Citation

Burke K. Am. J. Sociol. 1942; 48(3): 404-410.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1942, University of Chicago Press)

DOI

10.1086/219188

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

America today is confronted with the need to change from a commercial-liberal-monetary nexus of motives to a collective-sacrificial-military nexus of motives. Democracy as a motive is different from the motives of war and business in that it is an ideal, a purpose. The intellectual climate has shifted from the three major pre-war emphases-"pure art," "semantics," and "debunking"-to an enlistment of art and rhetoric in the service of the war. Steinbeck's The Moon Is Down exemplifies this enlistment, as do also This Is War and Road to Victory. What is now needed, in the cultural sphere, is a whole intellectual movement designed to give placement to the conception of our exigencies, resources weaknesses, and intentions. Surrealism, as an international movement, is a cultural counterpart of the "global" attitude required by the conditions of global war. But a more positive expression is needed. As a feature of psychological warfare, it would have aspects designed both to demoralize and to remoralize the enemy.