Vietnam War Report; Artists

What are we going. OK. This is the Vietnam War report. Tonight the report looks at the writer in the war. I guess a poet Adoree enrich author of the necessities of life. And Alan Grossman whose most recent volume of poems is entitled The reckless. Mr. Rich what is it about the war in Vietnam that dropped so much animated criticism from artists and intellectuals. Well I suppose you could ask what is it about any war that has in the past and does still draw animated criticism and cause great concern artists and intellectuals. Probably one looks back to World War One in which in the beginning of the war it seems that poets and writers more or less accepted the old notions of glory and patriotism went forth to fight there was even a brigade a regiment in the British army known as the artists rifles. And when Thomas was a member of it and gradually

you can see in the poetry produced during that war the growing disenchantment and the growing sense that the great Ahar and waste was being perpetrated that could be justified by any reasons of state. I think as speaking for myself purely for myself in this occasion it became borne in upon me about a year ago that this war was absolutely indefensible. And that we were getting deeper and deeper into something which was not only unjust as regarded the country we were fighting which we were claiming to protect but that we were doing ourselves a great internal injury as a nation. Grossman Yes Miss Richards put it in a cogent way. The writer is in some sense a custodian of value particularly the person of the alley or individual life

and this war more than any public event which I can remember that is within my experience represents a corrosion of the sentiment of individual value at the same time. It represents a corruption in terms of the public statements with respect to value the words honor and patriotism in this war. PR reform more corrupt than I could have imagined 10 years ago. All acts of humanity conceive in terms of our leaders parade with the heart of Christ on their sleeve and act in name of Caesar. The authors feel this war is particularly senseless. Hundreds of expensive really contrived deaths which no value inherent in the event compensates either the nation or the individual for all individuals who are part of a nation gaging this war must feel particularly and specifically and

individually betrayed. It is for this reason that the artist becomes more than commonly alert in the presence of this event. Looking at the American past we can pick out a number of periods when the artists couldn't care less about what was going on around him for instance in the 20s. George Jean Nathan wrote if all the Armenians or beat were to be killed tomorrow and half of Russia would have starved to death the day after it would not matter to me in the least. Concerns me most is myself in the interest of a few close friends and HL Mencken wrote it. I'm convinced of anything it's that doing good isn't bad taste. This was the area of the 20s but recently in the 50s we've known it's a similar kind of silence on the part of the artist. Do you think this is change when if you do what do you think has brought it about. Well the change took place by way of the course of history itself the association of the artist with political events in the 30s prepared us prepared us to respond in effect as we are now

responding the hiders of the Second World War was of massive importance but there it was possible. And I think retrospectively it's still possible to sort out questions of value. The turning of the poetic art toward the representation of private points of view disable the artist in the 50s from responding the poetic artist in the 50s from responding directly to the Korean War. But at present it is just that routing of the poetic art and the private point of it which makes it possible indeed necessitates the artist response to a current situation where the totality of it has been invaded by meaningless public acts which betray any individual as I have said who seriously regards the relation between his citizenship and his you know being. There's also the fact the bomb which has made it so abundantly clear to all of us that. We are going to have a private vision to express or be in a position to express it. If we

drift closer and closer and closer to the point where our leaders can tell us as it seems they soon may. The only alternative the only way of getting free of this ghastly situation is the use of nuclear weapons. Let me add that in some sense the motive of the 20s in so far as they were moved is of art the artist of the 20th removed by a political motives was a perfectly accurate perception that art is at bottom not creative or political positions. It is however that both the servant and in some states of culture the only spokesman of right sentiment. And it is out of the spokesman of right center sentiment hidden voice capable of representing the you know particularly of private feelings that become to gauge at this point. But I would repeat that art is not itself creative a political position. It has been many times exhibited becomes itself corrupt would extend itself toward

merely political and objects. Yes I think you're absolutely right and I think so. You have to say that at this point the political in the largest sense the fate of the world and our private fate seems to converge in a way that perhaps it never has. That seems to be exactly correct so that we can speak both with the authority of the artist and with the authority of the divinity of the heart. And indeed we are required to do so. I have St. theorizes that in the 50s the reason for the silence was McCarthyism and that the reason why more people are speaking up now is that McCarthyism is sort of gone away and and people now are reacting to that. Do you think there's anything in that. I don't know whether I think McCarthyism has gone away I think it's there below the surface ready to spring forth and has in some cases sprong. One thing I think that those of us who lived through the McCarthy era learned from it was that it is terribly important to speak

out and to go on record and that as many people as possible must do so in order to create a climate in which there is a there is a a safety for those who dissent. You cannot let the few dissenters be the only ones to pay the price and agree with them in your heart and say nothing. And I think a great many intellectuals artists writers today feel that they have a peculiar obligation not to let that conspiracy of silence happen again. What was it like for intellectuals during the early 50s. Well I again can only speak from what I personally remember. There was a curious stunned sense that one really didn't know what was happening that there was a a strange reversal of all sorts of values that you assumed to be taken for granted such as loyalty to one's friends and so on and you saw it among your

acquaintance or you were among the friends of your friends. Actual cases of account of disloyalty to the individual. Which was justifiable Perhaps Oh perhaps not from actually fear for one's situation one's career one's position in a difficult world. But this is very demoralizing and I should deeply regrets you know. Grossman I have no no direct personal experience of political life in the early 50s I was an undergraduate at Harvard at that time. But I would not claim for the honest leadership in respect of political sentiment that perfectly clear that since the Korean War and primarily as a result of an enormous amount of successful activity the nonviolent activists sought on domestic issues in particular on the problem of segregation and voter registration we have achieved a level of moral

sensitization which is vastly superior. As I say I do. The community we have achieved a level of moral sense is Asian which is vastly superior and more important than that level which was achieved by the artistic community at large. Fifteen years ago our response is in some sense a reminder that it is a belated response. It strikes me that it is indeed evidence of the fact that artists is not usually not in effect a leader of political sentiment in the public. I would not claim that Foliott is well behind the protests of American artists over the issues such as the Vietnam War. Why is the assumption that the the artist has an important voice in society and yet so Bella has written. No wonder the really powerful men in our society whether politicians or scientists hold writers and poets in contempt they do it because they get no evidence from modern literature that anybody is thinking about any significant question. What does the radicalism of radical writers nowadays amount

to. Most of it is hand me down Bohemianism sentimental populism D.H. Lawrence and water or imitation Sarge. For most American writers radicalism is a question of honor. They must be radicals for the sake of their dignity. But a radicalism of posture is easy and by now radical criticism requires knowledge not posture not slogans not rant. What do you think of that. I will say on the whole that absolutely correct though with the flourish of an vicious writer he overstates the case somewhat. As I have said I will not claim for the artist any peculiar leadership in this matter. I will not however say that the relation of art to society goes by way of the peculiar liquidity of the artistic necessity itself since the advent of the bomb. The poet in particular had been reaching toward an image on his social experience but has not achieved an image of its social experience in the

20s. The onus was capable in the wasteland the great poems of Yates and to a lesser extent the poems pound of frost to achieve an image of a society as a whole and not draw very distinct lines from his own. Personal position to the world at large since the advent of the bomb and probably since the Second World War itself we live in effect in an image of this world. We have been incompetent of conceiving it as a whole and incarnate to mourn for the immense disaster the multitudinous and as yet unexpressed death of the Second World War. The artist is now just beginning to emerge from a mutinous which was cast over him by a collapse of imagination into history as a result of the Second World War and at present I would say we are in a period of of slow painful and to some extent you know effectual regrowth of that capacity to give an image of our social world. And when we achieve it it will be our terrible image indeed. Why

did the second world war create this fact. The second world war with its very clear division between good and evil and with the emergent knowledge that what we knew was not sufficient with it debacle of the. Sense of individual identity in the slaughter of millions of civilians destroyed a conception of individuality which art is based. The agent dissipated was joy at what seems now a senseless and moronic joy. The collapse of imagination the history the politics of artists in the 20s and 30s governed by the necessities of art and not by perception of history were betrayed by history themselves and found to be all wrong. In a sense the imagination was destroyed by the Second World War and the art after the Second World War with its dehumanisation and its personal ism has exhibited the fact that we are in a state of slow regrowth. And that regrowth I say

seems hardly begun. And in the case of poetic art in virtually simple virtually now a mere promise or so or so I feel oh I think I would probably disagree with you or be more optimistic than it is but I got what I was thinking was going back to your. Earlier remark about the debasement of language by politicians by leaders by our government generally is that one of the functions which is a social function of art of literature of writing of poetry specifically and crucially is to keep the language from forming into this debasement keep the words in their pure meanings and with their genuine resonance and genuine reverberations in men's ears. Now this obviously isn't a case of shouting from the housetops to listening. Millions in the case of poetry but I believe that there's a kind of slow

subversive action that good writing has on the spirit and the understanding of the country in which it's done and the language in which it is done that it goes through a few who are able then to express themselves and understand what they feel more clearly and who will not be corrupted and corroded by force of language when they encounter it. And I think this is of the utmost importance but as Mr. Grossman has so emphasized and as I would agree this cannot be done by the artist joining propagandist and using the language at his disposal just as crudely finally as any other propagandist. I would like to just bring developments which has a certain scent in this matter the audience of the put it is a strange fact. If not in this country at least in Europe points such as you are an excellent poet in my estimation at least in part have an enormous

audience felon has at various times been the most popular poet of certain central European countries the influence of India and Japan is not to be overemphasized the poet in English stands as a result of the political dominance of his nation in the center of an enormous audience numbering in the millions and therefore it would seem to be unexampled in the history of the political situation yet to the average man in America even the average probably student Ferlinghetti and other recent beat poets are known at all really I mean they aren't they don't have any anywhere near the esteem that these poets have in Europe. Do you think that the American poet is speaking to the people. Do you think it's possible for him to do that part never speaks to people into debt I'm not selling fat and get a simple sociological Marvel but point of view of the book. But it never speaks to the core and that is without without question a universal universally true statement. How

about Russian poets Russian poets are phenomenon of Russian semi collectivist society and cannot be conceived upon the analogy. We cannot conceive the American situation on the analogy of the situation of the Russian poet. It is an entirely special situation in my estimation. Perhaps it is riches of notions to have the purity of a language which she states and quite rightly states is they in the custodianship of the poet reaches so society to which the poet addressed him so well I was thinking simply of the fact that in fact there are as you point out readers and the audience actually for poetry in America has grown enormously since the 50s even I think that's absolutely the case. And as as these words sink into men's minds because of their use of their own ways of expressing themselves. As I say this can

go out would expand a kind of resistance to corruption in one man makes it easier for corruption to be resisted in another I think there's a kind of chain reaction. And in this sense literature and art are and should be and can be very subversive. It is a kind of underground action and reaction. I think that is absolutely the case the poet is a cultural gladiator who stands in the center of an immense audience who may or may not know his words but nonetheless is sensible of his image and he enacts the cultural act that is to say the act of being human in a society. The quality of that act is measured by the purity and authenticity of his language insofar as it refers to the world. This gladiator stands in an amphitheater filled with onlookers. They may not hold up directly at it and they may be so remote from him as not to hear his words in the wind maybe blowing with a terrible noise but nonetheless he

is heard. And today he has seen literally sensed through to the magnificence of communication media such as this one. To get on with our discussion of the poet in politics some of said that much of the antipathy displayed by intellectuals and writers for the present administration and its policies comes from this administration's lack of grace and style. And what do you think of that. No it comes from the absolute corruption of language that is the corruption of value in the self presentation of this administration and its political acts to some extent. Let me give you an example. Not many days ago the president posthumously presented the nation's highest military honor the Congressional Medal to a negro soldier who performed an agonizingly heroic act as to say who had thrown himself upon a grenade and thus protected his fellow soldiers. The president spoke of this in terms of honor and he spoke upon the analogy of this act of the nation acting from honor and in his mouth on it was a

betrayal in my estimation not only of that soldier whose act was an act of humanity. But of the nation since it places the nation in the service of a great abstraction in the name of which anyone who has a view of history from the point of your language must know great crimes have been committed to act out of honor is to act with respect to an abstraction that has no meaning in contemporary culture and to betray it would seem to me the immense humanity the sacrificial humanity of this young soldier who acted not on out but in my estimation and in the image which he presented to me to protect his fellow soldiers from death. It is a replacement of antique abstractions. It is the substitution of antique abstractions for the real human confrontations which are involved in an extraordinarily complex society and the extraordinary complex social actions involved in conducting a foreign war. That leads me to develop a sense of outrage. The present situation.

Oh yes I was struck when I read that story by the irony unspoken irony in the in the fact that it is after all the more Negroes than any other American citizens who are killed in this war partly because of a kind of draft law which we have. I felt this was a SOP which was being found as a political gesture. I I agree with you and I think I don't think that it has anything to do with absence of grace or style in fact perhaps Grace would be very inappropriate as a as a man for an administration engaged in this might be inappropriate but do you think it would soften criticism among right now like and I do not because it is funny the acts themselves which I think a par and absolutely what you don't mean Grace you mean style that you're looking back toward the Kennedy situation which cannot be replicated or to be replicated the image I think that maybe in the minds of some writers as my one comes from

Nietzsche or Caesar with the heart of Christ. An extraordinary hybrid you know which we see or feel in the language the present president of the nation which attempts on the one hand to feed and care for on the other hand at random and expensively to destroy people with which it has fundamentally nothing to do that is to say that the enemies of people one feels and that a profound duplicity. Which is what I say corrosive and a betrayal in my estimation of my possible citizen and I take it that the Vietnam War its right and its wrong evokes considerable amount of emotion from emotion from writers and intellectuals. I think the point to be made that this is not a concern and that is limited to artists intellectuals and writers that thousands of common people garden variety housewives and ministers and lawyers and doctors and veterans and students and all varieties of Americans have been parading up and down

Fifth Avenue in Washington and in the streets of Boston out of their concern about this war this is not a fad among the intellectuals. Yes and I think what this world demand is a major revision of the self conception of men in this country as citizens for the conception of patriotism has become peculiarly corrupt in relation to this. Yes yes I have marched marched ever since the marches against the resumption of nuclear test nuclear testing and never have I encountered such a mindless puerile opposition as I have in the marches on behalf. It's a sation of hostilities in Vietnam. It is a wake up all of the inherent corruption of the notion of patriotism and what we must demonstrate is that patriotism is not enough in this situation and requires a revision. It is the humane sentiment which respond with outrage. To this alienated

situation the situation in which the death of those who do not oppose us and with whom we have no real transaction do not move us at all. It is a revision of the notion of patriotism that is required and we encounter it with our opposition to this war and more mindless. And it would seem to me expensive form of cultural hostility that never before next Tuesday evening and both of you are going to be involved in a read and I wonder Mr. Grossman if you can tell us what will happen there. Yes writers for peace read it which will take place on May 3rd at 8:00 in Sanders the Cambridge Radians are a very recent development in the emergence of the. Artist in relation to our political situation the regions as a whole are sponsored by a group called the American writers against war in Vietnam. The leaders of this group are such men as Galloway canel Robert Bly David Ray and James

Wright in Cambridge at eight o'clock on May 3rd the following writers will present with William Alfred will show the meeting and will introduce Susan's own dark and Sexton x J. Kennedy Andrea Ridge Robert Bly Richards Galloway canel various backs Alan Duke going below to Carmel David. All writers of great ability and they will read from that work and present. I think statement to respect their sentiment on these matters. Can you give us an idea of something we might hear at that evening where one of your poems I will myself read a poem and I will offer you a fragment from it as a kind of sample. The sense of this poem is the sense of the question of Isaac to his father Abraham. Why are you killing me

in the name of what God and I should put that question. You know poetic form something like this. From the heart of light derives the malevolence of seeing in the insane labyrinth of desire the cretin monster devours the boys and girls sent from the sacred city. Being is dangerous and cannot be put off. It's wars which are not ours. Involve us like a few top litigation you know heritage from an unknown ancestor leading by a measurable tedium to a flavorings stake. It's war those which are not our warriors Deval Ross. Like the hunger of the Han entered into the belly of the wolves of evening which will never be extinguished again. The corpse is the

most philosophical of all those whose breath is like to see who is no longer constrained embrace and cannot be moved who seen you of generation no longer lashes the already taught life and it is easier to give than to receive in the world. Let the litany of be of the braided voices of the child and the father in whose will is no peace. Relinquish empire in the name of love. Make no more desolation in the name of love. Return us to the groves and high places. Thank you Mr. Grossman. Thank you Miss Rich. You have been listening to the Vietnam War report. Our guests tonight poets Adrienne Rich whose most recent volume of poems necessities of life will be published by Norton this month. And Mr. Allen Grossman author of the reckless the Vietnam War report is produced for WGBH by George

Mitchell. I think you said to me that I mean yeah and I go over it.