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The Intellectuals and the Masses: Pride and Prejudice among the Literary Intelligentsia 1880-1939 is an interesting look at early 20th century writers response to the growing population. Carey covers four different areas in his approach, the core of which he sees as the dehumanising of the middle and lower classes by the intellectual writers and artists of the day. He holds Nitchtze as the instigator of this thought, quoting extensively from his work as well as writers such as E.M. Forester, George Bernard Shaw, Ezra Pound, Virginia Woolfe and others.
He begins by looking at the education act of 1871 and how this was responsible for breeding a new reading public. These new readers became a different audience for publications preferring newspapers and adventure stories to "high literature". This mass consumption of what many writers saw as inferior writing led them to disdain and create what they termed "the masses", people, Carey argues, who were less than human as they lacked the ability of the intelligentsia for appreciating things properly. He argues that many of these writers made their own writings intentionally difficult to separate them out from the common man. He then goes on to state the view of many of these writers to these masses, that they see as incapable of growth, change, higher thought, and fit only to be exterminated. The prejudice that the writers show is in several ways just another example of classism which Carey only addresses indirectly. He does mention writers who see the upper class as definitely superior or higher beings, but always phrases this in terms of elite versus mass, rather than looking at the bigger issue of class struggle, probably due to the fact that Marxism is quite unfashionable these days.
To go on from the mass being a reading public, he then looks at the masses as the overwhelming crowd. He is rather critical of early forays into looking at the role of crowd behaviour, which is something I think that has since been researched further by psychologists and sociologists as quite an interesting phenomena. In it's most basic form Carey seems to be arguing that any representation of groups rather than as individuals can be seen as dehumanising.
The third chapter looks at the growth of the suburbs and of the clerks in London. It is this chapter where I feel that a real lack of explanation was felt. During this time period there was a huge physical expansion of the suburbs. Fields, and villages were all consumed by the great urban sprawl. Boring repetitive houses were erected where before fields had been. Carey doesn't deny this, however he seems to be condemning any description of this change by writers of the time. He complains that writers who hate the sprawl are too quick to dismiss those who are living within it, they hate the circumstances so take it out on those who are living there. I think it is a fair complaint to make. However I think it's important to remember the context that the works are being written in. When the authors condemn this expansion and the way they see those living in the suburbs are they holding the suburbs to blame or the people who live in them? Are they trying to point out how dehumanising the suburbs are? Surely the complaint that horrible uniform houses are a depressing place to live and breeds for further depression and conformity has some validity. Surely by criticising this process as dehumanising, is speaking against the process on behalf of the people who live there rather than against them. Carey however seems to make no distinction of this kind. All criticism he sees as bad. He also offers a few cases of sympathetic writers to the clerks and suburbs, Arthur Conan Doyle being a prime example. No where however does he touch on the quality of life among the people who live in the suburbs, Carey remains completely silent on the lives of the people who the authors are both condemning and championing. He offers no response on what would be an appropriate way to react to this social phenomena of the times.
The fourth chapter looks at the idea of "Natural Aristocrats". Carey looks at the idea that the intelligent elite see themselves as the natural leaders and aristocracy of everyone else. The masses are not able to comprehend their great works so it is up to this elite to be able to detect the pure form of art and be able to understand the "ultimate reality" behind it. This made me understand the post-modern movement a little better, with such crap being stated, the reaction of objective truth as a response makes so much sense. In this chapter Carey also brings in the idea of religion. He looks at how many writers of the time in England were drawn to Catholicism seeing it as the persecuted religion of the Aristocracy, which often led to some amusing interactions in actual Catholic countries.
The second half of the book looks at his theory in relation to specific authors. As I had only read H.G. Wells of the authors that he listed I only read the chapters dealing with Wells. The problem with these chapters was that any description given in a novel seemed to be fair game for Carey to use in his arguments against Wells. Any description of a mass was taken as Wells' view on humanity. Books that were written as adventure and books that were written as social commentary were given the same weight. Also there was very little difference given to the change over time in Wells' opinion. I disagreed with several of the categorisations of Wells, mostly that the huge crab monsters in War of the Worlds were to be interpreted as a fear of women, which I thought had much more to do with Carey's interpretation than anything Wells intended. Carey was very critical of Wells utopian vision. He argued that Wells was not above using extermination to get rid of the excess population, and questioned Wells idea of making sure a couple could support a child and educate it before they were allowed to have one. He was very critical of Wells' response to an over-populated world. However, as in the case of the suburbs, Wells was stating facts, the world is not capable of sustaining the growth of the human population explosion. Interestingly enough in the conclusion of the book Carey mentions how the population explosion has been worse than anything even Wells predicated, and that it's unsustainable but makes no comment on this.
The book itself was an interesting read. Though I thought that points were often repeated rather than being expounded upon. The idea that the Masses are simply a product of the minds of the elite is an interesting one. But the fact that mass media exists cannot be denied. Today we see the same situation with "Hollywood blockbuster" movies, which are all catered to the lowest common denominator. Yet they still make millions and millions of dollars. Dehumanising people based on social class is clearly wrong, however there were no counter arguments for how to accurately represent the majority of humanity. The end of the book mentions the supposition that "the masses would rather watch football or play Bingo than read Aeschylus" which I have to say I agree with as otherwise Aeschylus would be the best seller and not Dan Brown, otherwise there would be no mass marketing, or mass media. The last couple pages he tears apart the new literature theorists who try once again to separate out their work from the minds of the masses. He criticises the use of "theory" and how it has evolved into a form of English unintelligible to most English speakers. I found his criticism to be very much in keeping with my own views, and hope to read a longer essay condemning such practices which seems to be the bane of most academia at the moment.
He begins by looking at the education act of 1871 and how this was responsible for breeding a new reading public. These new readers became a different audience for publications preferring newspapers and adventure stories to "high literature". This mass consumption of what many writers saw as inferior writing led them to disdain and create what they termed "the masses", people, Carey argues, who were less than human as they lacked the ability of the intelligentsia for appreciating things properly. He argues that many of these writers made their own writings intentionally difficult to separate them out from the common man. He then goes on to state the view of many of these writers to these masses, that they see as incapable of growth, change, higher thought, and fit only to be exterminated. The prejudice that the writers show is in several ways just another example of classism which Carey only addresses indirectly. He does mention writers who see the upper class as definitely superior or higher beings, but always phrases this in terms of elite versus mass, rather than looking at the bigger issue of class struggle, probably due to the fact that Marxism is quite unfashionable these days.
To go on from the mass being a reading public, he then looks at the masses as the overwhelming crowd. He is rather critical of early forays into looking at the role of crowd behaviour, which is something I think that has since been researched further by psychologists and sociologists as quite an interesting phenomena. In it's most basic form Carey seems to be arguing that any representation of groups rather than as individuals can be seen as dehumanising.
The third chapter looks at the growth of the suburbs and of the clerks in London. It is this chapter where I feel that a real lack of explanation was felt. During this time period there was a huge physical expansion of the suburbs. Fields, and villages were all consumed by the great urban sprawl. Boring repetitive houses were erected where before fields had been. Carey doesn't deny this, however he seems to be condemning any description of this change by writers of the time. He complains that writers who hate the sprawl are too quick to dismiss those who are living within it, they hate the circumstances so take it out on those who are living there. I think it is a fair complaint to make. However I think it's important to remember the context that the works are being written in. When the authors condemn this expansion and the way they see those living in the suburbs are they holding the suburbs to blame or the people who live in them? Are they trying to point out how dehumanising the suburbs are? Surely the complaint that horrible uniform houses are a depressing place to live and breeds for further depression and conformity has some validity. Surely by criticising this process as dehumanising, is speaking against the process on behalf of the people who live there rather than against them. Carey however seems to make no distinction of this kind. All criticism he sees as bad. He also offers a few cases of sympathetic writers to the clerks and suburbs, Arthur Conan Doyle being a prime example. No where however does he touch on the quality of life among the people who live in the suburbs, Carey remains completely silent on the lives of the people who the authors are both condemning and championing. He offers no response on what would be an appropriate way to react to this social phenomena of the times.
The fourth chapter looks at the idea of "Natural Aristocrats". Carey looks at the idea that the intelligent elite see themselves as the natural leaders and aristocracy of everyone else. The masses are not able to comprehend their great works so it is up to this elite to be able to detect the pure form of art and be able to understand the "ultimate reality" behind it. This made me understand the post-modern movement a little better, with such crap being stated, the reaction of objective truth as a response makes so much sense. In this chapter Carey also brings in the idea of religion. He looks at how many writers of the time in England were drawn to Catholicism seeing it as the persecuted religion of the Aristocracy, which often led to some amusing interactions in actual Catholic countries.
The second half of the book looks at his theory in relation to specific authors. As I had only read H.G. Wells of the authors that he listed I only read the chapters dealing with Wells. The problem with these chapters was that any description given in a novel seemed to be fair game for Carey to use in his arguments against Wells. Any description of a mass was taken as Wells' view on humanity. Books that were written as adventure and books that were written as social commentary were given the same weight. Also there was very little difference given to the change over time in Wells' opinion. I disagreed with several of the categorisations of Wells, mostly that the huge crab monsters in War of the Worlds were to be interpreted as a fear of women, which I thought had much more to do with Carey's interpretation than anything Wells intended. Carey was very critical of Wells utopian vision. He argued that Wells was not above using extermination to get rid of the excess population, and questioned Wells idea of making sure a couple could support a child and educate it before they were allowed to have one. He was very critical of Wells' response to an over-populated world. However, as in the case of the suburbs, Wells was stating facts, the world is not capable of sustaining the growth of the human population explosion. Interestingly enough in the conclusion of the book Carey mentions how the population explosion has been worse than anything even Wells predicated, and that it's unsustainable but makes no comment on this.
The book itself was an interesting read. Though I thought that points were often repeated rather than being expounded upon. The idea that the Masses are simply a product of the minds of the elite is an interesting one. But the fact that mass media exists cannot be denied. Today we see the same situation with "Hollywood blockbuster" movies, which are all catered to the lowest common denominator. Yet they still make millions and millions of dollars. Dehumanising people based on social class is clearly wrong, however there were no counter arguments for how to accurately represent the majority of humanity. The end of the book mentions the supposition that "the masses would rather watch football or play Bingo than read Aeschylus" which I have to say I agree with as otherwise Aeschylus would be the best seller and not Dan Brown, otherwise there would be no mass marketing, or mass media. The last couple pages he tears apart the new literature theorists who try once again to separate out their work from the minds of the masses. He criticises the use of "theory" and how it has evolved into a form of English unintelligible to most English speakers. I found his criticism to be very much in keeping with my own views, and hope to read a longer essay condemning such practices which seems to be the bane of most academia at the moment.