“Should the college teacher try to raise student taste in
movies, radio, and television?” Should the medical school keep its instruction
abreast of developments in medical science? Should the engineering school
reflect the industrial patterns of the society it trains people for? Should law
school introduce its students to contemporary jurisprudence?
The question
sounds curiously beside the point considered in such a context. Indeed, that we
still ask ourselves whether instead of how
we should do it most effectively is a
measure of the adequacy of our response to the emergence of mass culture. It
symbolizes how far off balance the humanities have been thrown by this radical
shift in the focus of our culture. Generally, our reaction has been one of
studied aloofness.
The results of this self-imposed cultural isolationism have
not been happy for us. The English department office is more and more the GHQ
of a beleaguered army; dismal reports trickle in of a new foray from Education
department, of some new usurpation of the Speech faculty, of another commercial
corruption of taste. Enrollments dwindle, student caliber deteriorates, power
and prestige diminish. How different all this could be!
Instead of the gloomy
headquarters of a war of attrition against plummeting standards, the English
office could become a center for intelligent criticism of American popular
culture. It could likewise become a source of vision for a commercially
oriented popular culture that badly needs some. These two
responsibilities—developing standards of criticism for popular culture and
creating a vision of creativity within the popular art forms—are, in one man’s
opinion, the major tasks of the humanist in contemporary America.
The first responsibility, developing standards for popular
culture, can best be done by relating similar genres in popular culture and the
humane tradition. Juxtapose slick fiction and classics; why does one surpass
the other? Compare current TV drama at its best with past dramatic achievement.
Systematically assign movie reviews as themes; discuss and write about
Hollywood’s troubles and achievements.
Assess the function and effectiveness of
our popular critics—Crosby, Seldes, McCarten, Ace, Hamburger, and others. Term
papers on any aspect of popular culture not only develop communication skills,
but also provide the participant in popular culture a perspective he
unfortunately isn’t getting at all presently. Even the most inane element of
popular culture becomes significant and serves our purposes of deepening
cultural awareness if it is made the object of close and careful scrutiny; such
study becomes indispensable, as a matter of fact, because thereby a member of
popular culture is enabled to pierce the tinsel curtain of superficiality that
now separates him from the humane tradition.
But even more necessary than the development of a tradition
of popular criticism in America is the creation of a vision of the
possibilities of mass culture. The promising young English major must be made
to feel it is as important to write TV drama and movie scenarios as to publish
in the little reviews. As long as America’s creative talents think it is
beneath them to create for the popular arts, there is little hope of overcoming
debasing commercial tendencies.
Given, however, a new criticism for the patron
of the popular arts, and given new directions to the creative talents of the
next generation, we may expect an integration of popular culture and the humane
tradition which will mean much to a maturing American art. The English teacher
more than any other can use mass education as a countervailing force to
anti-humanist tendencies operative in the popular arts.
Criticism and
creativity, to be effective, must perceive the context in which they are to
operate. Increasingly, this context is that of mass society. If the English
teacher ignores these fundamental changes, both he and general American society
will be poorer for his withdrawal.
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