PARTISAN REVIEW
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past decade has shown us, or should have, that our commitment to
traditional culture was in many respects a commitment to the image
of ourselves possessing that culture, justifying, in the name of disinter–
est, analytical detachment, objective judgment, certain unexamined
moral and social evasions the terms of that culture may have permitted
us without our noticing. To suggest this, contrary to the new conserva–
tism's darkest suspicions, is not to write off traditional culture as ir–
relevant or dead. Only curators or jealous priests need to take that
line. One who believes, as I do, that traditional culture is by no means
dead or irrelevant ought to be willing to let it take its chances in the
marketplace even if its vendors have to change their pitch a little. It
may turn out to look different side by side with the new, but then so
may the new.
Allen Ginsberg
ON THE NEW CULTURAL RADICALISM
January 1972: if zaniest apocalyptic Left breakthrough artists
Weathermen Crazies Motherfuckers have become integrated into con–
scicu ness of the Great Void, it is also noteworthy that by October 1971
the U.S. Middle Class itself heroically objected to the Vietnam war not as
impractical but as outright immoral. (Harris Poll,
NY Post,
Nov. 11, 1971,
p. 18: "Do you think it is morally right or morally wrong for the U.S.
to be fighting in Vietnam?" Morally Right: 21 %. Morally Wrong : 65% .
Not Sure: 14%.) Thus the supposed ly stupid/conservative general pub–
lic pronounced judgment on its government's war. Historians may find
precedent for this public schizophrenia, however recollection of condi–
tions of public consciousness during my own lifetime never hinted the
possibility of our America persisting in a war which the general public
thought was immoral.
As the public gets hip there is naturally less need for Artaud-like
revolutionary theatrics to break through with realization of the ethical
monstrosity of the last seventeen years' war in Vietnam. After all, these
frenzied tneatrics helped succeed in altering public consciousness.
What is not yet known is how the avant-garde - political or liter–
ary prophetic - can lead the middle class out from under domination
by government forms - robot inertia, heavy metal money, mafia-military
dope schemes - that perpetuate the Vietnam war and the greater war
on Nature - International Biocide.
Although the middle class proposed that radicals "work within the
system" to end war, now that the mass of middle class opposes the war,
the middle class itself finds itself powe rless to make the government
obey its democratic will. The war continues, in substance massive elec–
tronic bombing, despite publicly advertised U.S. troop withdrawals.
By middle class above I mean no Marxian category, I mean the
general newspaper- TV-minded public. By avant-garde I mean all the
