Page 49 - Studio International - October 1970

in general is thus threatened'.10 Towards a Definition of Culture'. Again we find future of culture, than to preserve some hope,
This sad vision is followed by an attack on contradictions in his position. He agrees in even a hope based on an illusion; but the
Kitsch, which Greenberg sees as a product of general with Eliot's statement, that 'our own conclusion is less important than the means by
industrialization and urbanization, 'destined for period is one of decline; the standards of which it is reached: the sweeping generalizations,
those who, insensible to the values of genuine culture are lower than they were fifty years the lack of any consistent theory, the confusion
culture, are hungry nevertheless for the ago' 18, by saying that 'granted that there has of ideas and the gross misunderstandings,
diversions that only culture of some sort can been a certain improvement in the middle levels distortions and oversimplifications of Marxism.
provide'.11 Greenberg does not go so far as to of culture, I am sure that we all agree that no This confusion really stems from two
define the goodness of genuine culture and the amount of improvement there can compensate unreconciled and irreconcileable attitudes
badness of Kitsch, but points to 'more or less of for deterioration on its uppermost levels'.19 towards modern culture which Greenberg
a general agreement among the cultivated of However, Greenberg continues by disputing employs without any distinction or clarification.
mankind over the ages as to what is good art and Eliot's idea that industrialization will ultimately In one mood he shares the standpoint of the
what bad. Taste has varied, but not beyond destroy all culture, and in doing this he once decay-of-culture school, appalled at the decline
certain limits'12, and he suggests, in a somewhat again refers us to Marx : 'Marx made the only of fine art, at the rise of the masses and the
elusive phrase, that 'this agreement rests ... on a real beginning in the discussion of culture, and growth of philistinism. This is a tradition of
fairly constant distinction made between those neither conservatives nor liberals seem yet to thought whose origins are to be found in the
values only to be found in art and the values have gone beyond that beginning.'20 But Romanticism of the early nineteenth century,
which can be found elsewhere'.13 It is an elusive Greenberg's Marxism is of a rather peculiar and its solution for the artist was precisely, to
phrase but, I suspect, a crucial one. Art values kind. For example he attributes to Marx the idea use Greenberg's own phrase, 'to maintain the
are those only to be found in art itself, and are that 'scientific technology—industrialism— high level of his art by both narrowing and
therefore, presumably, of a different order from would eventually do away with class divisions raising it to the expression of an absolute in
other values. They are also in some way always because it would produce enough material goods which all relativities and contradictions would be
`there' in all places and periods—otherwise the to exempt everyone from full-time work.'21 For either resolved or beside the point's', i.e. by
cultivated would not agree about them—and, this reason, according to Greenberg, the abstracting it from the real world, in order to
since they are values, they are worth preserving solution, 'the socialist and Marxist one, is to preserve its 'quality'. In his second mood
against the onslaught of Kitsch and the dangers intensify and expand industrialism, on the Greenberg manages to employ words such as
of a shrinking elite. assumption that it will eventually make well- Marxism and socialism to express what is, in
Greenberg goes on to state that in all societies being and social dignity universal'.22 This leads, fact, an equally early-nineteenth-century naive
there are 'on one side the minority of the logically enough, to a discussion of the future of faith in industrial progress as such, imposing on
powerful—and therefore the cultivated—and on leisure. He quotes Aristotle as representing the this one possibly Marxist idea about making
the other the great mass of the exploited and pre-industrial view of leisure : 'the first principle work rather than leisure the centre of culture.
poor—and therefore the ignorant. Formal culture of all action is leisure. Both are required, but Apart from this, all of Greenberg's ideas are
has always belonged to the first, while the last leisure is better than work and is its end'23, and simplifications of attitudes which pre-date
have had to content themselves with folk or contrasts this with the post-industrial situation Marxist thinking and which are, in themselves,
rudimentary culture, or Kitsch'.14 He then goes of increasing specialization, increased emphasis contradictory. The Hegelian search for absolutes
on to contrast two different states of society. In on work itself and a greater split between work in a chaotic, fragmented society is not compatible
the first, 'a stable society that functions well and leisure whereby 'leisure has become more with a bourgeois faith in industrial progress; and
enough to hold in solution the contradictions purely leisure—nonactivity or aimless activity— neither is compatible with Marxism.
between its classes, the cultural dichotomy as work has become more purely work, more The importance of this is, I think, that
becomes somewhat blurred. The axioms of the purely purposeful activity'.24 As this affects the Greenberg is representative of a certain view of
few are shared by the many, the latter believe rich and previously leisured classes, so that they culture which appears to understand the
superstitiously what the former believe soberly. too lose their capacity for full-time cultural problems of art and society and is therefore
And at such moments in history the masses are activity, the problem becomes that of carrying particularly likely to mislead both artists
able to feel wonder and admiration for the on 'a leisure-oriented tradition of culture in a themselves and the general public. Greenberg
culture, on no matter how high a plane, of its work-oriented society.' 25 is in fact in the position neatly described in
masters.' 15 However, there comes a time when The solution is apparently to take as given the Marx's and Engels' German Ideology: 'The
`the common man' becomes dissatisfied with the universality of work, and to make work itself, division of labour ...manifests itself also in the
social order' 6 and only then 'does he begin to rather than leisure, the centre of cultural ruling class as the division of mental and material
criticize their culture. Then the plebeian finds activity. In primitive societies, Greenberg labour, so that inside this class one part appears
courage for the first time to voice his opinions suggests, 'work and culture tend to be fused in a as the thinkers of the class (its active, conceptive
openly. Everyman, from the Tammany alderman single functional complex'.26 Perhaps, then, we ideologists, who make the perfecting of the class
to the Austrian house-painter, finds he is may anticipate a similar pattern in industrial about itself their chief source of livelihood),
entitled to his opinion.' 7 If we ignore for the society so as to 'repair the estrangement between while the others' attitude to these ideas and
moment Greenberg's rather naive assumption work and culture'.27 And how else could this be illusions is more passive and receptive, because
that the industrial masses have no culture, apart done but through 'culture in the highest and they are in reality the active members of this
from Kitsch, to serve their own specific needs, most authentic sense'.28 It is for this reason that class and have less time to make up illusions and
we can sum up his position as follows : culture is culture is worth preserving. Greenberg admits ideas about themselves. Within this class this
threatened by the loss of its traditional financial that his ideas lead to 'nothing that could be cleavage can even develop into a certain
support and audience from among the elite of sensibly hoped for in the present or near opposition and hostility between the two parts,
society; art values are preserved by a specialized future'29, but feels it important not to lose all which, however, in the case of a practical
and inward-looking art, imitating its own hope for the future of culture, as Eliot appears to collision, in which the class itself is endangered,
creative processes; Kitsch is the cultural revenge have done, on the grounds that 'at least it helps automatically comes to nothing.'32 As we have
of the lower classes which will sweep away all if we do not have to despair of the ultimate seen, Greenberg is able to attack the philistinism
culture unless it can be rescued by socialism. consequences for culture of industrialization'.30 of industrialized society, but his solutions, apart
In a later essay, 'The Plight of Culture', This is an odd conclusion by itself, implying from certain references to Marx and socialism,
dated 1953, Greenberg picks up the theme of as it does that it is less important to work out are drawn from the very social system whose
cultural decay in discussing T. S. Eliot's 'Notes whether Eliot or Greenberg is right about the cultural manifestations he dislikes. It is a pre-
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