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from the simple to the complex, this has necessarily meant cultural
"progress"; there is no warranty for this latter-day version of Spencerian
evolutionism. It needs but little imagination to conceive of a highly
efficient, functionally rational and complex society in which cultural
creativity has been organized out of existence; White ought to read
Eugene Zamiatin's
We.
When White harps on the wide variety of choices now available
and the differentiation of tastes this makes possible he shows a trained
incapacity to understand the issue. To be sure, there are a great variety of
soaps on the market and we have wide choices between various brands
of breakfast foods; but what if choice is, in fact, reduced to essentially
the same stuff under different labels? White confuses true differentiation
and marginal differentiation; he deludes himself into believing that the
choice between Wheaties and Krispies is meaningful.
Here is the schedule for the 9 to 10 P.M. prime-time period of the
five existing T .V. Channels in Chicago on August 19, 1960:
9 P.M. Twilight Zone
Moment of Fear
The Detective
u.S. Marshal
Music for a Summer Night
9: 30 P.M. Person to Person
Black Saddle
This Man Dawson
Moment of Fear
Music for a Summer Night
These were the choices for the two and a half million T.V. owners in
the Metropolitan Chicago area! This is homogenization, rather than
differentiation.
White serves us with a "souffle of whipped postulates"-to borrow
M. M. Postan's phrase--but seems unable to move from theory to the
concrete quality of modern life. Theory ought to enrich the capacity
for concrete perception; White's dessicated postulates only blur the
sense of reality. And when, as in his discussion of work satisfactions, he
assures us that we need not bother about reports that people find their
work meaningless and demeaning, since they can, after all, get another
job, his theoretical detachment becomes bland callousness and apologetics
for the status quo.
In a curious way, White's argument for progress in America re–
minds one of certain apologists for the Soviet Union. They too ofter
argued
not so much that "what is is right," but, rather, that "what will
