Lasch—Penetralia

Christopher Lasch
Women and the Common Life: Love, Marriage, and Feminism
(1997)

5. "The Sexual Division of Labor, the Decline of Civic Culture, and the Rise of the Suburbs"
(pp. 93-120)

[99] Comparing the new [Boston Public Library] building in Copley Square to European libraries, [Henry] James was struck by its accessibility, its rejection of any suggestion of the mystery or sacred space—"penetralia"—normally associated with a place of learning. A "library without penetralia" struck James as slightly incongruous, a "temple without altars." "The British Museum, the Louvre, the Bibliothèque Nationale, the Treasure of South Kensington, are assuredly . . . at the disposal of the people; but it is to be observed, I think, that the people walk there more or less under the shadow of the right waited for and conceded." The more democratic conception of culture embodied in the Boston Public Library, experienced by James as a "reservation" to his pleasure in the new building, was exactly what commended the place to a young woman from the slums [Mary Antin].

The notion of penetralia, or at least the word itself, seems potentially useful in the ongoing culture war over formality in art and music. No doubt the populist impulse is to do away with it, as here...but note that the substance and orientation of the institution has, in the above anecdote, been scrupulously maintained; rather, it is the ornamental touches (literal ornaments in some cases) which have been carefully reformulated or eliminated while what might be called the content remains heavy-duty and unapologetically formal(istic).

Notwithstanding the above, the fact remains that no penetralia can make you feel inferior without your permission. Hence, for the lack of pretense to commend a place (or not) is really no improvement but merely indicates a caucusing with the antielite side of the aisle and the continuation of the culture war du jour. It is but a stone's throw from here to full-on reverse snobbery. Amenities assuredly at the disposal of the people are as much as we're allowed to demand of our society, perhaps of life in general. Meeting our needs in substance is a right, and in style a luxury; morally, that is, but certainly pragmatically too, because style is divergent and substance convergent.