LETTERS
Lionel Abel ["What Is Literature?" DISSENT 1965] identifies some of the weaknesses in Sartre's What is Literature?, but I think many of his own arguments are false, trite, and illogical....
...1. Date of Filing: October 1, 1965...
...Finally, I was struck by how the editors of DISSENT labelled this article on the cover...
...But to the extent that literature can be purposive—and I think this is greater than Mr...
...But I now feel that we have no hope at all for change and progress until we give up Communism as a central issue...
...The right to be at one with his ideal is merely one form of bourgeois individualism, and, except in a legal sense, the writer is not and should not be independent...
...My own position was for many years strongly and actively anti-Communist, and then I would have thought the article debatable indeed...
...Single issue nearest to filing date-200...
...Single issue nearest to filing date4,800...
...8. Known bondholders, mortgagees, and other security holders owning or holding 1 percent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages or other securities: None...
...ment for reinforcing and inhabiting certain values in his audience, especially when, as in our age, values are being so desperately sought...
...Average number copies each issue during preceding 12 months4,350...
...Secondly, to accuse Sartre of wanting to expunge this mysterious element is absurd...
...I disagree on just one point...
...In our time it is a rare and prescious thing...
...Abel or Joyce—is a good illustration of the dependence of the artist-intellectual on the aesthetic and moral commonplaces of his society...
...If not owned by a corporation, the names and addresses of the individual owners must be given...
...4. Location of Known Office of Publication: 509 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y...
...Editor: Irving Howe, 509 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y...
...10...
...I am not at all sanguine these days about what the Old World can offer, be it capitalist or communist...
...Given the artist's potential power and the crucial urgency of moral (including political) issues, I think Sartre, however questionable his particular arguments, is right to insist that the artist engage himself...
...And I am impressed by the fresh way they look at the Third World and the meaning of "modernization"quito unlike the usual western parochial...
...Single issue nearest to filing date-1,500...
...I have come to value greatly the democratic socialist outlook of DISSENT...
...If owned by a partnership or other unincorporated firm, its name and address, as well as that of each individual must be given): Walter GoldWater, 509 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y...
...E. Total distribution (sum of C and D...
...No one could do that...
...Average number copies each issue during preceding 12 months-2,750...
...Our country and the rest of the world will be no less safe when we do...
...Yet on the Cold War and anti-Communism many of us badly need some revisionism...
...Quoting approvingly Joyce's writer-hero Rowan, who says "I don't take my ideas from other people," Mr...
...ism...
...We badly need a critical school that accepts and defends the socio-political consequences of literature...
...Average number of copies of each issue during preceding 12 months-6,250...
...Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months-1,600...
...C. Total paid circulation...
...2. Title of Publication: Dissent...
...6. Names and Addresses of Publisher, Editor, and Managing Editor: Publisher: Walter Goldwater, 509 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y...
...DISSENT 1965] identifies some of the weaknesses in Sartre's What is Literature?, but I think many of his own arguments are false, trite, and illogical...
...Here the Schrecker-Walzer article stands out as a big step in the right direction...
...Section 4369, Title 39, United States Code...
...This independence makes literature "an entirely different vocation" from politics...
...Apparently, what he means by this is that the writer must be free to do as he wishes...
...He doesn't define this "mystery" or "earthness" satisfactorily, beyond listing several "greats" in whom he finds it...
...I completely agree with the authors' condemnation of the Cold War and its ever-growing myopia, obsessiveness, and futility...
...I should like to make three comments on "American Intervention and the Cold War," by John Schrecker and Michael Walzer (DISSENT, Autumn 1965...
...Managing Editor: None...
...I share their theme that "it is time to bring our policemen home...
...First, I find it wholly admirable...
...Of course it is understood that the individual writer is still "free" to resist the suggestions of Sartre or a critical pressure group—and to write as he pleases...
...On the contrary, art, Iike politics, is based on human values...
...5. Location of the Headquarters or General Business Offices of the Publishers: 509 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y...
...Sartre certainly ill doesn't envision a culture commissar who would censor "unhealthy" or decadent books...
...7. Owner (If owned by a corporation, its name and address must be stated and also immediately thereunder the names and addresses of stockholders owning or holding 1 percent or more of total amount of stock...
...Abel implies— the question of proper and improper purposes is fair game...
...The talented artist has command of a powerful instru...
...Single issue nearest to filing date6,500, I certify that the statements made by me above are correct and complete...
...G. Total (sum of E and F—should equal net press run shown in A) Average number copies each issue during preceding 12 months6,250...
...Today modernization looms no less large than modernity, and the Third World is no less important than the Old World...
...The case Schrecker and Walzer make for a new U.S...
...policy can and should be applied to the Old World, too...
...STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT AND CIRCULATION (Act of October 23, 1962...
...10017...
...3. Frequency of Issue: Quarterly...
...Names and addresses of individuals who are stockholders of a corporation which itself is a stockholder or holder of bonds, mortgages or other securities of the publishing corporation have been included in paragraphs 7 and 8 when the interests of such individuals are equivalent to 1 percent or more of the total amount of the stock or securities of the publishing corporation...
...10017...
...Mr...
...Single issue nearest to filing date-1,900...
...A. Total number of copies printed (net press run...
...Single issue nearest to filing date-5,000...
...10017...
...But, in fact, this fierce individualism of and for the artist—not an original idea, of course, with Mr...
...Single issue nearest to filing date-2,900...
...10017...
...They called it "controversial...
...How would anyone set out to remove something that is by definition ineffable and elusive...
...Stanley Plastrik, Business Manager...
...9. Paragraphs 7 and 8 include, in cases where the stockholder or security holder appears upon the books of the company as trustee or in any other fiduciary relation, the name of the person or corporation for whom such trustee is acting, also the statements in the two paragraphs show the affiant's full knowledge and belief as to the circumstances and conditions under which stockholders and security holders who do not appear upon the books of the company as trustees, hold stock and securities in a capacity other than that of a bona fide owner...
...2. Mail subscriptions...
...His aim is not "to eliminate from literature any element of or reference to the earth," whatever that means, or to make literature "entirely rational and purposive...
...D. Free distribution (including samples) by mail, carrier or other means-250...
...Single issue nearest to filing date-6,500...
...However, they are not more important, either...
...10017...
...B. Paid circulation: 1. Sales through dealers and carriers, Street vendors and counter sales...
...First of all, I see no reason to believe that the power of Poe or of Shakespeare or Flaubert is somehow basically due to the same indefinable element (setting aside the important question, whether an artist is good because he is powerful...
...Average number copies each issue during preceding 12 months-4,600...
...F. Office use, leftover, unaccounted, spoiled after printing...
...Anyone who follows the development of Western literary culture for the past two hundred years can see the role that idees revues and the social framework have played...
...Average number copies each issue during preceding 12 months-1,650...
...Abel's arguments boil down to a defense of "mystery" in literature...
...DISSENT cannot begin to do that as long as it views articles like this as more "controversial" than any other...
...Yet much of our future lies there, not only materially or diplomatically but also intellectually and morally...
...Abel defends the writer's need and right to "be at one with his ideal...
Vol. 13 • January 1966 • No. 1
