Highbrow and Lowbrow are not extremist positions, and highbrows and lowbrows get along pretty well — condescending to one another, perhaps, but affectionately. Woolf is right about this sort of thing, I think. Still, Woolf’s her tripartite model is too simplistic, if not so simplistic as Van Wyck Brooks’ binary model. We’re working on a much more complex model featuring Highbrow, Lowbrow, Anti-Highbrow, Anti-Lowbrow, High Middlebrow, Low Middlebrow, Nobrow (not John Seabrook’s version), and of course the elusive ideal of Hilobrow. We posted Woolf’s essay not because it expresses our own view, but merely as a historical reference.

Now, why can’t you appear on the BBC and also complain about it? I’ve never understood this rule. I’m not the biggest Jonathan Franzen fan, but I thought it was crazy that he was pilloried for wanting to appear on “Oprah” while also expressing reservations about his non-middlebrow book being praised to the skies by an avatar of Low Middlebrow. This is middlebrow’s omerta — say nothing bad about the cultural marketplace!

You’re wrong to suggest that today’s newspapers — at least papers like The New York Times or The Boston Globe — are unbalanced. (If we were talking about English newspapers like the overtly liberal Guardian, yes, I’d agree.) To say there’s no difference between the way the Times covers a story and FOX News does is to be misguided. However, I agree with you that people in these politicized times want to read unbalanced news — American liberals find the Guardian, and HuffPo, a source of delight when they’re feeling anxious — and this is surely contributing to the decline of the two papers I’ve mentioned, among others.

Thanks so much for your thoughtful comments — I hope I’m not coming on too strong. You’re helping me work out my own thinking about these topics…

Woolf is very careful to distinguish her criticism from snobbery; in fact, she considers snobbery (though she doesn’t use the word) to be middlebrow. I consider snobbery an Anti-Lowbrow thing, A-L being an extremist position that complements Highbrow… whether highbrow likes it or not (generally, I think, not). But that’s another story. A snob looks down on lowbrows; Woolf insists again and again how much she admires and likes her lowbrow acquaintances. As noted in a post we did on the pro-Middlebrow pitbull Russell Lynes, Middlebrow’s first line of defense against its critics is always the same pseudo-populist attack: “Only an elitist, a mandarin, would ever criticize Middlebrow.” It’s true that elitists and mandarins criticize Middlebrow; but they’re not alone.

You say: “As for the Betwixt and Between Company, they were not averse to broadcasting defences of the highbrow by Virginia’s Bloomsbury friends, including Harold Nicolson and Leonard, as well as criticisms of it by the likes of Priestley. If that makes the BBC middlebrow, so be it; I prefer to think of it as balanced.” Balanced and middlebrow are not mutually exclusive! In fact, Middlebrow is all about balancing, having things both ways, the cozy dialectical synthesis, the win-win. As a former newspaper staffer, and someone who likes to read about the history of newspapers, I must confess to having some sympathy with those who suggest that they’d like to see a return to the era of unbalanced newspapers — when an informed citizen would typically buy several newspapers, and sort out the conflicting claims for herself. I’m not saying that’s the policy of Hilobrow.com, but I do think that “balanced” middlebrow journalism is on its way out. For better or worse.