INTELLECTUALS AND WRITERS THEN AND NOW
537
Art Meyer:
Do you or any of the panelists believe that there is a neces–
sary canon of literature that should be read by students in grades 9-I2?
Because, without it, high school departments choose their literature
almost willy-nilly: they all share a common collegiate background, but
you are not going to find common knowledge.
Sanford Pinsker:
I care that kids learn important works . But that's the
reading they're assigned. I'm talking about the reading they choose.
When you become a reader, you do what somebody tells you in class
because you have some reason to feel that they're giving you good
advice. But then you have that book that you're reading on your own,
and it's
that
book that's lost. The point is that the habit of finding some–
thing ought to begin in high school. Required reading is part of it; it
puts you in touch with good literature.
Edith Kurzweil:
Before that you have to learn to read, from first grade
on. And read with ease, not as a chore.
John Patrick Diggins:
You want my idea of a canon? I would say all
seniors in high school should read the
Federalist Papers,
Tocqueville,
and Abraham Lincoln. That's all they need.
Norman Podhoretz:
That's pretty good.
Sanford
Pinsker:
It
wouldn't be bad if they read some Socrates and more.
Richie Teeman:
Eisenhower spoke of what he called "the unwarranted
influence of the military-industrial complex." I assume he thought that
there was a warranted influence of that same complex. And in that same
speech he singled out communism for criticism, so he was on the right
side. But for the last fifty years liberal intellectuals have proudly touted
their opposition to McCarthyism, something we haven't discussed here
today. So could the panel discuss their actions over the last fifty years
and their pride in what they were saying and doing then and now and
how right they were? Did any good come from Joe McCarthy, or was it
all as bad as they have been saying?
Edith Kurzweil:
Let me answer this one with an example. A fifteen-year–
old I know was trying to write an essay on the culture of the fifties, and
all she found was material on McCarthyism.
It
was projected onto all
of the fifties. There was almost nothing about the good of the fifties, the
way people were moving to the suburbs, earning money when they pre-
