NEW YORK AND THE NATIONAL CULTURE
WILLIAM PHILLIPS: This evening is the first of a series of dicussions of
subj ects of intell ectual and public interest. These evenings have been
made possible by a grant from the New York Council for the
Humanities, of whi ch Ron Florence is the director.
Las t weekend
I
attended a conference on the future of the New
York intellectual community, and the general feeling was that the
future of the New York intell ectual community was in the past. The
subj ect for thi s evening is the rela tion of New York intellectual life to
the na tional culture, and
I
do not think the gloom is going to be
dispell ed tonight. Nor is the gloom lessened when we consider that
the fa te of the city itself is uncertain . As you know, the rela tion of the
culture of Pa ris to the rest of the country, or tha t of London to
England, would be considered an absurd question. And the reason
for tha t is obvious. The intell ectual elite of France and England
reside mostly in Paris and in London . But, in Europe, the question
of where people live is thought of as accidental, a t most as a
geographical question, no t an intell ectual question . The reason why
the question can be asked h ere, and why it seemingly h as some
pertinen ce, has a lot to do with the na ture of thi s country, with its
history and with the development of American culture, which
involves a hostility towards the centers, towards the cities, and
mostl y towards New York.
It
is a hostility and a suspicion tha t to
some extent goes both ways. And in recent years the antagonism
between ew Yo rk and the rest of the country seems to have been
heightened for a number of reasons.
I
think two o f the main reasons
are the diffusion of the national culture by the mass media, and the
general dispersal of intell ectuals and writers throughout the country,
a kind of brain drain of New York by the universities throughout the
country.
Furthermore, the idea of a single or central tradition has been
eroded, and in keeping with the new pluralism
I
expect tha t our
three speakers, Irving Howe, Hilton Kramer, and Morris Dickstein
will have quite different approaches to the subj ect.
EDITORS' NOTE: T he even ing on ew York and the National Culture was held on
December 13, 1976 at the G raduate Center of the City Uni versity of New York.
