'Intellectual America'

UNDER the above tide there appeared in the Atlantic just a year ago an article analyzing American culture from the point of view of the educated foreigner. The anonymous author — the paper was signed by ‘A European’ — appeared to be a Polish scholar, of unusual accomplishments and rather high-strung character, who had spent several years in the United States, earning his livelihood as a writer and university lecturer. He had come to America with the intention of making his home here, and with a highly idealistic programme of serving his adopted country and humanity at large; for him, intellectual conditions in America were not, as for the host of literary and artistic visitors, a mere subject of impersonal study, but the medium in which his personality unfolded and sought employment and reward — above all, that sympathetic understanding which, to a man of his type, is more precious and indispensable than material bounties. In a word, although a foreigner, he was in the position to draw a picture of intellectual America from the inside; he could apply European standards of comparison to American experience, not only acquired firsthand, but apperceived and digested with an intensity naturally absent in the case of the mere student or sentimental traveler.

As another European, whose external conditions were somewhat similar, — I, too, had come to this country with the purpose of permanent settlement after having for some time lived, like the Polish writer, in Western Europe, away from my native Hungary, — I was naturally deeply interested in his analysis of phenomena with which I, too, found myself confronted. On the whole, I was inclined to accept his pessimistic conclusions about the standing of culture and the tendencies of intellectual life in this country. I felt, however, that he would have strengthened his case —the case of the European intellectual against intellectual America — by arraying, simultaneously, the case against himself. It is true that European intellectuals almost invariably share the Polish writer’s dissatisfaction with American life. But the very emphasis of the usual type of criticism suggests the necessity of divesting it of certain emotional values transferred thereto from more or less unconscious or inarticulate levels of the mind. It is desirable, in the interest of truth and fair play, that the question: ‘ What’s wrong with intellectual America?' be supplemented with this other one: ‘ What’s wrong with the European intellectual in America?’

It is my object to outline in the following pages a series of considerations, in the light of which criticisms such as pronounced by the Polish author should be discounted. In other words, an attempt is hereby made to analyze the European analyzer of American culture — a task which the Polish writer, with the one-minded ness characteristic of his race, — others might call it lack of humor, — neglected to perform.

First among the sources of discontent with which the European intellectual confronts American life is, in my opinion, the all-round lowering of his status. He may have arrived on these shores without illusions as to American liberty, democracy, equal economic opportunity, and the rest of the political dogmas, implicit belief in which is bred in the bones of most Americans, but which the realistically minded European will approach in a critical spirit.

But he has probably brought with him a vision, at least, of social equality. He will soon discover that this equality exists, not in and by the absence of classes, but merely in the lack of manners, in the good-natured indifference with which members of different social strata, vastly differentiated in power and wealth, jostle one another at points of contact. He will find also a greater elasticity of individual shifting from one class to the other; but he will also realize that the personal achievement which he was told was the only measure of status in American democracy is of a vastly different kind from what he was led to expect. An attempt to fix his own place on the social ladder will result in the discovery that he was better off in ‘aristocratic’ Europe than in ‘democratic’ America. For in Europe he belonged, if he achieved any recognition at all, to the uppermost layer of the middle class. Even a moderate degree of scholarly, literary, or artistic eminence secured to him admission to the most interesting quarters of a society where money, however important, was never the sole criterion of gentility.

In all European capitals there are certain centres of social intercourse where members of the three aristocracies of birth, riches, and intellect meet in a congenial atmosphere and on a basis of full equality. This does not mean, of course, that any and every writer or journalist or painter is an exofficio member of these circles; it simply means that, if he sets his mind on social recognition of this order, he may achieve it with comparatively little trouble. Such foregatherings are simply unthinkable in America, where the only door to social recognition lies through business success and the contingent capacity of conforming to certain standards of quantitative luxury, plus a complaisant and ‘respectable’ attitude toward political, economic, and moral problems. Here the intellectual finds himself totally ignored, not only by the uppermost layer, but even by a snobbish, dull, and uncultivated middle class, whose vision of the ‘good life’ is limited to the possession of automobiles and attendance at dinner dances at country clubs.

The European intellectual then will turn to an analysis of his economic status, and will find it worse than it was in pre-war Europe. Most probably he made in the old country much less money in dollars and cents, even at the old rate of exchange; but his smaller income insured a higher place in the social hierarchy and a much greater amount of comfort. About the only things he finds less expensive in America, than in Europe are automobiles; but they are just expensive enough here, too, to be out of reach for most intellectual workers. Moreover, the European intellectual is puzzled and irritated by few things more than by the American cult of automobiles; he cannot. share, even if he understands, the creed of salvation by locomotion. He is reminded of Matthew Arnold’s refusal to recognize any intrinsic good in traveling from a dreary and dull life at Camberwell to a dreary and dull life at Islington, at the rate of thirty miles an hour instead of three. The Sundayafternoon spectacle of thousands upon thousands of motor-cars, filled with festive families bound nowhere in particular and beaming with the happiness of a dream come true, will serve chiefly to impress him with the meaning of the American slang phrase, ‘all dressed up and no place to go.’

Europe was different. The things he craves — books, engravings, an occasional painting, theatre and concert tickets, good clothes, good home furnishings — were comparatively much cheaper. Above all, travel was cheaper. The fare from Vienna to London, from Budapest to Stockholm, was less than from New York to Cleveland; and why go to Cleveland, anyhow? A Vienna journalist, a Cracow college professor, a Budapest art critic — not the leaders of their profession, just a good average — could go for a month’s vacation to Switzerland or Belgium or a Baltic resort or Florence, live well, and spend less than at home. For the same class of person in America, that sort of thing is about as feasible as spending the week-end in the moon. In a word, in America, where he has to work much harder and makes more money, the European intellectual will find that his income leaves him socially an outcast and qualifies him for less substantial comfort than is enjoyed by his grocer.

One has to be a thoroughbred Continental to appreciate another factor which, to an American, especially the untraveled brand, may seem uttterly trivial. I refer to the absence of the Continental type of cafés. Those establishments mean to the littérateur of Berlin or Budapest or Vienna or Copenhagen what the coffee-houses meant to the littérateur of early-eighteenthcentury London— and more; for there were no women at the haunts where Addison presided. The literary café of the Continental capital is a place where men of similar tastes and interests may drop in, without any formality, at tea-time and after supper, and be sure of finding congenial company, brilliant repartee, interesting gossip, or substantial shop-talk, according to what is looked for. These cafés are mostly situated at points of vantage, like the clubs of Pall Mall and Piccadilly; from behind the plate-glass windows one may observe the ever-varying stream of metropolitan life, a constant inspiration to the imaginative citydweller. The brilliancy of the surroundings, the presence of beautiful and well-dressed women, the opportunity of meeting new people, often important foreigners—these elements all converge in creating an atmosphere of extraordinary stimulus. There is nothing in American life that even remotely corresponds to this; and the life of the literary cafés is missed by the Continental intellectual as a drug is missed by its addict.

But the absence of these easily accessible, standardized exchanges of intellectual life, open to all who have the price of a demi-tasse, has another, still subtler effect. For the intellectual, constant intercourse with his equals acts, not only as a stimulus, but also as a check. It is written that it is not good for man to be alone. Rubbing up against his compeers is as necessary for the intellectual as gnawing at hard substances is for a squirrel’s teeth. Isolation for him results in a sickly over-estimation of his importance, a hypertrophied sensitiveness, and that notion of omnipotence which springs from the absence of tests. Just as the lack of academic standards favors an individualism that frequently is mere crankiness, an inadequate sense of proportion, so the lack of intellectual giveand-take may result in an elephantiasis of self-consciousness.

Here, then, we have traced the elements of a state of mind which inevitably expresses itself in an over-estimation of self and under-estimation of one’s surroundings. The conditions analyzed do not necessarily imply that American culture is inferior to European; but they do determine a feeling in the European intellectual that American life is far less interesting, less stimulating, less worth while. He may be met with the argument that there is here, in fact, an intellectual tradition, a heritage of the ‘good life,’ but that it unfolds in the private homeproduct of old, refined families, who would care as little to advertise their culture as to boast of their plate. The foreigner might retort with the jibe of the Viennese satirist, Karl Kraus, who said that it may be true that the level of culture has risen tremendously in Austria in the past fifty years, but it is a pity nobody stands on that level.

The feeling of frustration and the tendency to over-self-appraisal are accentuated by another factor, which might be defined as the irritation caused by imperfect mastery of the technique of everyday American life. The Continental intellectual may speak English well, sometimes more accurately than many natives of education; still, he finds it hard to part with a foreign accent that makes him self-conscious. Lack of familiarity with American lines of everyday behavior may result in a series of small embarrassments, too trifling, indeed, to penetrate severally to consciousness, but producing a cumulative effect of uneasiness and uncertainty, and emphasizing the sense of being different. In the more selfassertive type this feeling translates itself directly into a sense of superiority, while the less confident will seek to ward off an encroaching inferioritycomplex by assuring themselves that American ways are not worth knowing. This feeling is not abated by the gradual realization that, though American life is less formal, it is more conventional than European — that, though in Europe uniformity of manners is insisted upon, but considerable freedom is allowed for conduct, in America, the reverse is the case.

Yet another source of irritation is the way in which Americans take for granted, in foreigners, a virtue of which they are usually destitute themselves — I mean linguistic talent. In Europe a speaking and reading knowledge of two or three languages is quite a common thing and evokes no notice; but the ability to do literary or scholarly work in a language other than one’s own is more or less a phenomenon. A Pole in Paris, writing in French; a Hungarian in Copenhagen, contributing articles to Danish newspapers, is regarded as a prodigy and is lionized on that account alone. In America, on the other hand, if one does not speak and write English, one simply does not exist.

But the rôle of language as a factor of discontent cuts much deeper still. In order to make a living in an intellectual line, the European must not only write English well, but he must actually write it a little better than his average native competitor, who, as the phrase goes, can get away with anything, whereas stricter standards are exacted from the outsider. Nevertheless, complete mastery of English by a non-English-born person is a very great rarity. The foreigner may write English accurately and even with force; he will seldom write it inspiredly. As Prosper Mérimée said when an American lady congratulated him on his English style, the foreigner may be able to express whatever is strictly necessary, but nothing more. He may be able to work with the English tongue; he cannot play with it. Now, the superabundance of energy which is the essence of play is also the beginning of literary art. There is only one Joseph Conrad; usually the foreigner’s handling of English does not advance beyond a certain flavorless, black-andwhite exactitude. Now, the keener the foreigner’s sense for linguistic values, the more thorough his mastery of his native idiom, the more uncompromising his artist’s conscience, the more strongly he will perceive the limitations of his English expression. The more he has to say, the less he will feel equal to saying it. After a certain facility is acquired and the crudest difficulties of technique are surmounted, he becomes increasingly aware of heights to which he feels he will never be able to ascend. He will awaken to the realization that perfect self-expression is possible only through the native tongue; a cramped, messy feeling is generated, which may be described as linguistic nostalgia. The native language becomes the symbol of one’s better self, and a baulked personality will vent its spleen on America, scapegoat of frustrated yearnings.

Here, then, we have the key to the psychology of the European intellectual in America. Out of this maze of factors — the lowering of economic and social Status, lack of habitual and easy contact with one’s peers, absence of the stimuli of metropolitan life, difficulties of everyday technique, struggle for self-expression through an unyielding idiom — rises a state of mind for which American conditions are responsible without necessarily being at fault. Subjective elements, of which the conscious judgment disapproves without locating their roots, are unconsciously objectivized into a symbol of one’s own failures and unfulfilled desires.

The pivot around which this psychology turns may be called the ‘Canaancomplex’— that perennial yearning for the land where everything is as it was not before, the longing for the tabula rasa, the dream of a new start. The fuller, the more differentiated the life the European intellectual leaves behind when he comes to America, the more probably will he discern its mistakes and be anxious to do things better in the new world. The intellectuals of the generation that attained maturity on the eve of the war were afflicted with the disease of æsthetic inertia — ‘Stimmungsanarchie,’ a clever German called it. For many who diagnosed the trouble, America stood as the symbol of success and energy. What this type expected from America was not political democracy, not even equal economic opportunity—for he knew enough to discount these catchwords; but he hoped for a new milieu, free from the sophistications, the noblesse oblige, the hothouse atmosphere of the old world. What he expected, in brief, was the rebirth of personality in and by America. Now the one thing the European intellectual is certain to discover in America is that crossing the ocean does not change a man; that a personality may, at best, develop, expand, differentiate by the experience of America, but it will not be reborn. Disappointment in America is determined by the act of embarking for it; arrival reveals the Promised Land as a delusion; the symbol of the new life turns into the symbol of discrepancy between dream and reality.

But this disappointment is merely the negative side of a rising new hope; the image of Canaan fades out before the vision of the Golden Age. To the disenchanted intellectual, Europe emerges in a roseate mist of dreams and expectations. That Europe, however, is not the actual Europe—not even pre-war Europe: it is merely a reversed America. Whatever one fails to find here is idealized into what was left behind. For the central fact of the European intellectual’s discontent in America is the disparity of his bases of comparison. He contrasts, not America and Europe, but a nightmare of American reality and a non-existent fairyland which he calls Europe — the Cosmopolis built with the bricks of memory and the mortar of hope. What chance in the world could America stand against Europe, when America is visualized by the image of the city where every male inhabitant reads Howe’s Weekly and every female the Delineator; by a discussion of Greek art between Chairman Hays of the Republican National Committee and Mayor Hylan; by a novel by Mr. A. Mitchell Palmer and a political address by Mr. R. W. Chalmers;by Postum advertisements, the smile of Douglas Fairbanks, and the curls of Mary Pickford; by Mr. Sumner of the Society for the Suppression of Vice and Mr. Anderson of the Anti-Saloon League walking arm-in-arm with the Statue of Liberty; and when Europe is symbolized by the memory of the Café Bristol, Budapest, with young Hungary’s choicest literary spirits assembled to discuss the latest play of Shaw, the latest opera of Richard Strauss, the latest novel of Romain Rolland; of a Copenhagen salon, where one may meet, any evening, a Swedish diplomat, a Danish beauty, an English publicist, a German composer, a Russian philosopher, a French singer — all first-class specimens of their brand; of an evening at Bayreuth before the war; of the dining-room of a London club, where one may sit between Mr. Chesterton and H. G. Wells; of a seaside walk at Palermo with a Sicilian countess ?

By insisting that criticism of American cultural conditions by resident European intellectuals be discounted along the suggested lines, I do not mean to belittle the value of such criticism. On the contrary I believe that its very real and distinctive merit is brought into relief just by making due allowance for the subjective element in it, for the inevitable tendency of the critic unconsciously to paraphrase his experience from the category pleasant-unpleasant into the category superior-inferior; to rationalize personal likes and dislikes into absolute judgments of value. And I believe that the European intellectual, who makes America his home, not only exercises a right, but discharges a very substantial duty by applying his native standards to a fearless examination of American culture. He may be prone to exaggerate the value of his contribution, and to expect special regard and compensation from a public none too appreciative of intellectual achievement even at the best; he may even develop — as did the anonymous Polish author whose paper furnished the text for this discourse — a redeemer-complex and establish a fixed relation between the recognition meted out to him by Americans and the salvation of the American soul. But this tendency is merely the counterpart of the no less unreasonable assumption of native Americans, that foreigners owe a special debt of gratitude, over and beyond the common bond of loyalty, to this country for opportunities accorded; as if Americans admitted foreigners and provided them with jobs because they love them, and not because they need them.

By helping to pierce the œs triplex of American self-complacency; by combatting, shoulder to shoulder, with the best of young America, that intolerance of dissent and that glorification of buncombe which are the greatest intellectual dangers of America, the educated European who lives in this country may perform a very real service; but he must not forget that his contribution to the growth of American culture is measured by the growth of his own personality. In this growth he should seek his principal reward.