ROBERT BRUSTEIN
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to
look like envious malcontents or anti-social exiles or quixotic
Utopians. In the confrontation between minority critics and
media apologists, the tone of argument is becoming accusatory,
acrimonious, defensive, sullen. How can this dialogue be
cleansed of its personal animus so that the underlying issues
may be examined and discussed?
My other question is related: how can intellectuals effec–
tively combat the HAL-controlled system? How does one con–
tinue to support the values of art and collaboration in a society
permeated by the opportunistic commodity values of corporate
capitalism? I would suggest that this can be done through a
revival of criticism, through personal example, and through
developing once again a set of political and economic alterna–
tives to our present system.
Towards the end of
2001,
the surviving astronaut, Dave,
saves his life by methodically disconnecting HAL's intelligence
function, reducing him from a sentient being to a routine
vehicular monitoring device. He does this with his bare hands,
and with an obsessive concentration that is fixed unwaveringly
on his goal, while the computer sings, in a wobbling bass voice,
that popular favorite "A Bicycle Built For Two. " HAL, in short,
can
be disconnected and disarmed, and turned back to his own
culture, but only through a gigantic effort of collective will.
Earlier I expressed a belief, really more of a hope, that high art
would somehow resist absorption by popular culture.
It
can, but
only if intellectuals become sufficiently united on the issues once
again to participate in the resistance. Otherwise, we'd better
begin preparing for a future in which all our vital functions
have been terminated, and there's nothing on the scanner but a
long, monotonous, uninterrupted line.
Rosalind Krauss
In addressing this audience, an audience I take it
whose interest in culture is largely focused on literary issues, I
am aware that, as a critic of the visual arts, I am asking you to
shift your attention to a subject you find somewhat marginal to
