Elitism vs. populism  identifies dichotomous stances that are increasingly causing acrimony among those concerned with defining cultural and educational relations. Not surprisingly, the controversy is one of the sundry things touched on by the Rockefeller Commission Report the Humanities in American Life

Smith, Ralph A.

English

VCU Scholars Compass

I I • • I • • • • • • I • II II • II II ELITI9[ VERSUS POPULISN: TEE CO~TINUI~G DEBATEl Ralph A. Smith University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign "t:litism VS. populism" identifies dichotor.loUS stauces that are increasingly causing acrimony among those concerned tvith defiiling cultural and educational relations. Not surprisingly, the controversy is one of the sundry things touched on by the Rockefeller Commission Report The Humanities in American Life . 2 The report characterizes the opposing positions as follows: Some people think it elitist t o point out that our culture arose in ""hat is generally described as the ~';estern tradition; populist to affirm that Na tive and Latin American, African, and Asian cultures also form our heritage . Eli.tism is associated ',>'it:h high cult:are, ~hich often refers to a finite list of works, authors, and standards; populism with popular culture, which has an inexhaustible list. The rich are thought elitist because they can afford educational and cultural activities the poor cannot. Those who emphasize our cornnon culture are sometimes called elitist, whereas those ~ho accentuate cultural pluralism are called popu-list . ~1aintaining traditional forms of cultural ex-pression is often viewed as elitist, whereas admir-ing novelty ~~d spontaneity is apparently a populist trait. It is allegedly elitist to a dvocate the preser-vation of cultural resources, populist to urge broad access to them. At one level , the report appears to express weariness with t he entire issue, claining that the dispute prevents us from coming to terms with genuine problems in our culture and that some of the divisions are mo re artificial than rea1--e.g., does not our heritage contain non-Western as '..;ell as Western elements, examples from popular as .... -ell as from high culture? In almost the same breath, however, the report warns that populist and elitist crientations "express tension between cultural views that are so~etimes irreconcilable [emphasis added) and often must compete for limited resources _ ... " But having acknowledged tensions and declared viewpoints Reprinted by permission of the author and The Journal or Aesthetic Education, Vel. 16 , ~o . 1 (Spring 1982), pp 5-10_ Published by U~iversity of Illinois Press. ® 1982 Board of Trustees of the Universit:: of Illinois. 33 irreconcilable, the report cannot have it botn ways simply by formulating a net.; set of principles . 3 These remarks will therefore fol1et.; another strategy. one that leaves open the possibility of narrot.Jing the gulf separating the contending parties . To be sure, the chances for achieving this goal ere slim so long as debate degenerates into ideological haggling and ~ame-calling. Since, moreover, during such exchanges, elitisn suffers oy being used as a term of derogation while populism retains an aura of democratic virtue, an effort to rehabilitate elitism is in order before a reconciliation is attempted . For p resent purposes, a useful outlook on elitism is provided by Stuart Hampshire,4 who writes that elitists accept four p ~opositions. An elitist, that is, believes first . that there is a tradition of great , and of very good and interesting work . in each of the liberal arts , and that the~e is good reason to expect . .. that these traditions are being pro-longed into the future . Second. that at any time a minority of othe~Nise intelligent persons . in-cluding artists, are deeply interested in one, or more . of the arts. and have devoted a considerable part of their lives to their involvement with them, and to thinking about them. The judgments of artistic merit by such persons . who are not dif -ficult to recognize , are the best guides to artistic merit that we have .... Thire . that enjo~ent of one or more of the arts is one of the most intense and most consoling enjoyments open to men, and also the principal source of continued history and of pride and of sense of unity for any city. nation, or empire . Fourth, very often , though not al,,,ays , a good artist does not create his own public within his lifetime and needs support, if he is to ~o rk as well as he might .. .• It follows f r om these beliefs that elitists set some store by the ideas of tradition, continuity, judgment , and competence. Nothing in Hampshire's four propositions, however, implies that elitists are necessarily cultural snobs, insensitive to minority or ethnic interests, antidemocratic , or contemptuous of popular culture. Neither do these propositions demand that access to the heritage be restricted, nor intimate that the masses are incapable of acquiring a taste for high culture . In sho=t, much of what elitism is often criticized for is net part of Hampshire's description of it. Still , it is difficult to imagine that Hampshire's position ,,,auld change the minds of avowed ?opulis ts who bridle at the suggestion that judgments of artistic merit are necessary and , wnat is more . that they are to be made by a minority (ar tists , critics) specially qualified for the task; this, they would charge , constitutes an ~~warranted imposition of elite tastes. l • .fuether one finds judgments by an aesthetic elite objectionable or 34 I J I ) I ;) J I I I I • • • • • • • • • • • • • I I not, they are the ma~ner in which arcistic merit has usually been deter-mined, a point to \.;thich Lord Ken~eth Clark bears witness when he writes, II would deduce from history this first law .. . or the re!3.tionship of art and societ y : t hat -"isual art, whether it takes the forw of image or or=tarnent, is Clade by a minority (Le . • an elite] f.or a minority bu t ac-cepted by t.h~ major:" ty unquestionably . eagerly. and with a se:;.se of pa!" -ticipation . ":I One i!light suppose populists unpersu.:lded . however . ror t hey wculd interpret the historical record only as confi~ing thei= con-.. -ietion that the masses have long been deluded and that it was high time they were undeceived and ready to defend their own preferences in art. And t he right of the masses to t heir O'Jn culture is, of course, a cent ral tenet of ,.,. . hat is called the new egalitarianism ( a term here taken to be r.early synonymous ... ith "populism"). Herbert Gans, 6 for example, would disagree with Hampshire ' s claim that only experts are "the best guides to artistic merit that we have . " Since the united St2.tes is a de:!!ocracy , culture snould reflect the people 's tastes. Knowi:!g ~ynat they like , the people ought to be given the art they want. In other words, since there can be no disputing the value of people ' s preferences, con-s iderations of quality and merit are to be abandoned in favor of a de gustibus principle. ~bat are the likely consequences? Some are described by Barbara Tuc~man7 in an indignant article. "The new egalitarians." she writes, "would like t o make the whole question of quality vanish by adopting a flat philosophy of the equality of every-thing . No fact or event is of greater or less value than any other; no person or thing is superior or inferior to any o t her . Any reference to quali ty is i:lstantly castigated as elitism, ';.lhich seems to inspire in users of the word the sentiments of Jacobins denouncing aristos to t he guillotine." Tuchman ' s objections 2.re i:1 part aesthetic: a "flat philosophy of the equality of everything" presents an uninspiring prospect; nothing stands out to attract attention or admiration . But the ne~ egalitari anism can also be faulted on pragmatic grounds. Hampsnire , it will be recalled , said that even good artists may need support . In ~odern times , this has increasingly been understood to mean government support, which in turn has r esulted in government policies for financial aid to art and artists . Yet how are such policies possible unde r the populist proscription of judgments of artistic merit? In the absence of standards of promoting the best , all that can be done is to distribute cultural ::esou:rces equitably and to satisfy as many interests as possible . Once it is discovered , however , how • ... ide-ranging cultural inter ests are and how new ones can be thought up overnight (especially when it is believed there is !:laney available t o satisfy them) I a de gustibus principle becomes ~.tenable because llilm~~ageable. The preceding rema::-ks were intended t o disencumber ti1e term "e litisr:t" of some of its undese rved negative connotations. But it should also be asked whether the new egalitarianism dese rves its reputation for serving the best interests of the ~eople . Sir Roy Sha~has broached just this issue as part or his exal'!l.inacion of the popular (and populist) vie,.; that because Wes tern culture-- the culture of Titian , Shakespeare, and Bach- -is middle- class or bourgeois in its origins, it can have no r e levance for 35 tocay!s "orking classes and that those hlho insist it one of the major deceits of the t~enthieth century . cC:ltends , is rife with hypocrisy: ca~ are perpetrating This position, Shaw Some of those ~"ho invoke the title of democrats seem to believe that the most are incapable of appreciating the best and so you must give them something less than the best specially prepared for their weaker consti-tutions . However, they grossly misuse the word !'elitist!! b~' using it to smear anyone ",ho chan::pions traditional arts or high standards in them. These so- called demo -crats are elitists in the proper sense of the term. They agree with cultural snobs that the high arts should be preserved for the elite, a privileged few and the rest of the population should have something else. He concludes that attacks on elitism are often "'polictically inspired philistinism at best , and advocacy of a form of cultural apartheid at worst . . .. " The great hypocrisy of the new egalitarianism , then, consists in tn~s : cultural apartheici--i.e . , giving the masses less than the best--violates a sacred democratic principle, the individual's right to self-improvement. Hany who came from backgrounds that did not include an appreciation of the fine arts Dut who were fortunate to have been en-couraged to educate themselves to "one of the most intense and most consoling enjoyments ope:J. to men!! (Hampshire) should have no difficulty in unGerstanding the severity of Shaw ' s charge against populism. If this particular indictment is seen to even the score somewhat in favor of elitism, i t still has done nothing to effect a r approchement between elitism and populism . Yet conciliation is not out of the question . One "needs only to remember that the present discussion has equated popu-lism with the "new" egalitarianism, which suggests that "egalitarianism" also ha5 a traditional meaning . In an illuminating essay , the late Charles Frankel/ wrote of the old egalitarianism that its virtues consisted of "chivalry, loyalty, generosity, at least a rough courtesy, self- reliance and self- discipline , an eagerness to improve oneself but also a sense of amuse~ent at oneself , respect for an honest day's work and getting one's hands dirty, a capacity to tell the genuine article from the fake, and a certain earthiness and imperiousness to ger:.tility . " Such virtues , says Frankel, uwere draw-u from the traditions and experiences of all classes ; and while it [traditional egalitarianism] espoused equality, it did so in recognition of the value of other things which create differences , partisan feelings, and stratification in society," not least of ~o1hich was" uthe need in every society to give public recognition to things noble and excellent lest everything in the society's culture be regarded as disposable." Such considerations, he says , do not subvert the principle of equality, they merely set limits on it and keep it sane . Judgment, excellence, limitation, sanity- -these attributes certainly make the old egalitarianism compatible '-"ith the kind of elitism described by Hampshire and defended by Shm, , an elitist egalitarianism or egalitarian elitism that aims at the oest for 36 1 I I I I I I I I I I • • • • • • • I • the mose and pays the ~ajority 6f the people the compliment of believing the~ capable of appreciating the best . Here, then, is a reconciliation bet' .... een elitisn .?ud populism that could 2ppeal to the best sentiments of eciuc2tors. Realistically speaking, however, what hopes are tnere for resolving the "elitism vs. populism" dilemma in art and aesthetic education in the direction of the old egalitarianism? One might expect that periods of consolidation such as the one we are said to be passing through at the morr.ent would be more receptive to ideas of the kind just expressed--ideas that would have been laughed out of most forums in the 1960's. But optimism would be premature , for the opposition remai3s formidable . Energetically promoted by influential sponsors, the panaceas of the populist/pluralist recent past continue to be urged upon the public . lO And ne'...r voices are beginning to be heard Hhich. should their chorus s';.;ell, would drown out the concerns discussed here. These voices belong to the new social critics (o r critical theorists) ,""hose writings emphasize the links bet~een art and its social, e~onomic, and political conditions and who tend to believe that the function of art and aesthetic education is to promote radical social change. meaning that the study and appreciation of art for its unique qualities and satisfactions get subordinated to ideo-logical interests . Tnis is not to say that all critic3l theorists and their followers are hardened ideologues; some serious ~ork is obviously being done. But there is also some adolescent dabbling and thrill-seeking , as evidenced by unexpected references to Harx and condemnations of capitalism from previously timid and conservative '...rriters. The path of sane compromise is thus stre' .. . n "Tith siz2ble oost2cles, and those bold enough to set foot on it may wish to draw inspiration from the famous ",-orcis of Natthe'N Arnold : ll "The great men of culture are these who have had a passion for diffusing, fo r making prevail, for c3~rying from one end of society to another , the best knowledge, the oest ideas of their time; 'Nho have laboured to divest kno'Nledge of all that was harsh , uncouth, difficult, abstract, professional,exclusive; to hunanise it, to make it efficient outside the clique of the cultivated and learned, yet still remaining the best knoHledge and thought of the ti~e, and a true source, therefore, of sweetness and light." 37 Footnotes , I -Versions of these remarks have appeared in Cultural and Educational Affai ~s ~ (January 1981). the newsletter of the Council for Policy Studies and Art Education, and Art Education (July 1981) . 2Report of the Commission on the Hu~anities. The Humanities in American Life (Berkely : University of California Press, 1980). 3Several critics-- among them Hilton Kramer, Samuel Lipman, and Ronald Berman--have pointed out the report's characteristic squeamish-ness about taking a trim stand, a failure of nerve also evident in its reluctance to define the humanities with any decisiveness. 4Stuart Hampshire , "Private Pleasures and the Pbulic Purse," Times Literarv Supplement, 13 Hay 1977 ; a review of Janet Hinihan, The Nationalization of Culture (New York: New York University Press, 1977). SLord Kenneth Clark , "Art and Society," in The Sociologv of Art and Literature: A Reader, ed . M. C. Albrecht et al. (New York: Praegers , 1980) . 6Herbert J. Gans, Popular Culture and High Culture (New York : Basic Beoks, 1974). I I I I 1 1 7Barbara Tuchma."1, "The Decline of Quality, " NeTN York Ti:aes ~1a£azine, I 2 November, 1980 . 8Sir Roy Sha",,; , "Education and the Arts," in The A:rts and Personal Growth, ed. :1 . Ross (Ne~ .. York: Pergamon , 1980); cL "Elitism versus Populism in the Arts , " City Arts Series, ed . J . Pick (Eastbourne, E. Sussex ; John Oxford , n.d.) . 9Charles Frankel, "The New Egalitarianism and the Old," Corn .. l.entarv 56 (3), September 1973 . lOr . . k· ··1 f Th' ~ . . ~. ' p 1 am tn~n ~ng prlmar~ y 0 e ~rts, ~aucat~on, ~~erlcans _ane , David Rockefeller , JR. , Chairman, Coming to Our Senses (~ew York: :'1cGraw-Hill, 1977) , \ .. hich, though distinctly out of joint with the times , is still systematically promoted by the interests that brought it into being . IlMattheu Arnold , Culture and Anarchv, quoted (which is the point here) in Lawrence A. Cremin, The Genius of American Education (~e~ York : Random House [Vintage], 1966) . 38 1 I I ,I 

Elitism Versus Populism: The Continuing Debate

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Elitism Versus Populism: The Continuing Debate

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