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New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 414, 30 May 1947, Page 5

Sir,-May I congratulate Mr. McCormick on his contribution to "Culture-and Democracy." He is the only one among your commentators who sees the implications and the irony of the fact that Priestley of all people is weary of "cultural democracy" which to create he has devoted his life to. Recently he appeared as a fervent advocate of UNESCO whose chief aim it is to spread "cultural democracy." This new attitude of Priestley’s therefore smacks of intellectual dishonesty, for he bites the ("farm-") hand who feeds him. As someone else has already pointed out, he does not make it clear why the "common man" should be more able to judge political issues than literary ones. None of your contributors has answered the question whether he can do either. Mr, McCormick quotes the Eliza-_ bethans as shining examples of good

taste, because they appreciated Shakespeare. I have always had some suspicions in this regard: after all the Elizabethans liked bear-baiting and cock-fights just as much as Shakespeare’s plays, which probably appealed to them because of the "thrills" and not because of their intrinsic dramatic and poetical qualities: they were fond of the "showman" Shakespeare, not of the genius. We certainly can observe a deterioration of taste, but in doing so we must consider its main element: the shifting of the accent from quality to quantity. Light and cheap fiction and poetry have always existed as an undercurrent beneath great literature, but-and this is the crucial point-only now this undercurrent threatens to become the main stream and to force the vital powers which nourish our spiritual life to go underground. This is the great danger which a stout intellectual resistance movement should fight, otherwise massproduced literature will overwhelm the qualitative output of the few. Mr. Priestley is quite right on this point, but it would have been far more convincing if this timely warning had come from anyone else,

G. E.

EICHBAUM

[ (Wellington) _