MASSCULT AND MIDCULT
621
our closest approach to a living tradition is in sports. The recent
centenaries of Poe and Melville passed without undue excite.
ment in the presi, but
Sports Illustrated
devoted four pages to
the fiftieth anniversary of Fred ("Bonehead") Merkle's failure
to touch second base in a World Series game.
XVIII
It is indicative of the disorganized quality of our intel–
lectual life that, for
all
the remarkable increase in the consump–
tion of High Culture since 1945, not one serious weekly has
been produced. There have been a number of new "little"
magazines, such as
New World Writing, The Evergreen Review,
Contact, The Dial
and
The Noble Savage-they
should per–
haps be called big-little magazines since they aspire to the
broader circulation of the quality paperback-but, like the old
ones, they are essentially anthologies. They print the best cur–
rent fiction, poetry, essays and criticism--or .at least what the
editors
think
is the best-but, if only because they are quarter–
lies, they cannot form a center of consciousness as the English
weeklies do, since this requires (1) at least monthly topical
comment, and preferably weekly; and (2) a regular interchange
between writers and editors and readers such as is provided in
the correspondence columns of the English weeklies. (The
extraordinary development of the latter is one more evidence
of a cultural community; the most recondite topic may
set
off
a spate of letters from clubs and manses, bars and offices that
is finally dammed only by the editor's ritual
This correspond–
ence must now cease.)
The nearest approach to a "center of
consciousness" in our magazines is in the Midcult ones like
Harper's, The Atlantic, The Reporter
and
The Saturday
Review,
and the trouble with these is that the editors consistent–
ly--one might almost
say
on principle-underestimate the
intelligence of the readers.
A great abstract force governing our present journalism
is-
a
