Reflections on Literature as a Minor Art I am setting down the following melancholy reflections not with any hope of a remedy, but because the matter is important and nobody else seems to be saying it. In many ways literature …
As de Gaulle Comes to Power… For months, it is now clear, there had been a conspiracy to overthrow the French republic. Organized by extreme rightists and semi-fascists in France and Algeria, this conspiracy soon entangled a good many army …
“Fascism returns in Europe; generals in France, bishops in Italy.” So, a few days before May 25, the radical and anti-clerical weekly L’Espresso summarized the mood which characterized the last week of the election campaign. The election results confirmed this …
After a brief period of excitement over fascism and Bonapartism in France, American liberals have returned to their cherished complacency by observing that nothing has really changed in that country. Newspapermen even report the significant fact that restaurants serve the …
Down on the farm, as Stanford University’s campus is sometimes called, an atmosphere of the leisurely past is carefully cultivated. The campus itself, sprawling across acres of precious Peninsula real estate, seems to argue for days gone by when a …
The interesting thing about this recession is that signs of it were visible as far back as two years ago. One indication of economic malaise was an enormous credit expansion accompanied, curiously enough, by a slowing down in the rate …
READERS OF DISSENT will know Edouard Roditi as an occasional contributor on Islamic problems. Others will remember him as an American poet and critic of literature and art. Born in Paris of an American family that has resided there for …
Les Juifs Ne Savent Pas S’Orga’niser En Collectivitd. (The Jews Do Not Know How to Organize Themselves Collectively.) So ran the headline over an interview by Nikita Khrushchev to Le Figaro, a Parisian newspaper, on April 9, 1958. Staring at …
The commercial practices of the entertainment industry certainly constitute one of the most ominous aspects of the present cultural crisis; but really it is not so much the commercialization of artproduction which is so novel and important for contemporary interpretation; …
Not so long ago, upper class essayists were functioning as social analysts of the society they lived in by analyzing their favorite belles lettres—usually written by equally upper class authors. Recently we have conceived the idea that in order to …
Inevitably the world is heading toward another “summit” conference. Working feverishly to redefine positions which they had assumed for propaganda purposes, diplomats prepare formulas to end the cold war which they know the other side will reject. Trying to place …
The recession has been deepening now for 7 months. Industrial production, the most sensitive indicator of the state of the economy, has dropped some 10% during this period—a sharper and swifter decline than took place in the 1949 and 1954 …
You say,” says the Intellectual to his opponent, the Revolutionary, “that at a certain historical moment the specific interest of the working class becomes completely identified with the interests of all of mankind and not only preserves human values but …
Now can life become essential? How can value become reality and meaning be made effective? Around these questions the lifework of George Lukacs is centered. The paradox of his development is that he found the lost “homeland” in Stalinism and …
