GEORCE KONRAD
241
not attracted by religious or scientific futurism; I do not believe the fu–
ture is more radiant than the present. The idea of a more tolerant ap–
proach to life is spreading quietly: integration and compassion are taking
the place of isolation and expulsion. I also sense a new sincerity, some–
thing beyond science and religion, beyond politics and public relations.
The core of that sincerity li es in an awareness of death. The place where
we are most likely to confront our mortality is art. The artist knows
that a story has more than a beginning; the artist knows a story has an
end.
If
this view of life focuses on the here and now, it is simply because
the here and now is where the challenge lies. Yesterday cannot remedy
today; tomorrow's noble goal is no excuse for today's crime. What you
do now is what counts.
If
you are traveling on a train or bathing your
child, that is your creative work for the moment.
Everyone wants to be an artist: everyone writes, draws, plays an in–
strument, indulges in some kind of intellectual or spiritual luxury; every–
one gives both imagination and memory a work-out; everyone has hid–
den concerns. Every graybeard retains a cranny of childlike innocence,
and we all soar out of ourselves occasionally and enjoy transforming the
reality around us. This cerebral rambling, this internal cinema takes up a
good deal of our time; it runs from the cradle to the grave, oblivious
even to hardening of the arteries. In fact, we devote relatively more time
to it than to the conscious and conscientious life-long work we do in
connection with the outer world.
It
is the opposite of goal-oriented ac–
tivity, incorporating elements of art and play, and if we add our night–
and daydreams to it, it turns out to occupy the greater part of our lives.
Although writers and professors and actors and historians have be–
come leading figures in the new democracies, I don't think intellectuals
wish to make a policy of excluding politicians and businessmen, revolu–
tionaries and secret service men, civil servants and clergymen. The intelli–
gentsia could learn these people's professions, but they would only be
disguises for its own: the profession of understanding. That is why I
don't think the intelligentsia is interested in direct political or economic
power.
It
will keep to its natural medium and the power of the word,
the image, the symbol.
If
intellectuals have power, they must have a calling as well. The in–
telligentsia is the keeper of legitimacies: it provides grounds for morality,
argumentation for the law, exegesis for religion, allegories for ethics, and
analysis for politics.
In
other words, intellectuals peddle clear consciences
and guilty consciences. All people have cu ltural values
to
guide them and
