196
PARTISAN REVIEW
exist?" And Cohen said, "Well, perhaps I could, but
to
whom should
I address the proof?"
WILLIAM PHILLIPS: I should tell you that everything is being taped
here this evening. This is not to warn you, this is to tell you that
if
you want your remarks
to
come out clearly, it would be better if you
walk over to the side to one of the microphones.
MARSHALL BERMAN: Just a brief question, but while it's still fresh in
my mind, I'd like Hilton Kramer to tell us the right values that we
should embody and express to the rest of the country... at least some
of them.
HILTON KRAMER: Well, I'm not sure that-I think that subject belongs
to another symposium-but I would begin with some acknowledge–
ment that the values of liberal democracy as they've been developed
in this country are of the greatest priority, are of the greatest value
to
our lives, and that there's something sick about an intellectual class
living in the freest society that history has ever known, to devote
itself to the discussion of repression. I think the issue of the fealties
of family life are something that might engage serious intellectuals
at a time when everything in the culture, whether the mass culture or
the intellectual culture (between which it is often difficult to distin–
guish), is nowadays designed
to
destroy the family.
BERMAN: Can you tell us how we shou ld act with our families?
KRAMER: No, that I am afraid I cannot do.
PHILLIPS: I see a hand way back. Way back on the left. Could you stand
up. I can't see very well. Tell us your name please.
CHARLES PRUETT: My name is Charles Pruett. I'd like to simply ask
how you can discuss the national culture with a panel that doesn't
concern itself with having any women on it, any black people on it,
any Puerto Ricans on it, or any of the people that make up what we
understand to be part of the culture in this country or anywhere in
the world. It seems to me that to sit and lament that the intellectual is
in a dilemma seems to be suicidal. There are a number of things
going on in New York that are changing it completely and I would
think you would spend some time dealing with all the currents that
make a national culture and hope you would make it grow forward
and make it better for all of us rather than sit and lament that we here
in this room are not satisfied WIth our particular goal.
HOWE: I think that's a tiresome point of view. It's possible to discuss
France without being a Frenchman. It's possible to discuss Russia
without being a Russian. It's possible to discuss Italy without being
an Italian, it's possible to discuss women without being a woman.
