fo.r this wo.uld
mean drawing that line between Masscult and High Culture
which the rise o.f Midcult has blurred. And there is so.mething
damnably American abo.ut Midcult.
Let us begin with the po.sitive statistics. Since 1945 we have
seen the fo.llo.wing. The rise o.f the "quality" paperback, retail-
4tg at95¢ up and presenting, at a third or less the cost o.f the
o.riginal hard-co.ver editio.n, everything fro.m Greek myths to.
the best co.ntemporary scho.lars, critics, and creative writers. The
sales o.f classical reco.rds, no.w abo.ut a fourth of to.tal reco.rd
sales and actually equal in dollar vo.lume to. Ro.ck 'n Ro.ll. The
pro.liferatio.n thro.ugho.ut the co.untry of sympho.ny orchestras
(there are no.w 1100, do.uble the 1949 number, and every
city
o.f 50,000 has o.ne), lo.cal art museums (2,500 as against 600
in
1930), and o.pera-pro.ducing gro.ups (there are no.w 500, a
seven-fo.ld increase since 1940). The extrao.rdinary success o.f
No.ah Greenberg's Pro. Musica Antiqua gro.up, which specializes
in. :medieval . and early renaissance music, is a case in
point.
