Another fissure divided prewar from postwar liberals. Instead of arguing for and running public arts programs, public schools, public libraries, and public-minded radio and television programs, liberal intellectuals grew suspicious of mass culture, and, after the war, openly contemptuous of it. In the 1930s, it had been conservative intellectuals who were revolted by the masses; in the 1950s, it would be liberals—a trend that would only escalate over the following decades, and reach a crisis by the end of the century.
