BOOKS
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"Duchamps cut the tie between art and the handicrafts, thus immersing art in
endless talk" is one . Among the more substantial pieces is a fine lecture called
" The Politics of Illusion, " an ingenious application of
The Eighteenth
Brumaire
to recent revolutionary situations . There is also an interesting group
of notes and aphorisms simply called Themes, which gives us a clue to
Rosenberg's ways of preparing his more public works. One is called' 'Scale " :
"It
is desirable at times for ideas to possess a certain roughness, like drawings
on heavy-grain paper. Thoughts having this quality are mos;: likely to match
the texture of actual experiences . Under the influence of methodology and
scholarship, our concepts tend more and more to become either microscopic
or cosmic. Objective techniques are unable to guarantee that concepts will
keep relations ofsize appropriate to things and events. To get these right , the
thinker must be aware of his own self and use it as a measure. But
if
this
awareness is an honest one, it is bound to dispel evenness and excessive fi–
nesse ." This seems true generally , but also of Rosenberg's mind in particular.
Professor Howe 's book consists of substantial essays on cultural and
literary topics ; the brow is furrowed but the prose is strong, and the author
always knows, and will lucidly explain, where he stands and , if it is relevant ,
where he
~tood .
He is disturbed by the ' 'frenetic apocalyptism of the time ,"
its infatuation with violence of word and deed , its reduction of " the great
tradition of cultural modernism" to mere" chic sensation. " He has a good
eye for the deluded, and for the dangers they present , whether they are
students or proponents of women's liberation; and he always tries to distin–
guish the creditable " genuine stirrings of moral outrage " from dangerous
imitations.
Howe writes as a socialist aware of the peculiar confusions and dis–
appointments experienced by all who hold to some such position in a " post–
capitalist" era ; and though under the handicap of almost never disagreeing
with him (I am much less well informed but my position is quite close
to
his) , I
was continuously instructed by his insights into the nature of our unease .
About higher education , for instance: we weren't wrong to want a great deal
more of it , but we were wrong not to have found out what we thought it was
for. Howe represents himself as the troubled modern descendant of the
decent socialist of the past , knowing it is all much harder than used to be
thought , denied that' 'simple faith." In this position he finds it necessary
to
adopt an almost Arnoldian posture ; and he acknowledges an obligation as an
intellectual never
to
compromise when the truth is at issue , even if that means
taking a stand aaainst a newer socialism .
One never feels that Howe uses different voices for politics and literature .
Writing on the City in Literature , he makes some delicate distinctions
(' 'almost every
tdea
about the city tempts us to forget what the young Dickens
