MASS CU LTAN D
MID
C U LT
. 625
XIX
What
is
to be done? Conservatives like Ortega y Gasset and
T. S. Eliot argue that since "the revolt of the masses" has led to
the horrors of totalitarianism and of California roadside archi–
tecture, the only hope
is
to rebuild the old class walls and bring
the masses once more under aristocratic control. They think of
the popular as synonomous with the cheap and vulgar. Marxian
radicals and liberal sociologists, on the other hand, see the masses
as intrinsically healthy but as the dupes and victims of cultural
exploitation- something like Rousseau's "noble savage."
If
only
the masses were offered good stuff instead of
kitsch,
how they
would eat it up! How the level of Masscult would rise! Both
these diagnoses seem to me fallacious because they assume that
Masscult is (in the conservative view) or could be (in the liberal
view) an expression of
people,
like Folk Art, whereas actually
it is, as I tried to show in the first part of this article, an expres–
sion of
masses,
a very different thing.
The conservative proposal to save culture by restoring the
old class lines has a more solid historical basis than the liberal–
cum-Marxian hope for a new democratic, classless culture.
Politically, however, it
is
without meaning in a world dominated
by the two great mass nations, the USA and the USSR, and .a
world that is becoming more industrialized and mass-ified all the
judgment or estimate of a person or thing with respect to character,
merit, etc.") . He replied suggesting the correspondence be closed.
1 replied agreeing but could not resist a few Parthian shots, namely :
( 1) in future the
Post
should employ some reliable detective agency
- I suggested Pinkerton's--to make an advance assessment of the
moral character of contributon to their Adventures of the Mind;
(~)
if
1 had accepted under pressure their opinion of
7:h, .N
ep)
Yorker,
this should have shaken their confidence in the honesty of
my other opinion.; (3) the
Post
owed me
$1,5{)~
I had .
been
foresighted enough to insist on $1 ,000 on delivery of the manusCript,
although they seemed rather shocked at such commercialism-sipce
they had gone back on their guarantee of freedom of expressiOIl.. Like
other Parthian .hots, · these may have
been
harassing to Pro-Consul
Hibbs'-:"'he never replied-but, also as per history, the Romans
wOn.
