Achieve Masscult And Midcult: Essays Against The American Grain Documented By Dwight Macdonald File Brochure
essay "The Triumph of the Fact" was right up my alley, Macdonald would be horrified to see how much more data dependent American culture is today, I got the sense that the first time you met Macdonald at a dinner party, you'd find him engaging and interesting, and think he was someone you'd enjoy arguing with from time to time, but that the second time you met him at a dinner party, you'd realize he was actually intolerable.
Hail, Dwight Macdonald ! His masscultmidcult essays:
sublime, GR spews midcult Dw detested midcult, .
A friend asked about peops : "Does X have an interesting
mind" Aaah, that is the question, . . Mac oft flashed
a quote fr Michael Bakunin "I shall continue to be
an impossible person so long as those who are now
possible remain possible.
" Hail, Big Mac ! Macdonald was several things, among them:
Chronicler of the rise of mass culture, with its attendant
effects: "The more literature became a branch of industry, the more the craving for the other extremeindividuality.
Or rather, a somewhat coarser commodity, Personality, "
Literary critic a la Nabokov, calling out maudlin sentiment, poshlust, and lack of careful attention:
"It is written in that fakeBiblical prose Pearl Buck used in The Good Earth, a style which seems to have a malign fascination for the midbrowsMiss Buck also got a Nobel Prize out of it.
There are only two characters, who are not individualized because that would take away from the Universal Significance, "Ha! See also Marianne Robinson, Dostoyevsky, etc,
Theorist of midcult, which "has the essential qualities of Masscultthe formula, the builtin reaction, the lack of any standard except popularitybut it decently covers them with a cultural figleaf.
"When Midcult tries to play social critic it fails: "A soft impeachmentbut Midcult specializes in soft impeachments, Its cakes are forever eaten, forever intact, "
Unknowing predictor of future Internet users' behavior: "If the kind of curiousity that Time exploits is not functional, neither is it exactly 'idle' which implies a kind of leisurely enjoyment.
It is, rather, a nervous habit, As smoking gives us something to do with our hands when we aren't using them, Time gives us something to do with our minds when we aren't thinking.
"
And there are too many other bons mots to record, e, g. the suggested opening verses of Genesis p,. Rereading found this while cleaning up my books, A cultural artifact of the midth century which is interesting as evidence and in parts for its criticism, especially the essays on Agee and the “Fact”.
How do you defend high culture without being an elitist/reactionary MacDonald tried but I dont think he succeeded because his temperament was that of a polemicist: he always went in two footed and left no room for the nuance he demanded in others but not from himself.
We dont seem able not to see things as binary: either/or, yes/no, These days, fifty years on and in the midst of the know nothingness of the Twitter era, Mid Cult Life magazine, Book of the Month Club well meaning attempts to categorize Great Books, etc looks pretty good.
Also, and proving my point, DMs criticism of Hemingway isnt completely wrong but its frothing: you really shouldnt reduce crippling depression and suicide to a lack of “interests” not least when the subjects father shot himself.
Do better. Too cantankerous for the highbrows, too smart for the middlebrows, too blasphemous for the orthodox, too faithful for the relativists, too left for the bougies, not left enough for the communardposeurs Dwight Macdonald had that rare critical nose that can search nominally opposed party platforms and identify the same strains of bullshit.
All praise to the NYRB Press for putting Masscult and Midcult: Essays Against the American Grain back into print,
These are beautiful essays, His toneprecise, erudite, mercilessdoesn't really sell much these days, but there are sixtyyearold rhetorical suplexes on The Atlantic or the cult of Hemingway that, disconcertingly, still apply today.
Macdonald's treatment of some megaseller novelist named Cozzens and his awful, awful sentences of Middle Americana fetishism is so vicious, the victim and his reputation seem to have disappeared from the historical record out of sheer embarrassment.
And yet, most of these accusations can be hurled at several major American novelists pulling the same con they're so sincere! on the reading public todayno need to name names.
Still, some essays are readable more for their timecapsule quality than for addressing any pressing issues today: Macdonald's attack on the Harvard Great Books series quaintly recalls a time when Americans read enough books that it was OK to criticize some of those books instead of celebrating the fact that they read at all.
The zany antics of the New Journalists, the pinnacle of creative nonfiction when Macdonald felt compelled to point out that these journalists were literally making shit up, are more of a joke than an example in creative nonfiction today.
And what about Masscult and Midcult, those bogeyman invoked in the titular essay Many of the specifics have changed dramaticallythis stuff tends to have a brief shelf life, thank Godbut Midcult high art modes repackaged for dunces continues to make a strong showing every year in the Oscars, the Pulitzers, The Atlantic, and god knows how many dreadful novels about sad middleclass American families that are always topping the NYT bestseller list.
Masscult, though oh brother, Masscult, Masscult won. Popular art for mass consumption is the new religion, and it's hard to see poor Macdonald even having the energy to finish writing if we could jump back toand warn him about Buzzfeed also Vietnam and Ronald Reagan, but mostly Buzzfeed.
We certainly don't have to share his sneering contempt for pop culturewho doesn't like Star Warsbut for his prescience alone, that makes it essential reading for American cultural history.
By the final essay in this collection, Dwight Macdonald plainly admits what is by this point already clear to the reader: as a critic, his specialty and delight is the takedown.
Strangely, because his prose carries the clear mark of a prewar Ivy League education, this joy in excoriating the terrible makes his voice not outofplace in the internet age, when one critical gripe will only link you to several more.
In fact, by that final essay, a ribbing of Norman Cousins' forgotten midcentury magazines The Saturday and World, he meets a bit of opposition in a letter to the editor that, to paraphrase in the language of the present, went something like, "Don't be a hater.
If you don't like the magazine, just don't read it, " And therein is where Macdonald's genius resides, as a hater par excellence, Macdonald shows the value of thoughtful negative criticism, More generally, his work makes a case for the value of simply recognizing bad art for what it is, rather than attempting to sugarcoat or ignore it entirely.
In developing the idea of midcult, or the middle brow, Macdonald provided a helpful tool with which to burst the bubble of those who attempt to disguise their bad art amp low culture in the signs and symbols commonly associated with the venerable and valuable.
For those who like their politics radical, sort of, and their culture securely highbrow, these essays should make you feel right at home, Whether it's popularizing fun and condescending terms like masscult or middlebrow, or just annoying Trotsky in general, Dwight MacDonald is an urbane, perceptive critic of American culture at a time when it desperately needed him.
His essay on Hemingway is deliciously funny, but probably unfair, His essay on Tom Wolfe is less funny, but likely right on the marksorry, Tom, His essay on Webster'snd amprd editions points to the English language issues we have today, . . Can English be scientifically regulated strictly on the basis of usage without injuring culture Can culture survive if science refuses incorrection its domain Who the hell of any culture would use the term 'incorrection' in the first place What is proper English Is there such a concept Should there be Can it include 'twerking' and retain any dignity at all The first essay 'Masscult amp Midcult' is his most famous and enduring contribution, although this is a strong collection overall.
I loved this book. Despite having an admittedly antidemocratic view of culture, I couldn't help but agree with Macdonald in pretty much all of his opinions except of course, his very negative views on Rock'n'Roll.
I know his work may be a bit out of dateand Louis Menand points out this in his introduction very wellbut the concept of Midcult struck me as very pertinent today.
Reading the takedown of James Gould Cozzens I couldn't help but think of Jonathan Franzen, will anyone remember him inyears That said, I do see how his refusal to accept mass marketed art is a problem in the days of 'fandom', and I very often considered myself a fan, and I do love genre writing.
But still, Macdonald is a very fluid writer, and is very very funny, We live in a very uncritical age, I think, and it is always good to hear a wellwritten critic oppose the common forces that have built up so much force by mass fawning.
I heavily recommend this book to anyone interested in literature, art, and culture, And you won't be disappointed, it is a very funny book with moments that made me laugh out loud, And the introduction with all of the background details of the political/critical history of the US in thes thrus was very useful and interesting.
I want more. Very nice, and still pertinent, essays by Dwight macdonald about books, book reviewing, and culture, high, low, and midcult, He saw the popularization of “culture” art, books, thought by, lets say it, capitalism, as vulgar and just all wrong, It took some explaining by him to make his point and ultimately his essay “masscult and midcult” did not and does not work very well because you just cannot generalize that much and still be valid.
People change, tastes change, dumb people become smarter, tastemakers become more vulgar, See, generalizations. See also niki minaj sitelink entertainmentwise. com/news . Macdonald was a thoughtful and passionate thinker and his other essays on james gould cossen he wrote “by loved possessed” and it was a wild bestseller,,copies in firstweeks, but macdonald pointed out what a true pieceofshit that novel really is, where is macdonald now!!, we need him to take on james patterson and gulp, jd robb et al.
norman cousins and tom wolfle are really wonderful, He also did some muckraking on the Bookofthemillennium club and what a bunch of bogus shysterism that was alas, there are still plenty of that kind of thing going on today, but as much as I hate amazon, really people are reading more and better today than ever before, WITHOUT the help of Harold bloom.
There is a beautiful review too ofpublication of the “revised standard version of the bible” vs the king james version and it is a passionate and smart analysis of the bible as lit, with the rsvb a poornd to the kjv.
Anyway, yeah! for nyrb for collecting and having Louis Menard doing the introduction to this importantth century usa thinker, Ps: the essay “the Triumph of the Fact” is a beautiful reason why we need info/internet literacy more now than ever I am writing this review only to clarify that this collection is based on Dwight Macdonald's original, titled Against the American Grain: Essays on the Effects of Mass Culture which Goodreads, strangely, has no record of, but is not identical.
In a rather baffling move, many of the finest essays in the original collection are left out, while two new ones are added, among them Macdonald's infamous essay on Thomas Wolfe, apparently only to be mocked Louis Menand in his introduction.
The results is a far shorter and less interesting book, that leaves out Macdonald's own preface, the far more interesting John Simon introductory essay that accompanied the first reprint, and many of Macdonald's more interesting essays.
I would advice grabbing a copy of this collection as it originally appeared it won't cost you much anyway, A New York Books Original
An uncompromising contrarian, a passionate polemicist, a man of quick wit and wide learning, an anarchist, a pacifist, and a virtuoso of the slashing phrase, Dwight Macdonald was an indefatigable and indomitable critic of Americas susceptibility to wellmeaning cultural fakery: all those estimable, eminent, prizewinning works of art that are said to be good and good for you and are not.
He dubbed this phenomenon “Midcult” and he attacked it not only on aesthetic but on political grounds, Midcult rendered people complacent and compliant, secure in their common stupidity but neither happy nor free,
This new selection of Macdonalds finest essays, assembled by John Summers, the editor of The Baffler, reintroduces a remarkable American critic and writer.
In the era of smart, sexy, and everything indie, Macdonald remains as pertinent and challenging as ever, I became interested in this book when I saw it reviewed in The New Yorker,
Some nuggets:
“This is a magazinereading country, When one comes back from abroad, the two displays of American abundance that dazzle one are the supermarkets and the newsstands, There are no British equivalents of our Midcult magazines like The Atlantic and the Saturday , or of our mass magazines like Life and The Saturday Evening Post and Look, or of our betwixtampbetween magazines like Esquire and The New Yorker which also encroach on the Little Magazine area.
There are, however, several bigcirculation womens magazines, I suppose because the womens magazine is such an ancient and essential form of journalism that even the English dig it”.
“The nearest approach to a center of consciousness in our magazines is in the Midcult ones like Harpers, The Atlantic, The Reporter and the Saturday , and the trouble with theses is that the editors consistentlyone might almost say on principleunderestimate the intelligence of the readers”.
“Books that are speculative rather than informative, that present their authors own thinking and sensibility without any apparatus of scientific or journalistic research, sell badly in this country.
There is a good market of the latest Inside Russia reportage, but when Knopf published Czeslaw Milosz The Captive Mind, an original and brilliant analysis of the Communist mentality, it sold less than,copies.
We want to know how what who, when, where, everything but why”,
“The objection to middlebrow, or pettybourgeois, culture is that it vitiates serious art and thought by reducing it to a democraticphilistine pabulum, dull and tasteless because it is manufactured for a hypothetical common man who is assumed I think wrongly to be even dumber than the entrepreneurs who condescendingly give the public what it wants.
Compromise is the essence of midcult, and compromise is fatal to excellence in such matters”,
I was fascinated with this mans informed opinions because essentially little has changed since he made these statements when I was but a child or youth.
If anything, such conditions have worsened, What can be more Masscult than People Magazine And has even The New Yorker slipped a bit
,