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PARTISAN REVI EW
authority free of such pressure.
During the preinnaugural weeks Mr . Carter has proved himself a
serious student of the economy . If the economy does improve through tax
reform and an increase in jobs we will have need of a teacher , a voice
to
demonstrate that a slower rate of development, a leveling off, is not a
national disaster. One of the lessons of Watergate must surely be that the
truth is more acceptable than nursing a neurotic fear of failure .
ROBERT COLES
One hopes that Mr . Carter , once settled into office, will try
to
live up
to
that word "populist" he kept using
to
describe himself when running for
the Presidency; live up to the historical sense of the word - not turn it into
yet another of those political evasions we have learned to expect from just
about all candidates . The populists questioned American capitalism ear–
nestly, thoroughly, without fear. They were black and white, Northern and
Southern , farm people and city people - the so-called working class . For a
brief, luminous moment they asked who owns what and why; and aimed
to
further a localist kind of social and economic justice as a necessary addition
to the Jeffersonian political tradition . They distrusted not only big busi–
ness, but big government . Many of their early jeremiads prophesy our
present condition - the power of the "military industrial complex" over
our national life. Will the self-described south Georgia "populist" stand up
and take on that "complex"? I doubt it . But the problems that "complex"
presents at home and abroad, are the really important ones - and they will
test Jimmy Carter every day, starting late January of 1977 .
RONALD SUKENICK
Every administration has an important effect on culture, an effect that
may in the long run be as important as some of the more obvious policy
stances it takes . As the federal government gets increasing ly into badly
needed funding of the arts and humani t ies, it also increases its potential to
do massive damage
to
the culture. Federal arts and humanities programs are
currently too bureaucratic , too centralized, and too untesponsive to the
cul tural communities they serve . In particular, the relation of government
and the arts has become a significant civil liberties issue . If the present trend
toward bureaucratic control continues, we will soon have a situation in
which a few government functionaries will be in a position to tailor the
entire noncommercial art establishment in a way more subtle and far more
effective than attempts at direct censorship. The Carter administration
