Light On Dark Water

The Prestige of the Avant-Garde

I've just been browsing in the most recent issue of The New Criterion, which is a memorial issue for Hilton Kramer, the magazine's founder, who died recently. During the time I've been reading TNC–a little over ten years–Kramer hasn't appeared very often in its pages, and so I really don't know that much about him, other than that he was for many years the art critic of The New York Times. The memorial includes some samples of his writing; this one struck me:

For the "normal condition" of our culture has become one in which the ideology of the avant-garde wields a pervasive and often cynical authority over sizable portions of the very public it affects to despise. That it does so by means of a profitable alliance with the traditional antagonists of the avant-garde–the mass media, the universities, and the marketplace–only underscores the paradoxical nature of the situation in which we find ourselves. It is in the interest of this ideology to deny the scope of its present powers, of course. Its continuing effectiveness–its ability to come before the public not only as an arbiter of taste but as an example of moral heroism–is peculiarly dependent on the fiction of its extreme vulnerability. The myth of the underdog, of a struggle against impossible odds with little hope of just recognition, is an indispensable instrument in the consolidation of the avant-garde influence.

But this is only part of the myth that is fostered in the avant-garde scenario. Central to its doctrine of embattled and threatened virtue is that notion of what Lionel Trilling has called the avant-garde's "adversary" relation to the larger (bourgeois) culture in which it functions. If the institutions that now serve as conduits of avant-garde claims are no longer shy about acknowledging this adversary role, it is because the role itself has acquired an unquestioned historical prestige.

 It occurs to me that this basic description also has some applicability to what we refer to, somewhat clumsily, as "political correctness," or the left-wing orthodoxy which is so very powerful in shaping public debate. The above was written in 1973, by the way.

Maclin Horton
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7 responses to “The Prestige of the Avant-Garde”

  1. Noah G.

    That’s interesting, I just came across this guy yesterday for the first time, through a book I’ve been reading that I got off Amazon. It’s called “Second Thoughts: Former Radicals Look Back at the Sixties,” edited by David Horowitz and his writing partner, Peter Collier. You very well may be familiar with it. It’s basically the transcription of a conference put together by Horowitz and Collier in the eighties. Hilton Kramer’s speech (that I honestly just read yesterday, sorta strange) is very provocative and interesting.
    Anyway, just thought I’d throw that out there. Regrettably I don’t have anything to say about this comment of his–it’s slightly over my head though I think I have a vague sense of what he’s saying. Maybe I’ll study it some more when I get a chance.

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  2. Mac

    I think he primarily wrote about the arts, not society broadly, though he wrote a book called The Twilight of the Intellectuals which sounds interesting.
    That conference seems to have been a pretty significant event for what could loosely be called neoconservatives–people who moved from left to right. Horowitz and Collier also collaborated on a book called Destructive Generation that I’d like to read. Those guys in general are somewhat disappointing from the Catholic point of view, because although they rejected the secular left most of them remained more or less secular. But within that limitation they have some excellent insights.

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  3. Noah G.

    I have to constantly remind myself of that–they’re ultimately secular.
    Their insights are often so good, the temptation is to follow them (and others like them) all the way. “All right, where do I sign up!”

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  4. Mac

    I’ve never been much of a signer-up, so I’m not so much tempted to do that, but I do have to remind myself that in the socio-political realm nobody has a monopoly on truth. Or maybe it’s really a reminder that nobody has a monopoly on non-truth–i.e. the left is not wrong about everything. 🙂 I don’t know…I guess I just naturally put politics lower in my “hierarchy of values” as someone or other calls it, though it’s certainly important.
    I don’t really know what most of those folks think about ultimate things, but David Horowitz is certainly serious about engaging the questions, quite powerfully really.

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  5. Mac

    This is a good example of what I meant about this analysis being applicable to certain political situations. The most powerful and prestigious people are against us on this question, and yet the other side gets to play victim/underdog.

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  6. Noah G.

    “Speak loudly and carry a small victim.”
    (I’m not a big fan of Ann Coulter but I do like this quote of hers.)
    Yeah, at what point will they no longer claim the underdog status? If I’m understanding this correctly, his (Kramer’s) analysis suggests possibly never? Because, in part at least, that’s how they maintain their authority, dominance of the conversation, etc. …interesting.

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  7. Mac

    Ha! haven’t heard that one (also not a Coulter fan, but she does get off some good one-liners–or at least she used to).
    I’m sure they’ll never acknowledge that things have changed enough to change their basic situation in relation to their supposed or one-time oppressors. Eventually I guess it will just cease to work.

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