Commentary “Attention must be paid!” Or so says Mrs. Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman,” first performed in 1949. In their context, her words refer to the neglect by her two sons, Biff and Happy, of their father, her husband, and of his sufferings. But the passive construction, making “attention” the subject rather than the two boys, who are supposed to be doing the paying, has made that line resonate far beyond its time. Post-war America was in a mood to be told that the little people, people like Willy Low-man (get it?), who lived everyday lives and did everyday jobs, deserved some recognition—not just from their families but from society as a whole. Aaron Copland had written his famous “Fanfare for the Common Man” just a few years earlier. Like Miller, Copland was on the political left. The public was not in a mood, however, nor …