Peter Viereck discussion, part two

I think that one of the one of the

ideas of being an artist one of the things about an artist's. Activity

what he does which is very important for society

is. For the most part not recognized by that society. And

for the most part he is not the kind of way that

society tries to get whatever meaning there is in what he does what he

makes. And I think that it has something to do with the fact

that the artist within our society right now

is almost the only person who makes a thing.

First of all makes a thing which exists

primarily for its own sake for its own reference which has

value because of what it is rather than for any kind of

statement that it makes about a political or social position explicit

statement or rather than that it has any kind of

function as decoration or as entertainment.

It is something he makes a thing. It's

something which has its own value its own presence is its

reason for being and that's all. And in society

now in an in America now almost nobody except the artist I would say

nobody except an artist does this kind of thing and I think that this is this is a

very important. This is what the primary function of an artist is.

Now the artist as a political being as a person who unlike anybody

else who may pay as income tax or buy groceries or support a family

or whatever may take a political position a very explicit political position on a

question like Vietnam or anything else just the same as any other man can.

But the thing the issue that I'm trying to raise is that I think that he has

something more to contribute than that. And I think that the thing that he

contributes is the idea that he can become so

absorbed or one can become so absorbed in. Thing

in a concrete present thing that that can be a world maybe this is a

kind of Ivy ivory tower concept of the artist and in that

sense maybe also I'm getting back to something else that you were talking about.

But I think that this far from being very precious and far from making

him a very removed person from all of the

attitudes are what is civilization this

particular culture is I think far from now.

I think this is the one thing which he can uniquely contribute or

make for the people of his own

time and place of the other thing is that the artist

almost uniquely now. Is responsible for the thing that he

makes. Nobody else in our society who makes a thing who is responsible

for the manufacture of a thing just about is totally

responsible for the thing that he makes.

That is he's a cog somewhere among many people

who are responsible for the thing which is made of the manufactured article for the

for the artifact. And this isn't true of all artists it's true of poets and it's true of most

painters is true of most of hers it isn't true say of composers because a composer has

to be dependent on the performance. But I think this is something else which is an important issue which hasn't been

raised at all here and I would just like to bring it up here that the artist

is responsible alone for the thing that he does and it if he makes a

lousy painting then he has made a lousy painting and it's nobody else's. You know it's nobody

else's bag.

If he makes a terrific painting then he has made that terrific painting and

he has a kind of sense of elation and responsibility which almost

nobody else in society can have. And it seems to me

that the artist within society functioning through our society

can be that kind of guy who does this for all of the people

in all in his time and in his place in his country and

his century whatever it is he can be the guy who does this kind of

thing and I think that this is a very important role for

him to fill.

This may be very much off the thrust of what's been said before but.

It was the most relevant thing so got an essential

point which is that there is nothing more useful

than the useless. There is nothing more social and

ethical than the seemingly anti-social and anti

ethical withdrawal of the authors in every case societies that were

pragmatic and said the scientist must be practical or the poet must write

propaganda have killed sons and killed poetry whereas those that

have allowed pure science useless science the pure

aesthetic joy of speculation such as Einstein whom I cited last night

carried out to them out of this uselessness this poor useless

anti-social joy of speculation come the most. The real I was a cowboy

in a roundabout and similarly the artist who best

fought fascism.

Who wrote poems right the arrow was full of low

level and right minded and sentiments which didn't help a bit

because they were poorly written and had no influence the people who did more against

fascism just staying people that I've known in concentration camps were people who wrote

such that the dignity of men shone with such radiance through them that even though these

poems were not political and had no appeal to march up and down to protest

the dignity of man that came to their beauty was of more social help in letting

people resist than any right

minded progressive propaganda tract propaganda.

Agree with you and I think this has been the most relevant remark

of uselessness. The only remark which didn't disagree with you.

Stick with me by a

lot.

So I think I think you mean I think gently to the left

but individuals and I think I think partly agree there's one other thing however they

can do and you didn't mention. I've talked enough said one word

nobody but the audience does it today in this world of. Oh you and us

robots.

It's spontaneity spontaneity.

We could could we say that we are responding to

let's say a political way and respond in a unique

way that is not however completely socially relevant.

Yeah absolutely but he may respond as a man as any other man made nice taking

a position and by stating his position one way or the other. But the thing

that interests me is not his role as a man because we all have that right.

Everyone has that role.

Yes but what does he have which is unique and which is you know

I feel that in light of all this Miss said the artist is a human being after all.

And that we can lose his identity just as easily as quite shocked

or anyone else. He can be subject to academia

and lose his identity as a personality and his individuality. He

can do it through becoming souped up on technique and technique alone

or spontaneity and spontaneity alone. He can do it by succumbing to

modern technology to the point where he's lost completely his identity and you have the

object that is foreign to you and only that. The artist is not there any

longer. This is there a danger it's a trap. That the artist is subject

to these things as much as anyone else and particularly so today.

I hear tape music and I admit that it would take a giant to make this a kind

of individual performance and we have some giants but there certainly are damn few.

But it is very real a very real danger. I think artists can lose is

I am a lawyer.

I think what you're talking about is you're not trying to make a distinction between good art and bad

I have what you would known not oh no you're wrong and I think you

have objects which you feel I have no doubt.

Say you're wrong and you say that I'm thinking I don't have that

danger existed since the beginning of art if you want to call it that we have not

judging anything contemporary or otherwise as I said it could be less an

academician he could be lost and still life painting or whatever the hell it might be. But

it is a danger and we're subject to it like anyone else

and I don't think that we can just say gee here we have all of our little spontaneity aren't we grand

and are we doing the world a great good. A hell of a lot of pain and

passion and love and dedication and individuality. You want to call it that. And

because you're an artist does not necessarily mean you have been given a god give

license to inspire the world or poets or writers yet

are scientists or whatever have you.

Yeah no I agree with that.

Why not come for. The people that have been

talking here the most about her. Will that have been speaking for the last few minutes have been mostly

artists I'd like to put in a few words for you. You know people who write

and I think I think that and I think that one of the dangers and perhaps Mr. Gregg is

extremely aware of this is one of the horrible dangers of the literary community

is that they do write and they communicate in such a sense

that everybody's extremely aware of whatever other people are thinking.

And it becomes extremely important. The idea of ideas and communicating

in a it gradually gets to a sense of great cleverness. You know

everybody wants to share the same ideas and you belong to one Basque intellectual literary club

now. I hate to do it to get back to you now that's the most recent thing I can think of Mary

McCarthy trotting over to Vietnam with in her mind you know well I'm going to show those guys

something and I'm going to go over there and just write awful things by everybody. And

she went over there and. Mimic Iraqi darling of the

intellectual community went over there. To try to show up another ex darling.

John Stanley who had written some things she didn't like because John Steinbeck is

out of the intellectual community. And then McCarthy is in.

And it gets to be that much of the comedy out of how Rambo is to have him to be there

in the game something which went on that all day I want to be very sure there is I think that many

people have been get the idea that you are equating somehow courage with intellectual accuracy.

You know I'm not saying that perhaps the ideas are not extremely accurate. What I'm saying is that

they are becoming more and more an individual organized corporation like you can see

for example they all join a little club to pick up the page ad in The New York Times saying I am an intellectual on

the literary intellectual for which reason I am by definition John John John John John it's a

horrible thing. You know when you start being at the Divine the literary mind.

And you come to the ideas that they have on political issues are

more and more predictable and less and less individualistic. It's almost as if you know the cliched

society that John Gavin spoke about earlier has taken over that the literary world where we all

work in a little club you know and everybody we all get together

and share ideas and if you if your ideas are you know considered not you know not intellectual

at the time but there's something gravely wrong with you and boy are you like John

Steinbeck's.

Young lady a lot of weight about her now there is a danger of

pro-Castro her over here intellectual and you almost had the misfortune napping in

the park here and I would have not been brave and courageous by standing against the government and

you'd go home already feel that you are going to get a vision what does one do.

About one's ranks regardless of the consequences other fads.

It was almost prima facia evidence against an intellect if he even knows what the fat is.

There should be a kind of innocence that one shouldn't even know what is fashionable and

I agree with your statement and with one proviso that you are not attacking only the left

because there are equal fads on the right in other words if you are in the local

American Legion of a small town then the chic fad would

be to say bomb those bombs let's bomb Hanoi and so

on and I would condemn this kind of collaboration is just as much

as the sheik left collaborationists the Mary McCarthy as a

clinical obviousness of making indignant noises

fairly safely at cocktail parties. But let's also condemn the American

leader right wing club business which. Wants to escalate

the bombings and so on and the shelter

comes to my presumably and brandishes where you have to be a member of the at certain

club Bananarama a deep thinker on the right because he doesn't exist as a

mine and doesn't belong to you know

very well this is why I'm against Right right right right wing idiots as much as it is against left wing ones

with this difference the right wingers at least admit they're conformist whereas the Left left

left things around that worried us a great individualists they are just like everybody else.

But it strikes me the artist has that great discipline as well as a great deal of spontaneity.

Yes they know something if they have some techniques before he can utilize his

spontaneity rap even though the artist does what may be thought of as

useless. He also does it in ways which are useful that is a great deal of marketing

appears in churches. A great deal of art that has occurred in terms of some kind of

context in which people are appreciative. I

have not met many artists or must say or know many artists who don't want their work to be seen.

I don't want to have a place. So if we can talk about spontaneous a great word we're all for

spontaneity we're all for protest. We're all for self-expression. But we're

wrong. It strikes me too for some framework within which it occurs and the

difficult problems don't seem to me to be answerable by the kind of

apparatus the kind of discussion that we've been having we're off of the private life

to be sure but not completely for the completely privatized life because that becomes a

part from any tradition apart from any kind of a continuity.

So that I I find it rather difficult to. To grapple

with what has become now an either or kind of proposition but how the two mesh together

sure we all we all want to care and not care we all want as George

Orwell put it we want to give the raspberry to the the formalin the serious at

some time. We want the underside of the oversight of how much and when and where

becomes a regular problem. So we can all agree on these things that the more we start talking about something like

Vietnam we separate because the abstractions are not for us.

I responded why don't you know the question of the art in the churches which is

presumably didactic and which has a kind of function or

use in that art for

us now is not in its value for us now

is not in that it illustrates a certain kind of story

or it's not in its didactic function. We have that

in all kinds of second rate artists well isn't first rate arc. And you know from the

same period Medieval art Renaissance art whatever the function of that

art. Well it has no real function the value of that art for us although it does have a

didactic kind of function. The real value of that art for us is what it is

as a thing. I have as you know I would just as art but I mean is it because I'm not sure that

I'm not saying that art might not have a function of entertainment instruction

whatever but if that's its principal value and its principal value is not what

it is as a presence as a thing then for me it's not. It's either not serious art

or not good art or not interesting art to me it doesn't exist as art for me.

I guess I just want to make that distinction I want to make that distinction and

perspective from memory here universal element of some

kind of and I have got the necessity of discipline but I also believe in the

necessity of the impulse and the spontaneity.

Are you suggesting the bedroom again or let the guide

play to the peculiarity of his work with the

artist and are private rather than public.

Yes I would say so and I would say within the object that he makes use of the fang that

he makes takes on a kind of existence a kind of sounds corny to

say so but a kind of life of its own it becomes something separate from the artist who made it.

With jazz itself it's you know it's its own thing. It has its presence its important to

us because of what it is as a thing and not because of what it does for us

not because of there it entertains us or decorates our walls are it

tells a story or whatever. But may do all of those thing yes.

Inform the parent of everybody heard them Professor McGonagall stressed grasses.

There's no spontaneity and because there's some record lows again

I think what I object to is extra not mechanical.

Empire was filmed by a government dictatorship

Midwest congressman saying I'm against abstract

but I think we both accept discipline and family if it's organic form which

grows out of its subject I don't think either of us have a reverse SSN so to speak.

So there's no contest at all between spontaneity and on the contrary

in poetry reading up the lecture but the afternoon poetry reading

yesterday I was asked as a matter of riled ness

and spontaneity Oh is it a matter of strict craftsmanship and the answer is very simple strict

while this summer one of your current artist want to

have a man who can.

Thank you want to wait. Well what. I saw is a car

man gives you are this morning ban. Their. Right.

As guides say persecuted

because of technological image of Perseus us were the ones that have quite

humorous old. Person very similar

yet we are one of the major.

Difference. But I'd rather not go there first. All the terror

I don't want my career is based on the love my things and I was for his good

love my parenting Otherwise I'm the bread of life the name of

heaven I'm I'm going to fight this you are just saying sure you're wasn't being picked up.

We are the ones you have here this

is one person had three o'clock in the morning.

If you're an athlete you're kind of artist

bad good bad bad bad.

Possible with the book or.

Other words by

Alex. Yeah cool develop

the whole. Building before packing

people together with

a real possibility of being wrong are we.

Crap I think I think you know we're here. Are.

There. Any. Part of this.

By varying numbers of people I want

from the odds are against us I agree.

Minute Gesta that's where they're just as minute. It has to be made anyway not just by

the artist who are not sacred. No no better than anybody else no worse

Philistine resentment against artist which we've just heard expressed is really not to be

ridiculed by you because our gains of the artist against the Philistines is even worse.

Therefore my heart goes out to this loquacious Philistine because I prefer him to the

hour again artist who thinks that just because he's an artist he can be and Marlon in

every possible field and not made his death in the take care of his family. So

so so that I have great sympathy for for the Philistine I think I'm

lying to them and they're raving not time over this ungainly fowl to hear

discourse so plainly yet they always discuss

little meaning the Romans. I think I think this was a very plain and

forthright remark and I'm fed up with it. Just because the

artist can behave badly. They had their neighbors or

anything else need to be sacred. No Should a big girl or the girl is

under the same ethic alone as everybody else

although they're against a sacred event happened and the

fact they have the same kind of commitment.

The principles of the ordinary jackass.

Why should I justify that as let's say an opposite as you know the

idea they justify themselves with was a notion that was that all women are

claiming that we need you know all sorts of stuff heart of man and the artist the

fags and their finding all sorts of ways to avoid principles in

order to continue to create their works of art and they're

not standing up for the principle of whatever the devil it is they're going to make you for in

terms of what we're talking about now stand up for those who are. Disapproving of what the nation is

doing.

How can you say the artists are not elite and you cannot tolerate this

when just before you doubt that they believe they have to

care all the time not enough the ordinary Jap has no alternative blasted

all he can justify himself and said what I have to you know I have to be careful now

as Peter wise you know sat in his cellar hole. I gotta play it cool man if I go out they are

not that guy that's being thrown out of his house. They're going to throw me in agreement on stuff

and you know look at me like man I'm creating all sorts of beautiful things here and

I'm gonna do a hell of a lot more for the Third Reich and for the future by staying alive than by

committing myself and getting killed. So there's a contradiction.

And what I was saying initially I'm repeating right now it seems to me and I know all

along with his tremendous a lofty concept of the artist that there is a time

and especially today it seems to be good and we can believe in the honesty you certainly the actuals we don't believe that

just because intellectuals get together and discover that there is an organized the sense

that it's a fad and therefore spurious to be honest.

We have a record of how disastrously wrong in things like the Moscow trials and style of the writing of

intellectuals in office so much wronger than that of the ignorant and the ungainly

fall that that I statically I maybe with the oddest but ethically I

think he's having at least Stalinist the under-educated non-AA distemper

has a has a better record the intellect just cannot claim to be an elite and because they've been

so disastrously wrong and wrong and not even for good reason but working out

neuroses within their own family in the revolt that then were well

satisfied overall that gets a book about father but it being for Stalin and

do this disgraceful record I don't think the artist is belongs to any that kilt

elite he belongs to an aesthetic elite of course he does

but then the good belongs to a craftmanship elite everyone who who does a good

job has its own kind of kind of elite.

The plumbers that Moscow tell you that I have data they I cited a

poll which showed that the less education people had the more they believe that

Stalin was a dictator rather than a Democrat was a better racket.

You've been listening to a discussion of a lecture by Peter Bergen titled The fight for

creativity and personality in a machine age this lecture and

discussion were a part of the University of Illinois Centennial symposium sponsored by the

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. This was the final program in this

series. Ma'am and the multitude is a feature

presentation Abhi University of Illinois radio service.

This program was distributed by a national educational radio. Based is

the national educational radio network.