Modernism Mummified Author(s): Daniel Bell Reviewed work(s): Source: American Quarterly, Vol. 39, No.

1, Special Issue: Modernist Culture in America (Spring, 1987), pp. 122-132 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2712633 . Accessed: 24/04/2012 19:45
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MODERNISM MUMMIFIED
DANIEL BELL Harvard University
IN HIS INTRODUCTION TO THE IDEA OF THE MODERN,IRVING HOWE QUOTES THE

is arresting, as everyone does sincehyperbole ofVirginia Woolf, remark famous Mrs.Woolf nature Actually, changed." that "on or aboutDecember1910human She was referring (in herfamous changed." character that"human had written in 1924) to the changesin the written and Mrs.Brown," essay,"Mr. Bennett in "All human have relations or of the marriage. ofone's cook partners position and and and husbands wives, parents between masters servants, shifted-those in is at the same time a change when human relations there And change children. andliterature."' conduct, politics religion, insensibility ofmodernity has a transfiguration as thetouchstone Thissearch for intemperament cautious andcomplex, ever LionelTrilling, animated other writers. human nature doesnot inhisreading that IliadorSophocles ofthe while persuaded in as he stated life nevertheless came to believe, andthat moral is unitary, change in late that the sixteenth and early andAuthenticity, theopening pagesofSincerity inhuman nature took likea mutation place,"and centuries seventeenth "something at with "became a salient, with and one one's self, being that a newconcern the self, for four hundred of Western culture some a characteristic perhaps definitive, years."2 emerged has a large to whenandhowwhatwe call "themodern" The answer wherecultural canvas.One can date it withtheriseof themuseum, historical ina newcontext from their traditional arewrenched placesanddisplayed artifacts mixedup and consciousness jumbledby will,as when of syncretism: history with andyet the Louvre histrophies; tostuff andEurope ransacked Egypt Napoleon their their heelson have alwaysdisplayed powerbyplacing vicarious emperors in theRenaissance, ofcourse, themodern ForJacobBurckhardt, culture. begins, One one'snameinstone. onindividuality, originality, andputting with the emphasis thatthemodern behind theargument, can say,and I wouldplace greatweight that theeconomy is no longer with andtheproposition subject AdamSmith begins activity, just as in this or moralrulesbut is an autonomous to the household oflawfrom morality (tobe regarded ofliberalism onehastheautonomy extension
ofCapitalism I advanced in TheCultural Contradictions anda reflection onthemes Thisessayis a reprise in the a memorial essayforLionelTrilling, Self," Modernism, Beyond "Beyond (1976) and theessay, Marcus (1975) and WilA edited DonadioandSteven Anderson, Stephen volume Politics byQuentin Art, inmycollection ofessays, TheWinding andreprinted Passage(1980).

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from oftheaesthetic andtheautonomy procedures), as a setofformal principally the forart'ssake alone.Andifone believesthat artexists so that all constraints onewould is epistemological, andsensibility ofall knowledge source fundamental theory of ofan activity theproposition Kant, with from haveto datethecreation from knowledge theory deriving contemplative the classical (as against knowledge "The understanding as Kantsaysin theProlegomena, so that, Forms), preexisting a theorem them to,nature," butprescribes from, itslaws(a priori) doesnotderive artandinpolitics.3 outinmodem that is carried the is thatwhatdefines elements, Whatis clear,out of all thesevariegated of place and time, from ofdetachment to change, is a senseofopenness modern the towelcome ifnoteagerness, anda readiness, mobility, socialandgeographical there are that proposition Itis the andthepast. oftradition new, evenattheexpense and his or herselfthattheindividual, given"in nature," no endsor purposes and one'sself onecanremake andthat oflife, newidealandimago isthe realization, which goals.Revolution, to achievethoseindividual society in theeffort remake endless with the a rupture nowbecomes cycle, inanendless hadoncebeena ricorso to create. newworlds andfor old worlds, to destroy andis theimpulse wheel, Both were roots. havecommon andmodernism Inall this itisclearthat capitalism in their of thedough;forboththerewas "nothing restless kneading dynamic orthe individualism ofrugged on theefforts for both there wereno limits sacred"; selfto tearup thepastandto makeitnew. unrestrained brothers is that still tobe unraveled, is thehistory andthis is also clear, Yetwhat the was a deepfratricide whereby there they mayhavebeeninthewomb, though theexcessesandthe into feared work, itsenergies sublimating bourgeoisie, rising of while theavatars andcultural forms bythenewboheme, ofconventions flouting for themoney-minded bourgeoisie, modernism despisedand held in contempt and a source of display,status,and whom culturewas only a commodity consumption. Atitsextreme, alsohaddifferent andcultural modernism trajectories. Capitalism as it andmaximization with becameconcerned efficiency, optimization, capitalism Cultural modernism to theorganization. theindividual openedan subordinated with becameconcerned thesocialorder; an unyielding often rage,against attack, and ofrepresentation; artthefunction denied toa narcissistic often extent; theself, andsounds-which alone-textures thematerials absorbed becameunusually with itusedfor expressiveness. modernism to changesin social in mywork, to relatecultural I have tried, and I have arguedthatin modernism-in music, literature, painting, structure. I havecalledthe"eclipse ofdistance," which was a common syntax poetry-there and thatin thesevariedgenrestherewas a commonattackon the "rational thatof since the Renaissance; Western culture thathad defined cosmology" of in space through mathematical and background perspective; foreground of time; and of a middle,and end, as the orderedchronology beginning, relation of intheidea ofmimesis orthesemantic oftruth" theory "correspondence

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I hadtried word toobject.4 to showthat where theaesthetic wasjoinedtopolitics, in thetwentieth the"world-view" of modernism particularly had been century, principally reactionary or revolutionary Stefan (whether Georgeand Gottfried intheatre andart; Benn, ortheGerman whether Yeats expressionists Pound, Eliot, and Wyndham Lewis and theambiguous of a Lawrence, politics or theearly revolutionary stanceof Auden, etc.,etc.).And I had arguedthatcontemporary decorative culturecollapse underthe bourgeoissociety, seeing its inflated, of cultural had in an astonishing tour deforcetakenover onslaught modernism, it as its own culture-this cultural and flaunted modernism beingthecultural contradiction ofcapitalism. Today, according to thewinds has ended.We have oftheZeitgeist, modernism modernism from its it "postmodernism" historical and wrenching context, jumbling withdifferent cultural styles(old hat,nouveau,and deco) in a new,bizarre to theAT & T tower on Madison syncretism (suchas PhilipJohnson's pediment thetexts and academics todeconstruct thepastandcreate a Avenue), ransacking inthefalsedawn. newpresence. So thehootowl ofMinerva screeches II a pastandhaving WhatofAmerica? ina revolutionary madeitself Lacking act, has beentheonly America purecapitalist society we haveknown. Buthas there beenan American Modernism? Andifso,what was it? intheUnited Modernism States existed inform, notincontent. Notonly isthis an butI am necessarily in an arbitrary arbitrary distinction, thesewords using way. Anditisbyexposition, than rather that definition, this distinction canbe madeclear useful. and,perhaps, Incontent, American culture (leaving asidenineteenth-century NewEngland and a large country) thetwentieth-century was primarily South-yet thisremains and anti-intellectual in thesensethat small-town, Protestant, moralizing Richard Hofstadter has usedthisterm.If,as Santayana once remarked, Americans were innocent ofpoison, were evenmore so ofsexuality they (notsex).Can oneimagine a a Swinburne Huysmans, or an Aubrey Beardsley (though The Yellow Book was initiated oranyother byan American expatriate) "dandy aesthete" (to useMartin Green's on theAmerican phrase) scene? American as is obvious from thehistory, modernists, couldflourish principally inEurope: James NewYork andBoston, Pound from Eliotfrom only leaving Idaho, St.Louis, Stein Gertrude from from the Illinois and Baltimore, Hemingway suburbs, the"lostgeneration" ofthetwenties earlier orlater toParis.The toLondon going little cue from withthe magazinestooktheir Europe.The painters, beginning Armory show,again hailed fromEurope. The composers, again, spentthe abroad. obligatory period The twoinnovative American writers, Dos Passos andFaulkner, wereexperimental and modernist, inthe butthey werenotpartofa native modernist culture

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wereable toplacetheir Rimbaud andProust as Mallarm&, suchwriters sensethat close ofmontage a style Dos Passosintroduced culture. ona French deeply imprints but of Germany, theater expressionist thepolitical to cinemaand,to someextent, Dos Passos Andthough intheradicalmilieu ofhistime. was largely hisinfluence he was his radicalism, whenhe abandoned his montage techniques continued novels, experimental wrote powerful as passe.Faulkner bythecritics written off anyof can rankwith Fury influences (TheSoundand the from theFrench derived Faulkner attention. little critical hereceived yet romansfleuves) great modernist the forMalcolmCowleythemap of onlyin 1945 whenhe sketched was revived inthesociological Faulkner redefined andCowleythen County, Yoknapatawpha and Snopesesforthesoul of the theSartorises of thestruggle between context writer. South-notas a modernist innovations-as cultures-werejazz and modernist The two distinctive evenin the as sinful regarded themainstream, but jazz was outside photography, in inAmerican culture influence becamea major andonly twenties, jazz age ofthe despite withthe largercommercial jazz bands,whilephotography, the forties technical Theonegreat concerns. toAmerican marginal wasaesthetically Stieglitz, a form ofmass intheUnited States, as "themovies" film, wasregarded innovation, andso itbecameanaesthetic inFrance, where andas "thecinema" entertainment, intheUnited States. commentary theroute backto critical provided was no there States, in theUnited weremodernists In thesesenses, whilethere in culture there was a modernist incontent. The oneplacewhere culture modernist as theold aesthetic. And, this wasthemachine was inform-and theUnited States andthe theself aesthetic excluded The machine was no accident. goes,this saying with andfused industrial Photography design. itwasabstract andfunctional, person, thebusiness scene; butwith Camera Work, itsownnotwith the periodical cameinto and the factories The greatfunctional itsshowcase. theFortune pages provided of thenew concrete ribbons as well as thecurving skyscrapers, hugefunctional that Thekey term ofthenewculture. symbols becametheemblematic motorways, in his suchas CharlesSheeler, artists wasfunctional. Modernist defined itsform geometrical reflected theseabstract and photographs, paintings "precisionist" the ofjazz with therhythms Davis,fused Abstract suchas Stuart artists, designs. age. linear forms ofthemachine WarII with World intheUnited States after A modernist begantoappear culture thedistinctive Protestant holdon American life, thecollapseof thesmall-town ofFrenchandtheflood activities, as thefocusofeconomic ofurbanism imprint newart ofa Gorky the whoinfluenced Ernst) Masson, (Breton, surrealists European who shaped or Balanchine, suchas Stravinsky or Pollock;theRussianemigres Central Europesuchas inmusic from anddance;thelargenumber developments andlinguistics, arthistory whoinfluenced Erwin andRomanJakobson, Panofsky in continental who brought sociologyand and the many Germanrefugees ofall those The complete story sciences). andother (as wellas physics philosophy remains to be told. influences myriad

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Whatof modernism becomesin today?It has becomewhatculture usually a decorative periods ofluxury anddecadence, orthe lastduchess onthe commodity wall.On theone handthere are theculturati who makeup thenewindustry of galleries andmuseums as wellas entertainment, the andmagazines, and purveyors andcicerones Andonthe thecorporations andbanks transmitters ofculture. other, that linetheir corridors with therequisite Morris Newman, Motherwell, Noland, Louis or Kline,where thethick and therivers impasto of colorsag and go limp theneutral against andthewhitewashed beigecarpets walls.5 itis dead andstuffed. is the"official" Modernism today culture-because high Anditshigh andhismagazine, The taxidermist isHilton Kramer NewCriterion, who Ina recent identify with tour modernism andbourgeois capitalism society. defarce, intheSixties "Modernism culture andItsEnemies," Kramer setstheglowofhigh anextraordinary incultural "which witnessed erathat sawthe life....the expansion ofa great building newmuseums andtheexpansion ofa great many many existing of"a public museums," thespread that was largeandgrowing." As thecapstone, TheNew York Times himas itscultural critic appointed because,"As thethen ofTheTimes, executive editor Turner tome(with of Catledge, explained something a sigh), 'Ourreaders arenowa lotsmarter we are.'To keepthese aboutall this than andwinstill readers themanagers itnecessary others ofthepaper felt toredress the andthis meant-insomefields atleast-joining the tide balance, modernist instead ofopposing it."6 There aretwostriking points inthis exposition: one,modernism istobe explained byitsaudience, andbytheexistence ofmuseums. Historically, ithas always been theartist whoestablishes andwrites the culture. Theartist may havebeenadversary orentwined with court orchurch, but culture wasdefined bytheartist. Themuseum was the place the artist avoided.If one turns to the bombastic outriders of therepeated modernism, cryin theFuturist manifestos of Marinetti is thatthe museumsare "cemeteries of emptyexertion, calvariesof crucified dreams, registries ofaborted beginnings," and Marinetti urges the"gayincendiaries with charred fingers [to]setfire to thelibrary shelves," andflood themuseums.7 than Second, other the genuflections tothe Abstract Expressionists ofthe postwar period (now thirty yearsin thepast),there are fewreferences to contemporary artists orwriters whoexemplify thecreativity andvitality ofhigh culture today. In thismodernist fact, culture, theonlytrue"highculture," must guardtheportals thenewradicals-e.g.,a Beuys-whobeatat thegates, against while defending a huckster likeJulian Schnabel. Culture ishigh culture only when itiscalcified inthe museums ofModern Art.8 Who are theenemies of modernism? According to Mr.Kramer, there are the radicals whofeel betrayed becausemodernism, instead ofremaining revolutionary, has"turned outtobe a coefficient ofbourgeois capitalist culture." Andthere arethe philistines (Mr. Kramer's, not Arnold's, designation), such as thiswriter, who

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Mr. Kramer, ofthesixties. ofthecounterculture as thebegetter modernism identify who positions. TheMarxists andmisstates histargets skews polemicist, as a veteran butas a derivative ofitas revolutionary thought havenot modernism haveattacked to initsclaims a "conceit" Inmy I callthecounterculture life. writings, ofbourgeois a todraw thelinebetween wasunable culture theliberal butsaythat be modernist, and outinthe imagination, lived andbestiality) ofmurder (andfantasies modernism andtoactout art andlife between theerasure ofanydistinction theclaimtojustify ofoutrage. thelifestyles theater) (albeitin street Mr. Kramer ofmodernism: the critics about omissions arealsotwostriking There of followers intellectuals, the large groupof conservative ignores completely oftheDevil,andthe as theinvention Modernism Kirk, whohavedescribed Russell inthe they world. Yet, as "oldbelievers," contemporary heresy source ofallpolitical intheir ofcapitalism andhaveevenattacked defense areas fervent as Mr.Kramer which heresy, something still clinging tothemodernist for the"neo-conservatives" for Mr.Kramer. ofthat group-except is nottrue in amnesiaabouthisownpast. Writing is Mr.Kramer's The secondomission inthesocialist Mr. Kramer remarked hallowed sixties, ofthe 1959,onthethreshold magazine Dissent
the against inoureconomy ofthearts conspires and inthesocialorganization Everything ifthespirit were oftheavant-garde would be indispensable which andindependence privacy inwhich hasassigned as wedo today, society ina situation, tosurvive. ourselves Oncewefind inall thearts, and thelastword outandexploiting tothetaskofseeking vastbureaucracies have joined as eager accomplicesin this orgyof selfthemselves when the artists isdead.The I think todeny theavant-garde itismere that this situation piety exploitation-in artsby has tightened itsgrip on all the is that since1945 bourgeois society factofthematter rein.9 them a freer allowing

their never change targets. only die,they Old polemical apparatchiks Mr. almost ifnot that for the fact Kramer, be merely sectarian would Muchofthis state.Irving a defender of Modernism-atleast in its petrified alone,remains isoften a gross and that the capitalism haveconceded point Kristol andPeter Berger that it is an engine for on theground to be defended primarily unlovely system, butnotsufficient itis "a necessary oflifeand that material standards increasing norBerger Butneither Kristol conditions." under modern ofdemocracy condition intheterms ofMr.Kramer. has defended modernism butalso of Modernism notonlyas an aspectofcapitalism, Mr.Kramer defends in this attackon at "what is writes that and stake, then, really democracy, vital cultural life ofourdemocratic society. central tothe modernism [is]something The avatars of invalid. and ." But this is historically confusing intellectually .. as often antidemocratic have been (and themselves overwhelmingly modernism conflates hisrealms. likean inverted Marxist, andMr.Kramer, anti-Semitic); not, and legal a set of traditions but on on capitalism, is notdependent Democracy while itself that antedate capitalism suchas thecommon capitalism, law, concepts, in or Chile. as with and has beencompatible fascism authoritarianism, Italy

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Kramer writes: "Thetruth culture ofmodernism hasserved allalongas Mr. is,the andsometimes aesthetic andspiritual the conscience, eventhemoral conscience, of middle-class life,and it is thiswhichhas made it pre-eminently theculture of democratic society." hasbeena savageandoften Butthis is a slippery Modernism glissade. destructive middle-class life(needonerepeat thelitany ofBaudelaire, force against Verlaine, Poundet al.), and if modernism as an "aesthetic Rimbaud, serves and spiritual Mr.Kramer wearsa hairshirt conscience," clearly to bed at night. To say that is preeminently the culture of democratic modernism capitalism is to have fluid rather than bloodinone'sveins. Andifso,Mr. embalming Kramer remains the ofmodernism. walking mummy IV is a recurrent The"senseofan ending," as Frank Kermode hasremarked, theme in cultural an eschatological in cultures thatmovetoward climaxor are mired If we have no fixed timeas to whenmodernism despair. began-one's starting can be based on sensibility, or self, or on theautonomy of as I havenoted, point, is clearthat institutions, economic oraesthetic-it "cultural modernism" hascome a child inhisCharles ofthemodern, stated Eliot toa close.As Octavio Paz,himself at Harvard: Norton Lectures
wewitness Modern art because itiscritical.... modern ismodern Today another mutation: art is beginning toloseitspowers ofnegation. Forsomeyears nowitsrejections havebeenritual intoprocedure, intorhetoric, rebellion has turned criticism into repetitions: transgression I amnotsaying is nolonger creative. that we areliving attheendofart: ceremony. Negation
we are livingthe end of the idea of modernan.'0

hassuggested, Wasmodernism as Herbert Marcuse or "co-opted" bycapitalism, was ita contradiction ofcapitalism, as I haveargued? theproblem Marcuse stated ofculture, from thestandpoint thepsychological force that yetonecan arguethat in thislast century becamedissipated was notculture butcapitalism. Marcuse in 1964) thatall aspectsof claimed(in his One-Dimensional Man, published life-art,technology, working-class rebellion, blackresentment, youth Sturm und Drang-had beenflattened outbythetechnological rationality ofsociety, onlyto a few find himself hailed, years later, as thePiedPiper ofRevolution bythe raucous andParis." ofBerlin students saidMarcuse, wasbasedpsychologically l Capitalism, on"surplus ofthe the repression," imposed bythe severity superego through agency ofthefamily. States almost twochildren will (In theUnited today, oneoutofevery oftheir ina one-parent someperiod ifone ora fatherless spend youth family!) Yet, Marxonhishead.Itisculture looksatcapitalism today, onecanput with itsvarying that has becomethesubstructure demands of Western and the capitalist society to meetitsvoracious production system reorganized appetites-material; erotic

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Squaresand TV and low;punkand rock;Hollywood high, middle and aesthetic; bang-bang. high and andculture, wealth, power, through itsvitality A society demonstrates Korea, North Soviet Union, in the we see today as breeds sterility, low.Poweralone from derived A culture Andculture? decadence. alonebreeds Wealth orAlbania. of the Buddhas us the great can give faith its commanding by andsustained religion A expansion, of great period the Middle Ages. artof Orient or the Christian and togeographical anddiscovery, aneraopentochange Paris, nineteenth-century the of air, for vivacity plein from the mythology can break social mobility, oftheself. ofthespectacle, thepresentation excitement described thecapitalism by capitalism, adventure society (notearly Bourgeois the deploring Sombart)forceda cleavage betweenhigh and low culture, was Modernist culture oftheother. oftheone and thevulgarity adventurousness in tension with bourgeois sociologically, creative becauseitlived, extraordinarily itreached down tothetaproots onceobserved, as PaulTillich and, because, society bourgeois intoart.Today, impulses thosesurging andtransmuted ofthedemonic taboos. there arefew for cavorts everywhere, andthe demonic hascollapsed society but "Merdre," kingsaying theclownish Jarry couldopenhisUbuRoiwith Alfred of a Genetor a how muchof a shockis thattodayagainstthedesecrations Burroughs?'2 becausetherational thatis eclecticand syncretistic Todaywe have a culture offorms, havebeenshattered. Thedisjunction andthemirror ofnature cosmology formalism has become has and the with vanished, mimesis, out of tension growing now (articulated experiences and alienated The disjoined self-referential. largely orlack cliches, in sociological areexpressed toooften writers) bywomen largely other than through term andfailtoengage society ofJean Rhys), "shape"(tousethe narcissistic reflection. as is as amorphous Its meaning The new vogue termis "postmodernism." as the as startling a setofparadoxes buttheterm also contains itself, modernism years. of modernism and capitalismin the past two hundred engagement writings ofMichelFoucault thesubterranean we dateitfrom Postmodernism-if of Norman0. Brown(witha smallnod to Norman and,in theUnitedStates, of man" and theend of the notonlythe"de-construction Mailer)-proclaimed break" with Credo of Reason,but also the "epistemological Enlightenment oforaland into of the and the dissolution perversity polymorph sexuality genitality, had as modernism ofthebody, anal pleasures.I3 Forthem, this was theliberation broke that followed oftheimagination. The sexualrevolution beentheliberation overlapping andthesomewhat as onecurrent, movements into thegayandlesbian out andlived closet hadcomeoutofthe Imagination as another. culture rock-drug itsimpulses openly. of the taboos,a had gone "beyond," a transgression Foucaultand Brown-twist offate, the Butbya strange ofmodernism. so tospeak, rendering, posthumous

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themediabya successive itself was appropriated through term "postmodernism" reacted against modernist of artistswho, oftenconventionally, generation hailedbythechicculturati and wereimmediately and expressionism, formalism by of"postmodernism," Thepractitioners the newwinds offashion. ready tofollow In forcreativity. forform and cleverness pastiche and large,have substituted arches, Byzantine mixes with heavy fantasy MichaelGraves Moorish architecture, totheWhitney superstructure building, andhisproposed Oregon as inhisPortland, In painting, flat proseofAnnBeattie. In literature, there is theaffectless Museum. inthe canvases images, likeX-ray figuration, ofshadowy reintroduction weseethe imagery dream there arethehypnotic Andon thestage, oftheneo-expressionists. by the slow-motion tableausby RobertWilson,underscored and dissociated Glass. minimalism ofPhilip monotonic images anart recycles which largely byPop Art, wasforeshadowed Muchofthis Some on silkscreen or phosphorescent acrylic. collageorjuxtaposition, through it theimagebyexpressing orJim Dinecan subdue likeJasper Johns artists original and texture, as in theirprints. But witha the tensionof technique through a Warhol, with theimagetoo thetechnique becomestooobvious; Rauschenberg, In both becometiresome. cases theoutcomes finally blatant. so that the visual lacksboth content andform, culture What today high passesfor babble or contrived and literature decorative self-indulgent artsare primarily andgay, inits nomatter howbright becomes, Decoration byitsnature, experiment. a receding of incapable mere background andrepetitive wallpaper, patterns, finite Self-referential re-visions of perception. theviewerin therenewable engaging repeatthe same old refrains, whenboththe selfand the reference literature, in a he can standon one finger that becomesa tedious bore,likeUno showing haslostits andtwice-told talesis a culture that A culture ofrecycled images circus. bearings. of negation," Herbert therationality ritualized or not,artcontains "Whether currents in One-Dimensional Man.Paradoxically, theonly cultural Marcuse wrote have that ofpopular culture havebeensegments as an irrational ofnegation, form, socialvaluesof thetraditional all boundaries, setthemselves broken up against as sex andrebellion, wildly andsuccessfully, andare marketed American society, andmassculture. ofcapitalism bythepurveyors ofLibido, thesoftcore pornography television soapoperasaretheStreets Today, a fantasy lifethey own theviewers with can actoutintheir titillating deliberately and rockappeal to youths who feel angry homes.Heavy Metal and hardcore a living. Sex-obsession as of earning aboutthedead-end prospects discouraged form. One can exhibited by a Madonnaor Princetakesan evermoreexplicit lives! thegrafitti on thewalls:Genet imagine in thelate initiated byElvisPresley from therock-and-roll Is thisso different orthehardstomp of ofLSD sung 195Os,orthesweet inducements bytheBeatles, In one sense, as with ofa cultural anyenlargement Stones? MickJagger's Rolling ofwhat in which moreandmore has beena "widening gyre" there phenomenon,

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and moreand moreof whathad been continues to crumble, has beenassaulted is that theyouth Butwhatalso seemsto be true forbidden nowgoes on publicly. morecrassly nowis exploited bythe and especially lower-class culture, culture, theappetites oftheyoung With to sex andviolence, regard commercial interests. a critic ontheWall Street Journal, andas Martha Bayles, turned outtobe voracious, angerare thetwopreferred and anti-social all,rawsexuality has written: "After industry Andwhen theentertainment hiselders. against weapons oftheadolescent it thesedistillations ofblackculture were, marketable discovered how endlessly for restraint."'4 ceasedto see reasons and pubTV, rock musicrecords, For the entertainment industry-movies, not must andthegovernment andfree speech, is free enterprise lishing-allofthis of themarket place. be allowedto interfere withthelibertarianism/libertinism A century and a quarter ago itwas contradiction ofcapitalism? Againa cultural duMal as anoutrage against LesFleurs andthe bourgeoisie condemning Baudelaire in magazine as brothers public decency.Today is it Foucault and Hustler "negation"? With the inpopular culture, comeandgo inspasms. Cultural fashions, especially risingthreat of AIDS, the compaignsagainstdrugsand tobacco,the sheer in thefilm as demonstrated ofsexualviolence, Sid and exhaustion oftheugliness tobe seen;and we maybe on theverge Thatremains ofa "newsobriety." Nancy, notof oftheideologue, that is a maxim story. "Never call retreat" is also another culture. for modernism Ifthis we cannowbegrateful allissaidanddone, isthe case,when and inthemuseums, toshock. Itis safely itself wasoncecommitted as a culture that Suchold contradictions on thecorporate walls,readyfortheclosetsof History. never die;they justfadeaway.

NOTES 'Virginia Woolf, Collected Essays (New York, 1967),1:320-21. (Italicsadded.)WhenI first readthis phrase andquoted itinmybook,I wondered what mayhavehappened toMrs.Woolf herself in 1910to inQuentin giverisetothis startling assertion. In 1910, ifonefollows thedetailed events Bell'sbiography, of RogerFry's"First Mrs.Woolf beganto speakup forthefeminist cause,signalled theimportance inthe Post-Impressionist Exhibition," andbathed naked with Rupert Brooke bymoonlight Granta. While in itsspeechby 1910," as Mr.Bell notes, as a sociologist I was had become"licentious Bloomsbury insocialsituations relieved tofind that itwas primarily that this momentous change hadoccurred. 2Lionel Trilling, Sincerity andAuthenticity (Cambridge, Mass.,1972),19. I ed.PaulCarus(La Salle,Ill.,1945),82.Ifthe reference topolitics seems 3Kant'sProlegomena, strange, haveinmind simply theviewonefinds inclassicalGreek thought that thenatural order, themoral order areall akininhaving an entelechy andthesocialorder defined andthat the endsof bythetelos, proper inthe inthe andthesocialaregiven ofpurposes that exist constitutive structures of nature, morality unity and nomos. withHobbes,dirempts thatunity, and insists thatendsare physis Modernity, beginning individual andvaried. inEncounter(London) 4This inmy theme wasfirst stated essay"TheEclipseofDistance," May1963. Needless to say, I havenottried to write a general "theory" ofmodernism, butto lookat these aspects which relate to "external" rather than itsownimmanent forces, trajectories.

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ofthese thecanvases orcollectors buying or museums 5I haveno objections, perse,to corporations the objectionable is that on their walls.How couldone?Whatbecomes artists for display worthwhile oras a for thearts," "support as a means ofdemonstrating of"modem art"is bynowobligatory buying sealof becomes the Museum ofModemArt sense that the that it."Itisinthat oneis "with wayofshowing A DuncanPhillips, oftaste for thesociety. andthearbiter for thecorporations, "Good Housekeeping" thefirst (including gallery was able to builda marvelous his own independent judgment, exercising getshis Hirschorn, buying artbythecarload, Buta Joseph ofMorris Louis) inWashington. purchases thesifting oftaste ofculture. Fortunately, as a benefactor ofWashington onthemalls nameemblazoned of leaner and,in theyearsto come,fewpeoplewillknowofthevulgarity willmakesuchcollections the whoordered Steelworks ruthless headoftheCarnegie Frick as the as few today recognize Hirschorn, of 1892. intheHomestead strike shooting oftheworkers TheNewCriterion March1986:5. "Modernism anditsenemies," Kramer, 6Hilton ed.R.W.Flint inMarinetti Selected (NewYork, ofFuturism," Writings, andManifesto 7"The Founding 1973),43. TheNew "newest anddecorative-arts fair," reports NewYork's antiques notonly themuseums. 8And and ofStyle A Century ofNovember front ina cultural 21, 1986,is "Modernism: pagearticle Times York Wilk, show I haveever seen," burbled Christopher "It'sthemost 'antique' exciting 1860-1960." Design, Thoseartists shown include Hector Museum. Guimard, ofdecorative arts atthe Brooklyn assistant curator aresomeselections at$100 or Eames."Although there andCharles Wright, Wright, Russel Frank Lloyd ofofferings RitaReif, "the ceramic majority plates-" writes plastic jewelry, bottles, early less-perfume indeed. as much as $235,000." culture, andmaster works command High, high arefrom $500 to$10,000, added.) Dissent 1959: 166.(Emphasis Spring Culture," Kramer, "To Hellwith 9Hilton I Octavio Avant-Garde Romanticism tothe Mire: Modem (Cambridge, Poetry from ofthe Paz, Children Mass.,1974),148-49. 1 In 1970, ofBerlin andwashailed FreeUniversity by onthe ofthe rapturously Marcuse stage appeared the broke into "Her-bert." Andwhen they whochanted "Her-bert," "Her-bert," the students rhythmically, a clenched and hiscoat,raisedhiselbowwith off Marcuse fist, oftheInternationale, whipped singing andcried: dieddown, hestepped forward When thenoisefinally ofthelastchorus. joinedinthesinging Genossen!"Old anangry back:"Studenten?Esheisst shouted professors "Studenten!....Atwhich volley Barricades and Off. J.Lasky's On the is toldinMelvin collection, die.The story never ofthepublic andToulouse-Lautrec, wasthefirst Vuillard setselaborated 12Ubi Roi with byBonnard, that lastedthroughout theevening. a pandemonium The word, setoff ofobscenity. utterances merdre, hadgiven a spintotheword 1908.YetevenJarry in 1896,itcouldnotbe staged againuntil Presented as shite orpshit. used so that theword hasbeentranslated, Though oneletter, variously, merde byadding at Waterloo, thepublic a remark of one of Napoleon's generals as themotde Cambronne, privately hasobserved, was"unthinkable." this scandale in1896, Shattuck Compare utterance ofthe word as Roger DamedesFleurs madeofhis (andthefilm rapeinNotre with ofhomosexual graphic depiction Genet's in Naked ofa manwhile ofthesexualejaculation or Burroughs' beinghanged, description fantasies) goingoffto an of course, is nowthecommonplace wordforgood luckfora student Lunch. Merde, intime, become for a friend on a journey. Does everything, ora talisman academic examination going tamed? Years seeRoger (London, 1959)ch.7,esp. andUbuRoi, TheBanquet Shattuck, Fora discussion ofJarry title of KingTurd Kingand G. thestrange byBeverley translated under 161.The playhas beenfully 1953). Legman (NewYork, 0. Brown as going beyond ofFoucault andNorman 13For andmore extensive discussion a previous Contradictions ofCapitalism, 51-52. see myCultural modernism, 141takethis which Ms. Bayleswillbe from fora bookon popular culture comment theprospectus I am grateful for The FreePress. herpermission. for writing