- Series
- Dwight MacDonald on film
- Air Date
- 1967-07-11
- Duration
- 00:28:36
- Episode Description
- Masscult and Midcult, continued
- Series Description
- Series of lectures by Dwight MacDonald on film: its makers, its history, its future.
- Subject(s)
- Creator(s)
- KUT (Radio station : Austin, Tex.) (Producer)University of Texas (Producer)Jordan, Bill (Producer)
- Contributors
- Macdonald, Dwight (Speaker)Miller, Phil (Announcer)
- Genre(s)
- Geographic Region(s)
- regions
- Time Period
- 1961-1970
[00:05 - 00:09]
When I hear the usual thing of romantics denial of the realities of modern life I think that
[00:09 - 00:14]
this thing is actually what is the modern life the author of Dreams and I can sense she
[00:14 - 00:19]
when I was just a small I was stuck with sea of cultural card in a shanty yet side by side with this committee of
[00:19 - 00:24]
intellectuals with the mass patches because I am Mass color at best mid called and see no hope of
[00:24 - 00:29]
ever becoming a member of that nebulous group insane with high culture that I thought I was being sneered at
[00:29 - 00:34]
by some agony over. And then he said with number two not
[00:34 - 00:38]
surprised when I was left stuck in the agreeable ooze of the swamp I suppose he means a
[00:38 - 00:43]
fine bag the whole bucket list and that Nobel Prize as a private joke.
[00:43 - 00:44]
Wrong.
[00:44 - 00:56]
You are listening to Dwight McDonald on film during the past
[00:56 - 01:01]
decade Mr. McDonald has been perhaps the senior critic among American
[01:01 - 01:06]
film critics. And during this past year he was distinguished visiting
[01:06 - 01:10]
professor of film history on criticism at the University of Texas. These
[01:10 - 01:15]
programs were drawn from that lecture series. Now here is the
[01:15 - 01:20]
conclusion of a discussion begun last week on Mr MacDonald's essay
[01:20 - 01:25]
mass cult and mad cult. And now once again here is Dwight
[01:25 - 01:27]
MacDonald.
[01:27 - 01:32]
Now the thing that a lot of people wrote about was that the faces of unrealistic
[01:32 - 01:36]
reaction are utopian not as tall or goings not as well that covered a lot of ground.
[01:36 - 01:42]
And the face of one that. Cast my eye on it has the tone of the essay
[01:42 - 01:48]
cause me to think the author believed he was God the author of the conclusions and announces them as they were
[01:48 - 01:53]
read by the brilliant thinker the deity I don't mind. But then he says perhaps he would have done well to
[01:53 - 01:58]
use the fake biblical prophet Hemingway Wow and I. Finally have time to read this I like
[01:58 - 02:03]
this by much. A most modest proposal in support of MacDonald's mass call the cult
[02:03 - 02:07]
the whole thing is a patio Swift's modest proposal for solving the problem of
[02:07 - 02:12]
starvation an island which you probably already member and have a modest
[02:12 - 02:17]
proposal comes down to phrase classify all the acts of God as time in a mass and
[02:17 - 02:22]
so high will be defined of course as out which the committee feels to be most worthwhile.
[02:22 - 02:27]
Next class why are citizens as high as high citizens will be those who agree with the committee's
[02:27 - 02:31]
definitions Midwood because about as I would agree in part with the committee but to some
[02:31 - 02:36]
deficiency and cerebrum material will fail to see the complete lighting growly of high
[02:36 - 02:41]
culture citizens classified as mass will be those who are incapable of Anjou appreciation of
[02:41 - 02:46]
the supreme and that have no concept of truth beauty and goodness as is known only in and through
[02:46 - 02:50]
conscious. At last after this election a convocation
[02:50 - 02:56]
must be made to ensure that neither the individual and other works are allowed to contact one another.
[02:56 - 03:02]
The high standards and quality of the high culture ones not be influenced by mere human will and pleasure.
[03:02 - 03:07]
All of these citizens that is those of the mass culture will no longer be called people and
[03:07 - 03:12]
all people members of the mid culture will be disciplined civilly. And if they
[03:12 - 03:16]
are found seeking to encroach upon destroy or inquire into the system of the individual the illustrious members of high
[03:16 - 03:21]
culture. I submit this proposal as I've got the inspiration I found reading the
[03:21 - 03:28]
profound truly humanistic approach to the severe plague of our nation and world by drag me down into.
[03:28 - 03:33]
The. Trap that got of demagoguery really.
[03:33 - 03:41]
Well you see you all get this idea that I'm a snob and that I want to prevent people from going
[03:41 - 03:41]
into this.
[03:41 - 03:46]
Actually I can see this whole question of the elite as it is a kind of a
[03:46 - 03:50]
club but it's a club that anybody can join you want to take the trouble to. You know to be
[03:50 - 03:55]
interested in any of these fellows and far from wanting to keep
[03:55 - 04:00]
high culture away from the masses not of the world. You see there are two things involved
[04:00 - 04:05]
offensive all the actual historical situation has been for 200 years that the
[04:05 - 04:09]
masses are not in contact with high culture and even when I think that they get in kind of by
[04:09 - 04:14]
the debased ruggedized form of it and do damage the high culture anything that is a historical
[04:14 - 04:19]
fact is also a fact that we've always had in order to have any culture at all
[04:19 - 04:24]
we've always had to have this kind of an exclusive snobbish of Bond God which turns its
[04:24 - 04:29]
back on the masses and on the marketplace and does right according to the
[04:29 - 04:34]
traditions which they feel are important and whatever field of audit risk.
[04:34 - 04:39]
I mean these are facts and right now you say when I talk about two cultures in America
[04:39 - 04:44]
and that's what we should have I could equally well have said that's what we do have because the fact
[04:44 - 04:49]
is that in literature the fact is that Robert Lowell and saw
[04:49 - 04:54]
about Norman Mailer do not write for the mass or the middle
[04:54 - 04:59]
public the fact that some of them are popular and recognize and so on has nothing to do with the
[04:59 - 05:04]
question. But the fact is that I don't write for this public. And the fact is in fact another
[05:04 - 05:09]
serious creative rights delivery for this product. If I run for any public it's a public of their
[05:09 - 05:14]
peers and this is a small public and my argument is not to keep out people
[05:14 - 05:19]
but just to give them the right name to the thing I mean don't miss talk about culture if we
[05:19 - 05:23]
don't mean it. If we do mean culture then let's be extremely well as a snobbish
[05:23 - 05:28]
discriminatory but anyway let's be extremely strict in what we call it.
[05:28 - 05:33]
That quotation from Elliot in my essay in which he says exactly this he says if you
[05:33 - 05:37]
really think that culture is incompatible with a democratic society
[05:37 - 05:43]
then in that case alright that's fine but say so. You know I mean maybe you have to give up cause you're
[05:43 - 05:48]
not a have a democratic society but anyway don't call it culture. But it's not keeping
[05:48 - 05:52]
anybody out as Father I'm concerned. Well here's the usual thing of romantics
[05:52 - 05:57]
denial of the realities of modern life. I think that this thing is actually what is the
[05:57 - 06:02]
modern life the author dreams that I can sense she when I was just a small I was stuck was e of cultural
[06:02 - 06:07]
Karna Shanti got side by side with this committee of intellectuals was the master and someone she
[06:07 - 06:12]
says ascending the idea he patches because I am Mass color at best mid called and
[06:12 - 06:17]
see no hope of ever becoming a member of that nebulous group concerned with high culture. I
[06:17 - 06:21]
saw I didn't mean to make it all so difficult and so sort of absurd this way
[06:21 - 06:26]
now. I thought I was being sneered at by some arrogant overload.
[06:26 - 06:31]
And then he said with Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners left stuck in the agreeable of the
[06:31 - 06:36]
swamp I suppose he means that Steinbeck a bucket list and that Nobel
[06:36 - 06:41]
Prize is a private joke I mean you can't go into that but I mean they have given about
[06:41 - 06:46]
50 Awards for Literature and most of them have been to people in fact if you go
[06:46 - 06:51]
back to around 100 as you would be surprised if you never heard of these people. It doesn't mean
[06:51 - 06:55]
anything in fact Nobel Prize any place I can name without fear of a
[06:55 - 07:01]
sneer as being really high culture is Mr. McDonnell himself.
[07:01 - 07:06]
I should be content to eavesdrop and have my tapes Framley you know I'd rather be in the botched by
[07:06 - 07:10]
Hemingway and bend that passage because I'm so damnably American.
[07:10 - 07:14]
Well that's kind of Madeleine and I don't give up I mean sure he's American.
[07:14 - 07:20]
Sure he's American so my American in fact when I go abroad everybody thinks I'm the most tired American
[07:20 - 07:25]
Philistine and there are brown but a lot of you think that the. Several I do not like your
[07:25 - 07:30]
condescending tone I thought it was a rather genial town I.
[07:30 - 07:34]
I think that mask of in that cut I think that these guys like Mike Lee I do get awful
[07:34 - 07:39]
funny I don't know Rikon is something I got right down to date and God's
[07:39 - 07:42]
done with them I don't know what I mean is condescending.
[07:42 - 07:47]
I do not feel you really would like to have everything right at the level of high culture wow I'm sure I would
[07:47 - 07:52]
have response to call to be any more individual if I want a high level of coarseness at least now we
[07:52 - 07:57]
have a county with three to choose from and I'm in favor of this put out of their culture and I
[07:57 - 08:02]
try to make it clear that when I said here I said let the masses have their culture and let us have our
[08:02 - 08:07]
culture and don't interfere with each other when on a definite there was this attempt to but
[08:07 - 08:12]
attended everybody's in the same culture. Why must be found
[08:12 - 08:16]
for liking country and western music. Don't try to put us all up by the bootstraps
[08:16 - 08:21]
satisfaction is where you find it well I don't find counting rest amusing by
[08:21 - 08:26]
interesting and I think I could go on for some time saying why not but I'm not going to try to prevent
[08:26 - 08:31]
anybody from there when if I want to but let's call it by their real names down but then it is then
[08:31 - 08:36]
that they were conscious he was and that colors my overt that they haven't got any place high culture
[08:36 - 08:41]
not of us not of their own. As Madonna speaks of the harp on a one of legislation
[08:41 - 08:46]
just the contrary I am an anarchist I'm against any kind of laws and regulations.
[08:46 - 08:51]
He thinks that of the proper afoul of these I think this lose that power to impose standards then the
[08:51 - 08:55]
quantity of human expression will suffer considerably No you can't of course you're right you can't create a culture
[08:55 - 09:00]
by legislation by imposing standards of course you can't. In fact the
[09:00 - 09:04]
Alexandrian experience is that I mean the decadence of classical and
[09:04 - 09:09]
Roman literature and thought in the days when it's now become
[09:09 - 09:14]
active when the Alexandrian scholars took over when it became a matter of scholarship.
[09:14 - 09:19]
Of course not it has to be something alive but what I find odd is that you don't say
[09:19 - 09:24]
how much more alive somebody like Robert Lowell is you know to read him and
[09:24 - 09:29]
more interesting more genial and exciting than let's say.
[09:29 - 09:33]
Phyllis McGinley who would be an example of eyes but as a poet s who
[09:33 - 09:38]
communicates with a large number of people. Now finally somebody
[09:38 - 09:43]
did get my point. And she said I think the bribers
[09:43 - 09:48]
action of specialization or observation is exactly what Mr. Madonna
[09:48 - 09:53]
saying throughout mascot and that got the author for a pluralistic society in which there exists a
[09:53 - 09:58]
cultural right leap to appreciate high culture and the masses to enjoy a mascot.
[09:58 - 10:03]
I have faced construed as being basically a play for me trying to feudalism so to
[10:03 - 10:07]
speak. However Now here is an intelligent girl she's really is thank you.
[10:07 - 10:12]
However upon the completion of my reading of the prior book this idea was dispelled and
[10:12 - 10:17]
was replaced with the realization that Mr McDonnell is advocating precisely that the
[10:17 - 10:22]
existence of a pluralistic culture consisting of a cultural elite and the masses each with their
[10:22 - 10:26]
respective conscious. Well I mean a genius a genius because you're not sure about the book. That's
[10:26 - 10:31]
exactly what I said in the book it seems to me. I went over again and I'm now accused of all the
[10:31 - 10:36]
time a band I'm sorry to get so worked up about this but I'm a been accused of actually trying to keep the
[10:36 - 10:41]
masses out of cultural stuff in one of the more I don't know I just don't think that ever going to be
[10:41 - 10:46]
interested in. Now first off your own essay is mid call and Stalin
[10:46 - 10:51]
thought well there's a certain point there too I must say I'll get back to more sophisticated reviews all took
[10:51 - 10:55]
this line that I'm attacking something of which I'm a pot. At the very hot
[10:55 - 11:00]
there's a style that appeases the masses a propensity for names like mask called and kitsch Well
[11:00 - 11:05]
Kitch is a German time that I took over from a green bag and which is not my own
[11:05 - 11:10]
invention as a private good why I want to have in the world like this and I'm asking because I
[11:10 - 11:15]
do agree have a little bit of the popular showman about them that's true.
[11:15 - 11:19]
Names was neither enriched the meaning of the thing that represent no challenge or to discover which symbolism
[11:19 - 11:25]
Well of course just because a mascot amid colors that it got so damn bowing to all the mass
[11:25 - 11:29]
culture of middle culture or something and it seems to me that also was that pejorative
[11:29 - 11:34]
terms I was never in that process to some ghastly view was that I should
[11:34 - 11:39]
really consistently also have a time high culture. H I see you well to me
[11:39 - 11:46]
that's right so many fads and so on. Sincere piece of
[11:46 - 11:51]
kitsch if you must. Somebody else oh dear I hate to give damning examples but really it's hard not to ask
[11:51 - 11:55]
who you think you are. I find phrases like took its cue something clicks
[11:55 - 12:00]
Cassian ignoramuses cognoscenti what's wrong with ignoramuses in God a shiny penny that
[12:00 - 12:02]
was ignition.
[12:02 - 12:07]
I made that up but you can see what it means. I raise on debt what the devil is wrong with
[12:07 - 12:12]
that so it's a very good French expression. Limp and avant garde
[12:12 - 12:17]
I'm proud of that. You gotta live. Yes but you see I use lying in a
[12:17 - 12:22]
certain way I mean you see I didn't get the point of a
[12:22 - 12:29]
mid cutwater very painful to watch somebody lash himself with his own whip.
[12:29 - 12:33]
Your criticism of the ever present prevent skin so on is what one
[12:33 - 12:39]
responded that he said I know it was an amount of amusement that mascot amid gout was written
[12:39 - 12:44]
for the weekly Bible of mass cult us out and post this in just a minute you might be trying to up the
[12:44 - 12:49]
standards of thought of mascot which is an insane thing. Not to have such progress hopeless but your
[12:49 - 12:54]
vocabulary is for comprehension. There were Gunsmoke audience and so forth. Your approach is
[12:54 - 12:58]
too insulting it seems to me that either you had good intentions and bad judgement or you gladly accepted them
[12:58 - 13:03]
money and other cheek. Look the point is that
[13:03 - 13:08]
this doesn't understand that we have had a cultural explosion hit since
[13:08 - 13:11]
1945. Revolution when you want to call it
[13:11 - 13:18]
and that the sun you post is part of this fact the Post has at the time they have asked me to
[13:18 - 13:22]
write this thing the Post had a whole department called dissenting opinion
[13:22 - 13:28]
I was a called speaking out yes speaking out and I got people
[13:28 - 13:32]
like I'm a green dragon perhaps come back I don't know I got everybody to write these things for them.
[13:32 - 13:37]
I had them very well because they saw that there was an audience even in their
[13:37 - 13:41]
publication that most of the Vedas and you shouldn't think of the readers of any mass circulation
[13:41 - 13:47]
magazine as being I hum with genius Halder all kinds of different levels of readership.
[13:47 - 13:52]
And so therefore they saw that it was possible to commission is kind of things and I certainly didn't write down the
[13:52 - 13:57]
article for the readers. You can use any magazine as a vehicle I mean ask why why not after all you
[13:57 - 14:02]
could criticize that TO has been done in fact in my case yes but after all it
[14:02 - 14:07]
has eight hundred nine hundred thousand it is well so I was really writing for the 50000 of
[14:07 - 14:10]
them. That's plenty big enough for me and I don't buy for the other ones.
[14:10 - 14:15]
Well the game aspect we are going into. And I've
[14:15 - 14:20]
apologized for that. And. Well the fact that Mitt got as many bad
[14:20 - 14:24]
ought and I've dealt with that I think no definition of high culture. Yeah I think
[14:24 - 14:29]
that with that too. Yes. And then finally kind of a
[14:29 - 14:34]
confusion between what you might call the style and subject
[14:34 - 14:39]
or approach and subject a number of papers seem to think that I advocate
[14:39 - 14:44]
serious riders and movie makers and Pyatt is not dealing with popular
[14:44 - 14:49]
subjects one of course that's not the case at all I mean Joyce's Ulysses is a perfect
[14:49 - 14:53]
example of that what could be a more prosaic and down to a
[14:53 - 14:58]
popular subject than the wanderings of Mr. Leopold Bloom and Dublin
[14:58 - 15:03]
and Joyce was fascinated by the culture of the masses as I am for that matter. It's one of
[15:03 - 15:08]
the thing that began to be interested in movies but that's a question of the subject matter that's not a question of the ready
[15:08 - 15:13]
to treat it. And then have somebody says a curious combination of high culture and mascot
[15:13 - 15:18]
represented by such popular figures as Bob Dylan and The Beatles.
[15:18 - 15:23]
Dylan with his best party represents the combination of high culture literary endeavor and mascot Rock n
[15:23 - 15:28]
Roll Hall of Beatles produce across this very very good film called Days
[15:28 - 15:33]
Night. I agree with this but the confusion is that you can be proper
[15:33 - 15:38]
in the subject matter but you can do it in a more experimental right. In other words a new society should
[15:38 - 15:43]
be adding that if people found out that believe the common man is able to criticize or
[15:43 - 15:48]
analyze the design of the good and the bad from South but is potentially able to accept
[15:48 - 15:52]
and adjust the dictation of the cultural intelligentsia by the same thing the slippage of
[15:52 - 15:57]
power and control in the hands of this intelligentsia is what concerns me. Donald. McDonald quotes
[15:57 - 16:02]
Ray's web eccentric definition of a pirate which is a pirate is a man speaking to other
[16:02 - 16:07]
men. Can't say anything. Egocentric rather what's egocentric about
[16:07 - 16:12]
that but neglects to mention the pipers and method which the author outlined in the same article preface to
[16:12 - 16:17]
Lyrical Ballads and here we got the same confusion as his palms concern incidents and
[16:17 - 16:21]
situations in common life humble and rustic life and utilizes language used by
[16:21 - 16:26]
men. That's true across his great innovation and his day ways with was of course a
[16:26 - 16:32]
avant garde experimentalist and poetic diction because he too either brought a whole lot of official
[16:32 - 16:37]
18th century poetic diction that Pope and his successors
[16:37 - 16:42]
had inflicted on the English language and not just had a pipeline extremely good but this kind of
[16:42 - 16:47]
thing I've gotten somewhat. Alexander and Wordsworth did bring the palm
[16:47 - 16:52]
down to the language of everyday life and it was a great thing but it was seemed to me that in
[16:52 - 16:56]
doing this he was exercising a high degree of sophisticated
[16:56 - 17:02]
self-consciousness that and criticism. That he was not just sentimentally
[17:02 - 17:07]
interested in the every day life but he was actually breaking out new pants.
[17:07 - 17:11]
Here's a critic this is out of general miscellaneous things I'm almost finished. Here's a critic that
[17:11 - 17:17]
has a couple of minor flaws in it as well I always said of the rather But then I've been to
[17:17 - 17:22]
some point but the second one is the correct spelling of them of the product you mention on pages trying to
[17:22 - 17:27]
write as Jallow dash rather than all run right job.
[17:27 - 17:32]
Well I guess that's what I'm going to change that. Never had this. This writer
[17:32 - 17:37]
did the usual thing why can't anybody spell Edgar Allen Poe's middle name.
[17:37 - 17:41]
I'm writing the book on powers modified right now in time by Concha this you
[17:41 - 17:46]
know it's spelled the wrong way more than it's about the right way I mean it obviously should be spelled Alan should be better
[17:46 - 17:51]
than any but this because after criticizing me for not spelling jello
[17:51 - 17:56]
he spelled Alan with an ease. This is not right.
[17:56 - 18:01]
When I was a very common mistake I remember Adam Wilson when I was then pausing you
[18:01 - 18:05]
years ago we published and I say buy on tight on Paul and we
[18:05 - 18:11]
consistently spelled it with an easy shot. You know on the running heads and
[18:11 - 18:16]
Wilson wrote a note to is sad. Any adult those who don't
[18:16 - 18:20]
know how to spell a name of economic policy and be running a literary magazine this
[18:20 - 18:25]
is in a general historical point you stated that ROM of the part of time Rabbit produced no
[18:25 - 18:30]
mascot. Yet I can see the power structure and the ROM of the second century in the
[18:30 - 18:35]
civilization of today. Rom of the second century was governed by the needs enticed of an
[18:35 - 18:40]
urban part of it. It also had an educated bureaucracy that manipulated a welfare state
[18:40 - 18:45]
educated cultivated group of families and out of religious tolerance and free and attainments.
[18:45 - 18:50]
Here then was the ideal condition of the mass media and this is true as a matter of fact the UN
[18:50 - 18:55]
differentiated broader urban products hungering for excitement and a time Coliseum
[18:55 - 19:00]
was filled with seasons and a time for mourning tonight this was the part of the mass media created to
[19:00 - 19:05]
gratify that mass culture in a broad pageant of an urban mob. The similarities between
[19:05 - 19:09]
that mascot and out of Oz are innumerable. I think is based on a fear the people in power losing
[19:09 - 19:14]
popularity suburbanite of judgment to drag down moment is dragged on us
[19:14 - 19:19]
also. The difference I think between ourselves as far as the masses is
[19:19 - 19:24]
inside and why I said that I didn't have a mass and I sense it is simply this
[19:24 - 19:29]
that the Roman proletariat was a subject class it was not
[19:29 - 19:33]
that good in the eyes as having any right or ability to intervene in the
[19:33 - 19:38]
processes of government they were a subject class whereas the masses since the French
[19:38 - 19:43]
Revolution the American Revolution and the great innovation of popular
[19:43 - 19:48]
education the masses now consider that the basis of the
[19:48 - 19:52]
political power of the state and of course we know that this is not true in a way of course you
[19:52 - 19:57]
can't have a state run by a hundred and eighty million people but still
[19:57 - 20:02]
Johnson and presidents and so on do recognize that their validity comes from the masses
[20:02 - 20:07]
rather than a case of Rome. This was cited not the case in fact the Emperor was the
[20:07 - 20:12]
one that ran things and he simply threw these crumbs to the proletariat so therefore the
[20:12 - 20:16]
proletariat had no influence at all on Roman literature and on.
[20:16 - 20:22]
Well as the masses today I do have an influence now going back a little bit father. The
[20:22 - 20:27]
reason that we do have masses in the last 200 years and I couldn't have masses then is quite
[20:27 - 20:32]
simply that we have. Beginning with the industrial revolution I'm sounding 50 to 100.
[20:32 - 20:37]
We have the means for support in vastly greater numbers of people.
[20:37 - 20:42]
And this combined with the French and American revolutions in the late 19th century
[20:42 - 20:47]
which for the first time put forward the idea that everybody in a society
[20:47 - 20:52]
not just the ruling people but everybody has a right to the same things. This has
[20:52 - 20:57]
resulted in the present situation. If somebody here objects is a
[20:57 - 21:02]
number of papers did to the footnotes they said in this relatively short essay of standing on page
[21:02 - 21:07]
18 footnotes averaging 16 lines each one is quite long and
[21:07 - 21:12]
Bob isn't quite the middle it probably got to drop down to Ralph. This is just a thing of
[21:12 - 21:16]
mine I could never understand why footnotes are considered by every editor of a
[21:16 - 21:22]
popular magazine The New Yorker won't let me use them Esquire won't let me use them. They considered
[21:22 - 21:27]
them somehow pedantic and upsetting to the read it. I think on the contrary I
[21:27 - 21:32]
think footnotes are actually a marvelous thing very exciting. In fact when I read a
[21:32 - 21:36]
scholarly book I always with the footnotes first and you generally find that much of the most interesting
[21:36 - 21:41]
things occurred in the footnotes because in a footnote you're completely free of this hyar.
[21:41 - 21:46]
Plot that you have to you don't have to do this structure in writing an essay
[21:46 - 21:50]
and you get away from the plot and you can then decide what you think and without any
[21:50 - 21:55]
bother about how it fits in except in a rough way it seems to me the footnote should be
[21:55 - 22:00]
considered in writing should be considered as kind of
[22:00 - 22:05]
the way that a certain the particular town of bright yellow or something might be in a
[22:05 - 22:09]
painting that you need something to take you out of the mainstream of the thing
[22:09 - 22:15]
and you shouldn't take them too seriously either and in this present said that I'm so proud of that he or she
[22:15 - 22:20]
thought that my logic was practical and compassion and she couldn't give up to look at
[22:20 - 22:25]
a footnote but anyway that's my defense about footnotes I thought about this quite a lot.
[22:25 - 22:30]
Well Roger caliber very cut and it comes from sloppily to find times
[22:30 - 22:35]
the essay progressive two contradictory statements and irrelevant examples. Oh
[22:35 - 22:40]
yes but then now this is pretty bad and then I mean imagine writing is that when I got to
[22:40 - 22:45]
teach it well all get well and she took me seriously all too often
[22:45 - 22:50]
though this even this person says the footnotes I'm more enlightened than a text. Well the
[22:50 - 22:55]
defense rests. Yes so she got the point anyway.
[22:55 - 23:00]
In a sudden and backhanded right why do you imagine that the great literature others come to us for the
[23:00 - 23:05]
past consists of a few great works out of an abundance of mediocrity another student writes You
[23:05 - 23:10]
assume that has not been the case in music and quotes the distinction between them had no point.
[23:10 - 23:14]
Instruments played real music then for there was no other. But now we have pianos playing rock and
[23:14 - 23:19]
row and quote This is interesting as a historical aside you have with this
[23:19 - 23:24]
statement set up that there the rock involved is trash music as a new thing this is erroneous I will limit myself
[23:24 - 23:29]
to the period to which you refer to gothic twelve hundred fourteen fifty I don't know I was referring
[23:29 - 23:34]
to that period. But anyway I of course much of the time that it wasn't written down. There
[23:34 - 23:39]
are a few written pieces such as children's songs ballads and so on have been preserved. However the point
[23:39 - 23:44]
these pieces may sound was that repetitive and dire for the most part and sadly are not
[23:44 - 23:48]
musically anywhere near the level of the liturgical music. Yet these are the popular pieces of the
[23:48 - 23:53]
time. Now it seems to me I mean it's a very interesting
[23:53 - 23:58]
point but it seem to me that I took care of that when I pointed out that go to any great museum and you'll
[23:58 - 24:03]
find most of the pictures are rather mediocre. I mean they're not very good. I agree here that I mean I'm
[24:03 - 24:08]
sure this is the case here. The difference though is that in this mass culture been his
[24:08 - 24:13]
own last 200 years that you have things which are not just figures because they're
[24:13 - 24:17]
being now or because they're just an uninspired way repeating what other
[24:17 - 24:22]
artists and composers have done but their faith is right because they really are not on at
[24:22 - 24:27]
all because that is really trying to do something else. It's not a question of an uninspired
[24:27 - 24:32]
artist it's a question of somebody who maybe often much brighter and more competent
[24:32 - 24:37]
than many bad authors trying to sell stuff to a mass market I won't go
[24:37 - 24:42]
into it but I did make that at some length I think. On page 11 you
[24:42 - 24:47]
state you believe in the potentiality of ordinary people around a main point seems to be that these people are
[24:47 - 24:51]
happy to run the muck at them. Well now this was brought up to by a number
[24:51 - 24:56]
of people and I'd like to say this about that because they also said Wow do you
[24:56 - 25:01]
think that the common people man has potentialities and yet you say that he will never
[25:01 - 25:06]
not more than 10 to 20 percent of the masses of the great majority the population will
[25:06 - 25:11]
ever be interested in serious or not so let's disregard them. Well now trying to
[25:11 - 25:16]
make it clear that when I talk about the masses that this is a very
[25:16 - 25:21]
abstract and theoretical construction and that no individual can ever be called
[25:21 - 25:26]
completely a mass man because to be completely a mass man would
[25:26 - 25:30]
be that you would have no ties whatsoever except to some general abstract
[25:30 - 25:35]
political party some television program some series of magazines
[25:35 - 25:39]
newspapers and otherwise to the lowest common denominator the
[25:39 - 25:45]
manipulators of the mass whether cultural or political aiming for.
[25:45 - 25:49]
So in other words everybody has in him saying some thing the
[25:49 - 25:54]
masked man and that certainly includes me because I do go to. Terrible
[25:54 - 25:59]
movies and I even sneakingly enjoyed the sound of music somewhat. I
[25:59 - 26:04]
mean I didn't rush out of the theater as I sometimes do. So I mean I have to say and then
[26:04 - 26:08]
we all have but none of us is completely defined in this way. That's the point this is a very
[26:08 - 26:13]
abstract thing it's not to be applied to anything visual and therefore by the same
[26:13 - 26:17]
reasoning I would say that any individual whether
[26:17 - 26:22]
educated or not educated has sight and potentialities and the homage thing
[26:22 - 26:27]
about mass culture and metal about culture its close relation is that they don't
[26:27 - 26:32]
exploit these potentialities they don't appeal to them they appeal to this lowest common denominator.
[26:32 - 26:37]
Well I think that's all that I have to tell you I just want to enclose in a sort of
[26:37 - 26:42]
positive note. One student writes A big call doesn't facti culture which is
[26:42 - 26:47]
sad but a theory that plays into the hands of the Smaug will not remedy that. If we take
[26:47 - 26:52]
Saudi on as genial outlook the whole thing is not as sad as Macdonald makes it seem
[26:52 - 26:56]
and the record quote from Saudi on ahead without great man and without clear
[26:56 - 27:01]
convictions this age is nevertheless very active intellectually. It is
[27:01 - 27:05]
studious empirical inventive sympathetic its wisdom consists in a
[27:05 - 27:10]
stagnant country openness of mind. It flounders but at least
[27:10 - 27:15]
in floundering it has gained a sense of possible depths in all directions. Under
[27:15 - 27:20]
these circumstances some triviality and great confusion and its positive achievements are
[27:20 - 27:25]
not on promising things nor even an amiable. Yes and
[27:25 - 27:30]
I think that's a very good thing and I probably should have made it clear in the essay but the fact
[27:30 - 27:34]
is that I did it myself constantly interested and
[27:34 - 27:39]
simulated by products of mass concept. Not that I give up my
[27:39 - 27:44]
credit that it's possible you and I write this down I think it's possible to about criticize and also be
[27:44 - 27:49]
interested in something and I think we do have a bad day and I do hope we will continue to have
[27:49 - 27:50]
both mass culture.
[27:50 - 27:55]
I got it. You have been listening to wright
[27:55 - 28:00]
MacDonald on film in this program you heard the
[28:00 - 28:05]
conclusion of a discussion begun last week on Mr MacDonald's essay bass
[28:05 - 28:09]
called an MIT cult. These programs were drawn from Mr.
[28:09 - 28:14]
MacDonald's lecture series during his recent tenure as distinguished visiting professor
[28:14 - 28:19]
of film history and criticism at the University of Texas. This series
[28:19 - 28:24]
was produced by a communications center the University of Texas for national
[28:24 - 28:28]
educational radio producer for the series Bill Dr. Phil Miller
[28:28 - 28:35]
speaking.
[28:35 - 28:40]
Earlier. This is an E.R. the
[28:40 - 28:42]
national educational radio network.
🔍