To The Reactionary Ear Every Whispered Criticism

The American Farmer, Whose Holdings Were Not So Extensive As Those Of The Grandee Nor So Tiny As Those Of The Peasant, Whose Psychology Was Protestant And Bourgeois, And Whose Politics Were Petty-capitalist Rather Than Traditionalist, Had No Reason To Share The Social Outlook Of The Rural Classes Of Europe. In Europe Land Was Limited And Dear, While Labor Was Abundant And Relatively Cheap; In America The Ratio Between Land And Labor Was Inverted.

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., In A Mordant Protest Written Soon After The [1952] Election, Found The Intellectual "in A Situation He Has Not Known For A Generation." After Twenty Years Of Democratic Rule, During Which The Intellectual Had Been In The Main Understood And Respected, Business Had Come Back Into Power, Bringing With It "the Vulgarization Which Has Been The Almost Invariable Consequence Of Business Supremacy.

The Tradition Of The New. Yesterday's Avant-gard-experiment Is Today's Chic And Tomorrow's Cliche.

We Have Learned So Well How To Absorb Novelty That Receptivity Itself Has Turned Into A Kind Of Tradition- "the Tradition Of The New." Yesterdays Avant-garde Experiment Is Today's Chic And Tomorrows Cliche.

The Intellectual's ... Playfulness, In Its Various Manifestations, Is Likely To Seem To Most Men A Perverse Luxury; In The United States The Play Of The Mind Is Perhaps The Only Form Of Play That Is Not Looked Upon With The Most Tender Indulgence. His Piety Is Likely To Seem Nettlesome, If Not Actually Dangerous. And Neither Quality Is Considered To Contribute Very Much To The Practical Business Of Life.