The Writer As Totalitarian Snob
Hexbodhi
Reviewer: R. W. Rasband
John Carey's "The Intellectuals and the Masses" is an eye-opening
account of the fear and loathing many English writers had for ordinary
people during the early days of Modernism. The intellectuals of the
time hated and feared the growing power of the newly expanding middle
class. Many famous and prominent writers came to dislike democracy and
capitalism, because they thought they were losing influence. Carey
theorizes that Modernism was invented in order to shut out the common
reader of the day; to prove the elite's superiority and to put the
upstarts in their places. Wyndham Lewis, a man with an amoral personal
life, worshipped Hitler. D.H. Lawrence noted the efficiency of poison
gas and imagined a large execution chamber where all the stupid people
could be killed. Virginia Woolf sneered at the banality of the
conversations she overheard from the women in the lavatory. The
Bloomsbury set was especially guilty of the worst class-consciousness.
Some writers did battle with their impulses and the intellectual
fashions of those years. George Orwell wrote with a minimum on
condescension about "the proles" in his early novels and "1984." H.G.
Wells seemed to advocate mass extermination of his inferiors in his
non-fiction, but in his fiction his imaginative sympathies were usually
with the failures and "losers" of the world. James Joyce's masterpiece
was "Ulysses", a tribute of sorts to the common man (although written
in a Modernist style that made it impossible for the common man to read
it.) But on the whole the snobbery of most of the intellectuals of the
day was unforgivable.
This book is an excellent companion to Modris Eksteins' "Rites of
Spring" his cultural history of World War I. Both books argue that
Modernism was in part responsible for the horrors of the 20th century,
with its ruthless elitism and emotional coldness. Shaw, Pound and
Forster dreamed of ridding the world of "superfluous" people; did this
make it possible for Hitler and Stalin to actually attempt it? The
necessary ideas were in the air. And they still are. Carey notes that,
as the masses began to catch up in sophistication, post-modernism and
literary theory was invented to create a new elite artistic language
for its aristocratic initiates to revel in. The Modernist loathing for
the mass media of newspapers was replaced by hatred of television and
America, the middle-class nation par excellence. (And I would add, they
really hate the Internet.) If you want to know why so many celebrities
seem so sour and cynical about everything but themselves, read this
book.
http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2006/02/intellectuals-and-masses.html
purple
Carey's new book has made him an outcast. He used to get it half-wrong
before, now he's completely wrong. His take on Lewis has been found
seriously wanting in the definitive study, Paul Edwards's
WYNDHAM LEWIS:Painter and Writer (Yale U. Press, 2000).
Lewis hated Modernism, too.
Get back to your homework (APES OF GOD), Hex, and stop cheating.
"The trouble with a cheap specialized education, is you never stop
paying for it." - MM
The GREAT Bob Dobbs
Hexbodhi
I have actually read Wyndham Lewis words.
Apes of God is a cliched book and furthermore it isn't even a useful
cliche.
It doesn't matter if Lewis hated Modernism, too.I don't even care if he
claimed he was anti-romantic.
THIS VORTICISM DOGMA IS COMPLACENCY AND INERTIA.
MACHINES ARE MORE THAN JUST A FUCKING ICON.
WAR DOES NOT CLEANSE ANYTHING.
REBELLION IS REVOLUTIONARY NOT WAR!
WAR DOESN'T DO SHIT BUT GET PEOPLE KILLED.
NOW IF SOMEONE HAD THE BALLS TO SHOOT BUSH THAT WOULD MEAN SOMETHING.
BUT SINCE THIS IS A NATION OF COWARDS NO ONE IS GOING TO DO IT.
There is a certain grace to AUTOMATION that you will always fail to
grasp.
Lewis's classical detachment does not even begin to itch the rash that
is present day existence.
Lewis is a fucking idiot plain and simple, ok my even my anti-semitic
gypsy hating 100% Catolica Spaniard grandmother knew Hitler was fucked
up when she was 19 years old in 1931.
Him like you are Totalitarian Snobs.
Specialist?
Is that the best you can throw at me as a polemic?
You are a political romaniticist Bob, I am finished with you.
You are a fucking idiot, go back to your stupid New York life.
purple
I love you, Hex.
The GREAT Bob Dobbs