PARTISAN REVIEW
197
It's possible to discuss men without being a man. It's possible to
discuss blacks without being a black. It's possible
to
discuss whites
without being a white. All that's required is some intelligence in the
doing of it. Now whether or not any intelligence has been displayed
here is for everyone to judge. But the limitations which the three
speakers share, that they are all male, if limitation that be, I don't see
any reason to hold that excessively against them .
PRUETT: You seem
to
imply an objectivity when you haven't even
thought about women and children. How can you be objective about
an issue when you haven 't considered making a choice about it in
terms of...
HOWE: By an exercise of mind.
PRUETT: What exercise of mind?
HOWE: His mind, my mind, his mind, good minds, poor minds,
interesting minds, dull minds, but minds.
PRUETT: But they are assuming that you have the right to lament
somehow.
HOWE: I have the right
to
say anything I wish, as you have the right to
find it inadequate.
PRUETT: But I also have the right to disagree.
HOWE: You certainly do.
PRUETT: And I just think that any discussion of national culture in this
country ought to include all of...
PHILLIPS: I'm more responsible for the make-up of the panel than are
the three speakers. And the only thing I can say is, as some of you
may remember in the 30s, when the Communists had a meeting-a
symposium-on the platform there always had to be the following
representation: there had to be a woman, there had
to
be a black,
there had to be a Jew, there had to be a youth, but, most important,
there had to be a WASP ...because there was a scarcity of WASPS. And
we all thought that was very funny. I think one should address
oneself to what people say rather than what they are. 1 mean,
suppose I were
to
say to you, "How can you judge objectively what
white people are saying?" You know, you could turn it around that
way. I think if you want
to
make any comments about the content of
the talks, it seems to me that's perfectly legitimate.
MORRIS DICKSTEIN: I'd like to go back and make one or two comments
on some of the things that Hilton Kramer said that puzzled me. One
of them is, I was confused by how he could begin by eloquently and
probably accurately denying the continued existence of the New
York intellectuals as a class-or as a coherent group of people-and
