Page:The Dial (Volume 75).djvu/368

312 the present state of society must emphasize the negative quality of criticism; so that the skyscraper primitives, in order to obviate this negativism, have decided to alter their approach. One can enjoy the whirr of a smoothly running motor, or one can see only the wreckage in human life which lies behind that motor—and one is respectively skyscraper primitive or Seven Arts. Or on a wider plane, one could make the distinction between writing a book in which there are good actions and bad actions, and writing a book in which there are simply interesting actions.

It is no place here to toss up between the two. While pudency forbids us to learn from The Literary Review and discover that yes and no, both sides are right and both are wrong. But we do suggest that the skyscraper primitives have taken the harder task, for they must always tread on the uncomfortable verge of writing a Chamber of Commerce literature. As to their omission of humanism, they can answer that it is not the province of the artist to decide whether a given sensation is an asset or a detriment to the community. They accept the sensation simply as a fact, and exploit it. Which they can do with impunity, provided that they are content to leave art on the plane of chess playing or baseball, simply one more outlet for human energy. (This fact underlies the growing prevalence among the intellectuals for the detective story or the adventure story, where the display of skill without content is "purest.") Because there is a great deal of this element in art, they postulate (if they are thorough enough) a special aesthetic sense, and see art as the minister to that sense.

In either case, both Seven Arts and skyscraper primitive have gained the faith to turn intently upon their own situation. For they are aware that the machine is the dominant factor in contemporary life, and that America is the most highly mechanized country in the world, so that for better or worse the course of society for the next era is most likely to be settled in American terms. Perhaps this is the one allowable form of patriotism.