newspaper a debate over the merits
of swing as against rebop. One
could only admire the intelligence
and scholarship and seriousness of
the disputants. Yet at the same
time one was a little chilled to see
how far ideology had gone. The
matter was argued in terms which
would not have been out of place
at some Plenum of Musicologists,
so clear were the antagonists about
the bad final implications of one
preference or another. And only
last night I was given a kind of
confirmation of my fears-in a sur–
vey of another school it was found
that all the convinced Stalinist
children of Stalinist parents said
that they preferred New Orleans
jazz to rebop. I myself have no way
of evaluating their preference but
I think I can evaluate their rea–
sons: they said they found rebop
too difficult, individual, and intel–
lectual. On further questioning,
however, it was disclosed that they
] 6215 franklin ave. hollywood 28 calif.
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CREATIVE
F I L M
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ASSOCIATES
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progra01
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Fl LM EXERCISE
-4
&
5
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dynamic color abstractions
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with synthetic sound by John
·~
&
James Whitney
• 5
FR~~t~nEc~To?F;h~E~~~~~ent
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Norcissus by Curtis Har-
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rington
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color morphology of flux
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by Robert Howard
1:
ESCAPE EPISODE
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poetic study of moral
con~
ij
flict by Kenneth Anger
720
preferred New Orleans jazz only for
polemical purposes-actually they
didn't like it at all, what they really
liked was folk ballads.
This is funny no doubt, and yet
it is rather grimly significant of the
adult cultural world which it re–
flects. We live in a cultural situa–
tion in which it is the mark of in–
tellectual power and virtue to deal
with everything in its ultimate pos–
sible value and to deal with every–
thing in terms of polemic. This
characterizes our intellectual life at
every point.
I proposed our private selves as
the second of two contexts. I can–
not undertake to speak of what
goes on in the hearts of others, but
looking at my own emotions I must
recognize how fierce are my first
responses to works of art and
thought I don't approve of, how
violent and bitter I feel toward
them, how much I want to injure
their standing. I am naturally in–
clined to think that I am not alone
in this habit of intellectual re–
sponse.
What do I want to imply?-that
the extension of the intellectual life
which we have been witnessing for
many decades is inevitably a dan–
gerous thing? or that the intellec–
tual life should be carried on with–
out passion or without final com–
mitment? You will scarcely sup–
pose that this is my intention. I
am trying to make real the situa–
tion in Russia by making it con–
tinuous with what we take for
granted among ourselves. To un-
