THE HUMANITIES AND CULTUl\.E HEROES
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the discussion to the audience. Please be brief in your comments, to give
the largest possible number of people a chance to speak.
Questioll:
I have a question for Doris Lessing. At the beginning of your
talk, you spoke about the usc of language, the political implications of
controlling it. Do you think we can learn from the experiences of East–
ern Europeans and from South Americans who lived through dictator–
ships - lllany of whom have remarked that Westerners, especially Ameri–
cans, are very naive about our government, whether we are criticizing or
just dissenting. What can we learn in order to become more critical?
Doris Lessing: I
personally have learned a lot in the last two days, lis–
tening to people who have in fact gone through this kind of experience.
Some of the language they used was very careful, I think, and non–
rhetorical. One could certain ly learn from that. Are you asking perhaps
how we could change our attitudes of mind about power?
Questioll:
I guess I am asking about how to wake up the general public.
It appeared to me, in talking with people who have lived through very
different types of dictatorships, that virtually none of them took their
government's word at face value, whereas in the United States, it is ex–
actly the opposite. Almost everyone here takes what the government says
at face va lue, and there are on ly a few who are critical or even question
it.
Doris Lessing: I
think that it is felt not only by people from Eastern
and Central Europe. In Western Europe, too, Americans are regarded as
being too uncritical of their rulers. Possibly it is because we in Western
Europe arc on the whole rather skeptical. We're cynical; we don't really
believe what we arc told, except, of course, at election times, when ev–
eryone gets a bit feverish. Why is it that Americans, every time they have
a new president, expect everything from this person - who is inheriting
exactly the same situation his predecessor faced? Realistically, not much
can change, you know. But every time they elect a new president,
Americans talk as if a new age is about to begin. I have absolutely no
idea why they do this!
Questioll:
Mr. Lind, you are sitting between Doris Lessing and Slavenka
Drakulic, who have very consistently sounded two notes heard through–
out this conference - notes that are not incompatible but different. On
the one hand, we have a bid for the freedom of artists from the political
and social commitment that surrounds them and the observation that this
