This is an essay from The Culture We Deserve: A Critique of Disenlightenment by Jacques Barzun.#

In this essay, Jacques discusses problems with current historical research, criticism, and scholarship in general.#

The excuse that may be offered for the New Critics' misconception of history is that in the late nineteenth century, when academics who later taught literature were in their formative years, some historians did put forward the claim their their work was scientific. They were defending their domain against the aggressive self-conceit of the newly redefined "social sciences" and boasting to the world of their own "method" and "rigor." They repudiated those who wrote "literary" history and they eagerly gave up panoramic narratives for narrow "studies," microscopic in detail and free of ideas. In their place, "problems" became the sole justification of research. All the difficulties of life had turned into problems, from which it followed that the only worthy effort was to reach solutions. And nothing but science had solved or would ever solve a problem.

The paradox in the New Critics' assault is that under its pressure departments of ENglish in colleges and universities began to admit avowed critics into their ranks; and as soon as this surrender occurred, the New Criticism became a method; the study of literature was turned into problem-solving, while the creation of the work was also regarded as problem that the author had or had not successfully solved. The metaphors had to "work out," the structure to be tested at every joint; nothing flawed or excrescent could pass this engineering survey. [pg. 77]

A problem with methodology, is that when all you have is hammer, everything is a nail.#

Reinforced by the new interest in the metaphysical poets and the revived attention to Dante and Melville, the scrutinizing shortly transformed criticism into the decoding of ciphers. Every piece worth studying was found to contain "levels" of meanings; words and images meant anything but what they seemed to say. In short, the great writers of the world seemed to have worked in one genre only: allegory. [pg. 78]

Jacques begins to talk about a program of "Cultural Criticism" a colleague and he came up with.#

For cultural criticism presupposes the factitiousness of theory and the unsuitability of system when it comes to understanding art. One reads a poem as one reads a face-with a great deal of attention, knowledge, and experience of reading. There is only this difference, that one may stare at a poem. As for knowledge and experience, they can grow in regions apparently far from poems. Unexpectedly, long after, a fact or memory links itself with a verse or a rhythm to enrich a true reading. The great point is that none of the elements brought to bear is ever regarded as determinant, as a cause; it is only a condition, whose force is gauged, like everything in immediate experience, by the esprit de finesse. [pg. 84]

Jacques discusses the differences and similarities between a cultural critic and a cultural historian. The critic deals with contemporary works and thus cannot be as decided. But the historian is different,#

But, it may be asked, why should the historian venture to perform a task bound to be partial in both senses? The critic is need in order to sort out current production, but the historian can wait until we area ll dead and our full selves appear. This objection ignores the duty that goes with knowing something of the past. The cultural historian's motive is not the dubious pleasure of fault-finding. Rather, it is to reaffirm and perhaps strengthen what he thinks valuable in the activities of the culture makers, who are always subject to the distracting forces of fashion and competition. [pg. 85]

He closes by pointing out that criticism and historicism cannot predict the future of art, and thus life.#

It is useless to ask what the new art and culture will be like. The genuinely new comes only by concrete example. In any case, a critic deals only with the actual. On this principle, and in the present moment of dissolution, he can only say, like the Virgin in Chesterton's ballad: [pg. 86]

I tell you naught for your comfort,
Nay, tell you naught for your desire,
Save that the day grows darker yet.
And the sea rises higher.

A much more wholesome and beautiful way of asserting that only "Death and Taxes" are predictable.