Writer and the welfare state; Writers debate culture and politics

The Swedish Broadcasting Corporation presents the writer and the welfare state. This program has been produced in the studios of Radio Sweden for distribution in the United States by the National Association of educational broadcasters. The cultural level of the country doesn't seem to me this early to rise because people are reading the Bible. All playing they told me. Because in some curious way I've noticed that readers are always respectable and light is modest almost never wrong. The American novelist James Baldwin made that slightly acid statement recently in Copenhagen where he met with 50 other writers and critics from various parts of the world to discuss the subject. The writer and the welfare state representatives of 16 countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain had accepted the invitation of the Congress for cultural freedom the first time the writers of the free world have had the

opportunity to exchange views with publicists representing opposition to the regime in the Eastern countries and in Franco's Spain. To be sure the debate sometimes became heated when political ideologies clashed. Even in the more abstract discussions concerning the place of the writer in modern society. BALDWIN slightly pessimistic conclusion was shared perhaps mainly by the delegates of the Western countries by the delegates from the Eastern Bloc took a more materialistic view of the authors role. But the debates did not immediately warm up Swedish professor Ingomar had India's long active in the Congress for Cultural Freedom open the conference with an address on the nature of the welfare state which appeared to conjure the conclusion that the idea of the welfare state is that it has no idea at all. The professor had in his speech had one concrete result. It started the debate in which the writers agreed that all modern western states are welfare states where their

politicians call them that or not. Even though these states may be at different levels of development. However when the dualism between politics and culture entered the discussion many writers were enticed into making more personal declarations. As for example this one by the monumental Frank OConnor the Grand Old Man of Irish literature that evening taught me one thing about the welfare state that welfare schemes are all very well but they are right exactly as good as the people who run them. A number of suggestions have been made for replacing the words welfare stays. I am inclined to replace the whole thing by calling things like quantity stays. I think we can say truthfully that never since the days of the prehistoric animals a mastodon of dinosaurs has signed is not heard so much in the

world as it does today. Never in the homo history of the world has the quality of life seem to matter less. The individual sees themselves as almost powerless between great organizations of one kind or another to influence anything at home. It would seem that one has to belong to one of these vast organizations and be it by becoming a member of one. One loses that personal freedom that identity which is the most valuable thing we possess as human beings. We find ourselves powerless before these Mastodon means of communication. The film radio television they're all too big they're too unwieldy they're too expensive. So no they can't be trusted in the

hands of dreamers and idealists like you and me. Oh no we've got to get good civil servants good businessman talk around them to make sure that the artists don't make any mistakes and you can see the results for yourselves. I'm an old theater manager and I once set myself the task of trusting getting the cost of Shakespeare's original production of Henry the Fifth. And I decided that it didn't cost him more than a hundred pounds of $2000 Chrome but Lawrence Oliviers film of Henry the Fifth cost a million pounds. Of course it was seen by millions of people who couldn't see the Shakespeare production but because it cost a million pounds and a number of these million people might be idiots these millions of people

all the dirty jokes had to because of it and the play was Doctor like an old time pass. As for television I thought Doug's if there isn't the whole civilized world in the form of entertainment maybe sort of an American television and every serious American critic has said it again and again and never been able to change it by an iota businessman trust a thing like that in the hands of art a certain house. Even in England where cultural and educational organizations have so much more influence than they have in America in television. Just like radio is still subject to the grading system. You can call it the grading grading system by which commercial organizations telephone individuals

and say what show are you looking at now. Do you like it or don't feel like it. Nobody ever asks these people at the end of the telephone what qualifications have you to give an opinion on. Now that's always been a weakness of democracy in politics. The fact that we have to assume and need good taste in a body of civilized people. Otherwise the alternative is tyranny. But when you apply that that theory of democracy to the arts from models to anything to do with the intellectual life it's a disaster and merely to assume that any such taste exists in the vast majority of people is to destroy the basis

of the Democratic side. Would you have one to learn to despise people by relying upon their taste. You Farrell rapidly learn to spy and despise their political attitudes. Now I want to know as but I still you have been saying in the past few days what can the artists and the intellectuals do when the only thing we can do I think is Rios our hearts in our own sphere. Stop standing for any more nonsense and just lay down the law all they say is act. Iris Murdoch the spiritual mother of England's angry young man approached the problem more philosophically. The welfare state she said has realised a number of desirable goals. All of the limited and non theoretical nature. But if we allow the idea of the welfare state to dominate the theoretical side of our existence

we destroy our theories. Iris Murdoch asked What have we lost here and what have we never had. We have suffered a general loss of concepts. The loss of a moral and political vocabulary we no longer you was a spread out substantial picture of the manifold that years of man and society. We no longer see Matt against a background of values of reality is which transcend him. We picture a man as a brave naked will surrounded by an easily comprehended in political world for the hot idea of truth. We have substituted FSI idea of sincerity but real poetry real literature said James Baldwin is not created out of ideas but out of powers that are continually tearing down the house of intellect. He refused to accept the tendency in our day to render the individual anonymous to reduce him to a concept which it can conveniently be filed away for example under the title

the mass the mass he said must in the eye of the writer continually be dissolved into separate individuals because only in that way can the writer identify himself with human beings. Starting from this personal declaration Mr. Baldwin gave what was undoubtedly the conference's most fascinating evaluation of the place of the individual in the welfare state. Fascinating because it was colored by his own personal situation that of an American author. I think a lot. I have to say it may be maybe very obvious that some of it's been said. But I think you contributed to the last few days and I thought I might try to clarify what I have in mind when I said the other day that I was against ideas that I was against the idea. What I meant was this. It seems to me that the only idea

I myself I've used myself as an example because it's only one I can trust. More or less. The only ideas that I've ever come across are always under pressure from the things I discover later. Idea six years ago or even yet last week which I don't really hold now when I say I don't trust ideas but I do trust. I meant roughly that kind of discovery which keeps modifying and modifying the things around you. Clearly you cannot be an artist without being terribly involved with ideas. It seems to me that the relationship between these two things is always very delicate and always very dangerous and a constant. I think I myself feel I must always continue to distrust the ideas I have in order to in order to keep on moving or to keep on discovering what this life is all about now is something else I want to say about the welfare

state and the poverty and all of that. It seems to me insane of course to assume that anybody is against abundance or poverty. The question in my mind is not is not I'm not putting the world up in a way as whether or not people should be starving and it's good for their souls whether they should be fat and that's bad. There's something in between which is very delicate and I can only use what is in Italy a very limited example which may just straight to some extent what I mean. I come from a country which is sometimes called a welfare state and sometimes called other things. But my own background is out of the United States which I have heard about and which most Americans seem to believe in.

It's not a country I have ever seen. I don't know that country. I know that in the context of racial equality. Spent their entire lives. I think they have what looks like. No one can blame these people. Because they all threatened with the loss of everything and it's cost in lives to get.

And at the same time it seems to me that their situation illustrates it illustrates an case to me one of the dangers of what we call the welfare state and that is this that people who think they are safe. People who think that they are welfare people who think they are rich cannot afford literally cannot afford the danger which a new idea always represents. Always comes into the world in a way by violence. The great problem always for any artist and really almost any intellectual is how to survive in his own time without any hope really of being totally accepted by that time to do his work in that time against the great apathy and opposition of the people who make up his time. Now this is a danger which I don't think there's any point in trying to. To pretend it's not that it is perpetual it seems to me it is a responsibility of the authors of the intellectuals to go against the grain to discover and show people

something that they would rather themselves not know. And again I like to talk for a minute and I'm through about the word. This whole question of language in the same way that a country which nominally speaks English and I do yet I come from a language which is not exactly English I'm not sure it's a valid comparison but when we talk about this and the importance of literature for Finland which we have been talking about here it came to my mind that perhaps there is an analogy between that and history of the Negro spirituals in America which were not from a grammatical all previous point of view really written in English were written in some other language which was forced out of these people. So when you talk about the word and we talk about communication this is me there is this question which I cannot answer which is who is communicating what to

whom and what do you do. And what about communication when there's something nobody wants to communicate to someone who does not wish to hear it which is a situation for example of the United States. It is not a mystery to anybody. This I think is very important the situation which United States finds itself in the situation which is which Europe is finding itself and will find itself in tomorrow. In my own experience in talking to a very well-meaning American about life and death of any jazz musician it is on record it's in the papers as perhaps even by this time been televised and yet the truth does not want to hear. He doesn't want to hear it because if he heard it and I think this is very very important if he really allowed it to enter the image of himself which is constructed his image of his history his

and his his he is image of his aspiration would undergo a change which he does not think he could survive in the Deep South. White people are really fighting for the very simple they did what they are afraid is going to be said about them when the truth about comes out. Now the situation in the Deep South is really I think in relief and exaggeration situation of the West and in this context the language the language of the West Country is about to undergo some enormous change. And this is very important. And back to where I started what I was talking about the presumed opposition between ideas and life. Language changes and the pressure of experience and ideas change that way and the world changes that way. And this is what I repeat we really ultimately must rely on. Thank you.

But what a distance between the young enthusiastic American and the equally young poet and critic the representative of the first generation of the Swedish welfare state and a strictly off the cuff remark gave the pessimistic impression that he would rather never have started all that had been helped by the modern state over organized but impersonal welfare operators. Well I want to learn but a little different ideas. My point is. I like that the state of Scandinavia I really do. But I'm at least a little sorry that the state doesn't like me. Well I mean sometimes I when I get ill or get money from the state not so much because arms work I write

reviews to get time to write essays and other unpopular things. But at least money when I get 67 years old I get a state pension when I get children. I get money for them when they grow up. I get money to pay their school and when I go to school I get money to pay their lunch at school. And when I go shopping the welfare state meets me in the form of a special tax which the government in Sweden is taking from all the inhabitants to get money to the welfare. When the welfare state I mean several forms but it's never come to me when I write when I write what I want to write. It happens to be a social democratic state

but it could be in a capitalistic society as well. The government just doesn't bother more about me because it gives wealth to the people. What I mean is that the writer in the welfare state is the same story all over again. If the state is completely new which it seems to be and the writer is complete the relationship between them is the same polite differences before the state doesn't want the writer to it. This situation is perhaps only more apparent because the popular culture gives the right and more possibilities than ever before to write things he doesn't want to write. He can write for TV for the radio or for advertising for popular magazines. In fact it's easier than ever before both to earn extra

money to reach at least a finger or not and to be commercialized. But in a central field nothing is changed. Now I don't want to complain over all this. Right this is not very prophetic minority group. I as prime minister would not deal with or even the place. But perhaps they are not inter state right. At least it begins to look like that in Sweden. Perhaps in Denmark in Norway in Sweden where the possibility to give some kind to all members of the writers union is discussed in the last year. If this is the best solution of the problem I don't know but I don't think that it necessarily would lead to a dangerous dependence. The right is

to the states. Anyhow only a Democratic state would put forward as much without the writers for the writers really needs to. It's quite another matter. Which I think is unreachable as long as art is part of it. Get the money from the. I think you simply must get used. But it wasn't just citizen you had on pot who despaired over the personal or perhaps more accurately impersonal situation in the welfare state. The port of the same name sighed every time the conference ventilated the problems concerning communication possibilities of the written word. He was doing this by all the Nordic writers Danes Norwegians fans and Icelanders as well as Swedes and

even by the Austrian psychoanalyst Igor Caruso. One after the other they asked the pessimistic question what can a poor author do when he doesn't have a world language to express himself in. It was just such a question that could raise the hackles of opposition in Frank O'Connor and provoke him to a paternal but accurate attack on the constant tendency of the smaller countries to discount the value of their own languages. He was impressed he said by the average guy the Navy has knowledge of foreign languages but at the same time he was deeply disappointed by the inferiority complex which crept out every time a Dane or a Swede or a Norwegian talked about his own language. Only five million people speak the language or something to that effect. Again the idea of quantity side O'Connor which contracts the possibilities of the individual of the smaller group are the little nations to influence the development of history. But quantity he reiterated in almost the same words as Baldwin had used in several days earlier with regard to the millions of people who read Plato in pocket

book additions or listen to Beethoven on records. Quantity must not be the hallmark of excellence. Quality is the important thing and the most important impulses often come from the quality products in just one of these small countries. O'Connor concluded by giving his Nordic colleagues this piece of folksy advice and that's it. At the end of the come from the final It has come on the first day we got a split which somebody told the Anglo-Saxon which also represented me neither a name not a Saxon. After that we got the split between the intellectuals and the creative writers. The creative writer is feeling my friend as you don't actually want alum to do odd jobs in his perfect state and they were very resentful. Today I

think I'm not good people and even what I we've reached with Dr. Crew is on the next split which is between the progressive fists and the people like myself that this thing has happened already in history. Dr. Caruso has been telling us that it's not a question of quantity or quantity creates new qualities and we gather around the world is going to get better and better. We're not only going to reach the moon we're going to have lots of films that are going to tell lots of people all about us to lose not trike and Van Gogh and they've never heard of before. And that's a very good thing. And we're going to have pocket books published in 40 million copies. Is that what I got. Surely there's something wrong. Of books which people may read far may not read this I think as pointed out.

A lot of them are not afraid at all. Otherwise we don't have this perfect state in which everybody gets bigger and bigger and bigger. We're going to have a little thing like Liechtenstein. Now I've been talking to you this morning about my the my ignorance on the subject of good. But there was a little state called fine art which has had a great deal more influence on the spiritual top of the world. Than the whole of Soviet Russia said. Don't let's despite the small things I'm speaking in principle to a doctor who's a whore and to Mr. Power who wants to know what you're going to do in Denmark. The alternative he's come from Iraq and in the other small countries the alternative is to organize in a small way. The alternative is that in Sweden and Denmark and Norway the writers get together and

put a few Chrome of their own on the table and start a little fire in a village home where they produce new versions of the Scandinavian sagas for instance the Icelandic sagas we've been hearing about and eventually influenced and told the world. I can tell them exactly what's going to happen. They're going to be back for 10 15 years as the people of the Abbey Theatre. Then the government is going to take it over and flood it with money and everybody concerned and is going to be awfully rich and the writers would have to start off again in another village home doing something equally small and silly. You have heard a programme about the author and the welfare state produced and recorded in the

studios of the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation in Stockholm and distributed in the United States to the facilities of the and E.B. Radio Network. The narrator was Claude Stevenson. And the recording engineer was Peter B.