On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 5:41 AM, William Conger <[email protected]>wrote:
> As you people work out the search functions, none of which I had heard of > before and didn't realize existed, I am wondering what past advice of mine > Miller is looking for. I'm full of good advice, naturally, even when it > isn't respectable. For instance, I am toying with the idea that the role of > art and aesthetics in our democratic culture is doomed to mediocracy and > vulgarity. Art and the ideas of beauty really belong to an aristocratic, if > not despotic, culture. The leveling forces of democracy drag down standards > of excellence, rarity, intellectual refinement to conform to the broad and > mostly utilitarian, pragmatic, and sensationalized tastes of a commercial, > expedient, sentimental mob. By and large the literature of a democracy will never exhibit the order, regularity, skill, and art characteristic of aristocratic literature; formal qualities will be neglected or actually despised. The style will often be strange, incorrect, overburdened, and loose, and almost always strong and bold. Writers will be more anxious to work quickly than to perfect details. Short works will be commoner than long books, wit than erudition, imagination than depth. There will be a rude and untutored vigor of thought with great variety and singular fecundity. Authors will strive to astonish more than to please, and to stir passions rather than to charm taste. Alexis de Tocqueville quotes<http://thinkexist.com/quotes/alexis_de_tocqueville/>
