American Culture and Society since the 1930s

THERE arc many cntranccs to thc intcIlcctual and cultural history of a pcriod. Onc ofthe strongest perspectives on the cultural debates and issues of the period from Roosevelt's New Deal society of the 1930s through to thc present highlights the various adjustments and changes between competing cultural ideals and political beliefs that writers and critics made in this period. This version has a dramatic storyline that disproves Scott Fitzgerald's belief that 'there are no second acts in American lives'.l Thc first act ofthc 1930s describes a move by a wide range of writers towards various forms of political commitment. The political spectrum of these ideological stands included liberal reformism, exemplified for many by Roosevelt's New Deal and its relief agencies, through to socialism, communism and the myriad [orms offellow-travelling. Although the movement was, in the main, towards liberal and socialist ideologies, there was a distinctive counter-movement towards conservatism. T. S. Eliot had set the model for this counter-movement 'Nith his 1928 declaration: '[My] general point of view may be described as classicist in literature, royalist in politics, and anglo-catholic in religion'.2 However, a more representative ideologicaljourney is that describcd by the playwright Lillian Hcllman, in her book of memoirs, Pentimento. She characterises herself as: 'A child ofthe Depression, a kind ofPuritan Socialist, I guess -although to give it a name is to give it a sharper outline than it had -and I was full ofthe strong feelings the early Roosevelt period brought to many people '.3 This first act ofLillian Hellman's personal political drama focused not only on the bankruptcy of an American political and economic system that had produced over thirteen million unemployed, but also on the dangers of totalitarian ideologies, particularly the rise of fascism in Germany, Spain and Italy. By pursuing anti-fascist 'end of ideology' thesis took on the status of Presidential doctrine. Kennedy analysed the current condition of America as folIows: What is at stake in our economic decisions today is not some grand warfare of riyal ideologies which will sweep the country with passion but the practical management ofa modern economy. What we need are not labels and cliches but more basic discussion ofthe sophisticated and technical questions involved in keeping a great economic machinery moving ahead ... political labels and ideological approaches are irrelevant to the solutions ... technical answersnot political answers -must be provided. 15 This contradictory mixture of rationalism and atavism is not illogical in Bell's own system of argument. When he was a postgraduate student, Bell was once asked by a professor: 'What do you specialize in?' Bell replied: 'I specialize in generalizations'. Bell has also increasingly specialised in contradictions. He firmly believes that the realms of economics, politics and culture can be separated and has defined his own position as folIows: 'I am a socialist in economics, a liberal in politics, and a conservative in culture' (CCC, p. xi). ## From Southern Agrarianism to Criticism Inc. IN 1953, the poet and critic RandallJ arrell announced that he was living in an 'age of criticism'. In 1956, T. S. Eliot gave a reserved ticket only public lecture entitled The Frontier of Criticism in asports arena at the U niversity of Minnesota before an audience of 13,723. U nder the bye line 'What makes a newspaper great?', the Minneapolis Star and Tribune gave the following account ofthe event: Front Matter....Pages i-xv The Legacy of the Thirties....Pages 1-7 Daniel Bell and the Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism....Pages 8-16 The Foundations of Anglo-American Literary Theory....Pages 17-23 From Southern Agrarianism to Criticism Inc.....Pages 24-40 The Debate on Mass Culture....Pages 41-58 Robert Warshow and the Legacy of the 1930s....Pages 59-66 T. S. Eliot and Mass Society....Pages 67-76 The Frankfurt School: Marxism, Fascism and Mass Culture....Pages 77-88 Herbert Marcuse: from Affirmation to Liberation....Pages 89-104 The Lonely Crowd: David Riesman and American Society....Pages 105-123 Marshall Mcluhan: The Modernism of the Mass Media....Pages 124-133 Tom Wolfe and the New Journalism....Pages 134-149 Norman Mailer and Mass America....Pages 150-170 Coming to Terms with Hollywood: From Mass to Auteur Theory....Pages 171-187 The Politics and Aesthetics of Modernism....Pages 188-202 Susan Sontag: Against Interpretation....Pages 203-214 Back Matter....Pages 215-241