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PARTISAN REVIEW
particularly those in the more popular genres, such as fiction and journal–
ism. Hence, they are involved in the tensions and vicissitudes of business,
though almost constantly at a disadvantage. Furthermore, success is often
rewarded with the hazards of celebrity status. The normal concerns of
writers are compounded by financial worries that make literary life a spe–
cial form of anxiety.
The contrast with the former communist countries is striking.
Paradoxically, under communism, the difficulties of writing and publish–
ing were expanded to those of life and death. Artists were guaranteed a
comfortable living and large circulation for their work, made possible by
state control of literature and the absence of a competing popular culture,
but they were in constant dread of censorship, imprisonment, and exile.
These fears have been removed with the transition to deomcracy. But
now the change to a market economy in the former communist countries
is altering not only the culture of the country but also the life of the
writer. He has been restored to the benefits and hazards of a free society.
Poor Delmore, he became a symbol of the vulnerabilities of the mod–
ern writer, both psychologically and financially . Perhaps only such a
splendid fictional portrait based on the life of Delmore Schwartz as Saul
Bellow's
Humboldt's Gift
could indicate the dimensions of Delmore's
capacities and incapacities.
Moral Philanthropy
The New Yorker,
of all places, recently ran a piece on
the Jewish English-language
Forward
by David Remnick. He reported that
the
Forward,
which, sadly, is in financial trouble, is dedicated to the idea
that Jews are like other minorities, an ethnic group with their own prob–
lems and prejudices . This is a bold proposition, and one that runs counter
to
many Jewish illusions and prejudices. Some years ago, Irving Kristol
wrote a piece for
Commentary
arguing that Jews, unlike other minorities,
ignored their own interests while supporting the interests of other victim–
ized peoples, particularly the blacks. And he received a lot of criticism
from many Jews who had an idealistic view of the Jewish role in modern
society.
The problem facing those who insist that Jews have their own inter–
ests is that the Jewish people have always had a dual nature. They have
had the destiny of victims along with a universalist vision. They have
been pariahs and spiritual cosmopolitans.
r
t is no accident that the
Russians under Stalin branded them as "cosmopolitans." Jews champi–
oned the causes of downtrodden individuals and entire peoples. Jewish in–
tellectuals supported the most trans-national, the most visionary ideas and
