CONTRIBUTING TO WORLD CONFUSION
Fries, Horace S.
Art Without Visa NEW DIRECTIONS XI. James Laughlin, Editor. New Directions. 512 pp. 264 pp. $3.50. ^ , ^ . THERE IS a singular apathy among the young writers ki this volume, J[ as though all...
...Why then, can we not learn to fight tlje cold war more efficiently than Moscow and its satellites...
...The point is that Communism was the same In 1939 as It is today, and that in 1939 and all through the war there were plenty of native and emigre professionals who knew more about what to expect from CommunlKts than Dr...
...Despite his justUlablc gloom, Mr...
...At beat it will be more or less neutrali/«d by defense measures--probably in the form of guided missiles...
...His chapter on "Planning" should be required reading far all editorial desks and for the bedakle tables of Congressmen...
...Yet one is more moved by this piece than any of the others which are more successful, for the writer is unashamed of her emotion, awkward and clumsy as it sometimes is...
...Bush—although he is a gifted amateur and has made a quick study— knows now...
...If it keeps and enhances its strength, no great war need come again...
...Guess it is...
...His actions flow into one^iother witiiout relevance or mcanirigf^He learns that his existence is based upon pure narcissism, that in his world...
...His book is that and a good deal more...
...For example, there is one story by John Malthtnv.- entitled Die Irrelevent ln.<itrvctor...
...It is the pa.s.sago from tho unconscious to the con.scious that is both exciting and interesting...
...Military planning of adequate comprehensiveneM," he writes, "is beyond the capacity ef military men alone...
...War, Science, and Political Science MODERN ARMS AND FREE MEN...
...Bu«h directed, would we be in our present position...
...despise the word, flout it, stem, leaves and root...
...White stuff...
...Is it not conceivable that the social scientists, as an estate, have a role in preserving democracy comparable to that of the group of physical scientists and engineers for whom Dr...
...For example the Nazis made innumerable mistakes and lagged far behind us in atomic research...
...wc need one set of cost- accounting books and a comprehensive unity of both planning and operation...
...Would we have had the follies and Ineptitudes of Unconditional Surrender, of Teheran, of Yalta and Potsdam, forced repatriation, and the liitorgenthau Plan...
...AS FAR AS the poetry in this volume is concerned...
...WSkld we not have been able to avoid the Chinese fiasco by obtaining Japan's surrender without the help of the Russians and without dropping the atomic bomb...
...Stiil greater is the danger of sabotage and disruption of policy by highly placed traitors — a danger that Dr...
...the liais who decree laws with no parpofe ottwr titan to make a scpsan of them for lareency, murder for our own murder.' The pto^ fi^Mi sets tta tons Isr 4h« entire Volume, and which inoidinlamr altered tp i(41ow the lines ef Mr...
...If democracy loses its touch, then no great war will be needed to overwhelm it...
...What emerges is an art without Visa, forced to shuttle back and forth across the frontier between creation and criticism...
...A Discission of the Role oj Science in Pre-ierving Democracy...
...Ijy Vannevar Busli...
...Bush speaks...
...But at the point wherein the reader cries for more, it .seems to back away...
...How much of the import of his experiences we are able to comprehend depends primarily upon how steeped we ourselves are in the tradition fi-om which they emerge...
...If Dr...
...Ooring...
...A good part of the Action is concerned with the academic world, where the intellectual waits fearfully till tho moment of discovery, when he will bo pried out of the walls like Gregor Samsa...
...3.50 Reiftewed by JAMtS RORTY DR...
...As a setting for fiction, the Academy uITords safety to the young writer...
...As he sfhows us so clearly, the efficient preparation for a waging of total war entails careful cost accounting and rationing of materials and highly trained manpower...
...Many of these professionals stood around unu.sed, watching the White House and the State Department make mistakes that added needlessly to .the burdens Dr...
...THE ATTEMPTS upon the part of young writers here to .solve the problem of technique recalls John Peale Bishop's observation on surrealism: "The unconscious is exciting but not interesting...
...Here the reader ia given a dteacriptkm et pregnancy and child-l>h:th whkh rivals even the recent spread in Life magazine...
...Subversion is perhaps the greatest danger — greater perhaps than even Dr...
...In a limited sense this story is successful...
...At that point, as Dr...
...For Williams has swept off much of the decay which has clogged the sensibility of oth'-r poets...
...the parts were interchangeable...
...Theoretically it might be possible to build a guided missile that would deliver an atomic charge all the way from a democratic to a totalitarian political or industrial concentration...
...It concern.s an and Economics lecturer whose life suddenly falls away from pefspPctive...
...THERE IS a singular apathy among the young writers ki this volume, J[ as though all of modem life has been already summed up for them 4 jin a rigid system, complete with a series of symbols so fixed and irfilSiobile that art becomes merely ornamental...
...Strangely enough, the |^t of a»ttu'alism still hovers alwut Some oi the writers p«rmit ila attranm, vis Tranels Cotton's sUMry, CtaHstmas Day...
...Ho is still able to perceive and ulTlrni his .solidarity against the onomy, tlio.'JO who...
...Either they wiU learn to cope with the new aituatlen «r they will lose their franchlsa...
...James Rorty Is a well-knewn )eutnalist and poet...
...In this field the Russians are professionals and thus far we have sent against them mostly third string amateurs...
...It is ironic that of all tho poets represented, the one who appears freshest and least mannered is William Carlos Williams...
...Actually, the amount of gadgetry involved would cost too much...
...They arc still happening, and the professionals are still wringing their hands like so many Fermis watching a Science High School sophomore monkeying with fissionable materials...
...They can finally mold the whole earth in their pattern of freedom and create . one world under law...
...We could knock ourselves out by unwise chok-e uf defense measures as easily as get knocked out by an adversary who chose more wisely...
...The hero is a creature of our time, neither victim nor executioner, whose moral guilt is derived from the tortures of the Underground Man and the nihilism of Celine...
...Spender's analysis is not pursued with the lacst uf intentions...
...Bush and his colleagues will cany if they have to do it all over again...
...Bush does not discuss these specific questions in his book, although he does discuss politics at length, and with a good deal of sense and sophistication, especially when he is dealing with the phenomenon of Communist totalitarianism...
...The most elTerthre olTensive weapon at the moment is the snorkel-equipped submarine, but there too the defense will catch up sooner or later...
...With the grace of Foundations Rockefeller and Guggenheim, with the retreat to the Academy well under way, all may yet go well for the avant-guarde...
...Since Dr...
...Bush's views of our military potentials and problems are highly authoritative, his cool and balanced optimism is reassuring—to a degree...
...And the reply, perhaps the greatest understatement in modern art...
...Whfit" Look at your paian%a...
...For is it not possible that society cannot accept what the modern artist is capable of giving...
...ITiey have unwittingly adopted as their modus wiucndt attitudes which by now have developed into contemporary cliches...
...There need be no more great wars," he writes...
...One cannot say that Mr...
...Bacteriological warfare is possible but unlikely, for the same reasons that debarred the use of gas in the last war...
...Atomic bombs could be delivered in the holds of innocent merchant ships, and their explosion mi^t drench our port cities in radioactive mist, making them uninhabitable...
...Item: "Gee, fm Viet doum below...
...Bush had given us merely the data of his exceptional experience and , the conclusions of his first-rate scienthk intelligence, they would still be highly interesting aqd valuable...
...But somehow it does not seem enough tu end by advocating the creation of a "middle-sized" reading public, that group, I suppose, which has not succumbed to Buok-of-the-Month, but which is still shy of Partisan Review...
...At the worst, the atomic bomb will scarcely destroy civiiiation...
...It ia the deeply lalt and often eloquent exfnasion of a humane and civilized individual who Is wall-equipped to represent the faith that is our ultfanate and beat defense against totalitarkm atuck: the faith that Almates, as hs writes, "essentially simple man who formulate no profound philoaophy of life, whose opposition to the ways of the Politburo is merely the reaction of decency to its opposite, whose faith is simple, and expressed simply in faithfulness tn friends and In trust that there is meaning to this that they do not attempt to fathom...
...But did he know that much in 1939...
...If so, would it not be desirable to recognize that role when the National Science Foundation is set up...
...The autltor has created a memorial in pastiche to the Molly Blooms of our time...
...Bush understands, although it ia reassuring to find him understanding so much...
...Simon & Schuster...
...The passage between tho two, if It Is tnado at all in this volume, leaves an incongruous collection behind, strewing tho floors with objects phallic in shape and vaguely sexual in purpose...
...Bush^consider enlarging his team...
...And politics is one of the dimensions of total defense against total war...
...It .save.^ him much of the effort of genuine creation for he IS able to romp about in a literary rose-bush from which thi» avante-gardu has removed all thorn.s...
...On the unification of the armed services Dr...
...Among his books are "His Master's Velee" end tha recently publlshsd "Tomorrow's Food...
...His essay is an attempt to warn us, at tiie eleveath hour, agatnrt the purveyors of popular culture who produce a Taylor-pkm literature fen- the American mass-man...
...He is able to place himself .it a distance, avoiding all involvement that is not intellectualized...
...Bush acknowledges but docs not enlarge upon...
...There is good cheer for the "small discontented groups" in Grecnwhich Village and environs...
...Is it . . . is it...
...I^;>ender nevertheless perceives the outlines of a new world a' coming...
...IF DURING THE WAR we had had an office uf Political Research and Development, operated on a level comparable to the Office of Scientific Research which Dr...
...SHOULD NOT DR...
...I^aughlin's introduction, is Stephen Spender's 6ft-prkited Situation of the AfheHem Writer, It appears fhist f^ender has become the Pontiff ef a wellmodulated ^nDair, clothinc hie Ancpst in neat Oxford tweeds...
...BUSH has given us on the whole the most interesting and impressive, as well as the best written book to be produced by one of our war leaders...
...He has been around a good deal longer, and while ho has evinced his despair, he has not yet felt obliged to surrender, as have m.iny of- the younger poets...
...During this period the professionals frantically predicted the dreadful things that would and did happen...
...The cold war is politics, as exacting a specialty as nuclear physics...
...Or perhaps the disease, as this volume demonstrates, has gone beyond the possibilities of such easy prophylaxis...
...Bush admits, the Yankee scientist and inventor begins to get out uf his field...
...Or did he have to learn the turd way as did FDR, and Byrnes, and Marshall, and other distinguished amateurs...
...Bush writes both acutely and forthrightly...
...Wallace Markticld, novelist and critic, }tas contributed to Commentarii and Partisan Heview...
...Yet there may be If democracy enhances its latent strength, and free men join in common purpose, resisting the temptations of avarice and the diversions of petty causes, they can prevent great wars...
...Despite all its wastes and confusions, democracy fought World War II more elTiciently than did dictatorship...
...The conscious is interesting but not exciting...
Vol. 33 • March 1950 • No. 10
