[The Promise Of American Life by Herbert David Croly]@TWC D-Link bookThe Promise Of American Life CHAPTER XIII 114/124
The "public" will have learned to expect and to appreciate more simple and appropriate architectural forms, more sincere and better-formed translations of life in books and on the stage, and more independent and better equipped political leadership.
The "public," that is, instead of being as much satisfied as it is at present with cheap forms and standards, will be prepared to assume part of the expense of establishing better forms and methods of social intercourse.
In this way a future generation of leaders may be enabled to conquer a following with a smaller individual expenditure of painful sacrifices and wasted effort.
They can take for granted a generally higher technical and formal tradition, and they themselves will be freed from an over-conscious preoccupation with the methods and the mechanism of their work.
Their attention will naturally be more than ever concentrated on the proper discrimination of their subject-matter; and just in so far as they are competent to create an impression or a following, that impression should be more profound and the following more loyal and more worthy of loyalty. Above all, a substantial improvement in the purposes and standards of individual self-expression should create a more bracing intellectual atmosphere.
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