7 quotes
A person is not a democrat thanks to his ignorance of literature and the arts, nor an elitist because he or she has cultivated them.
The Culture We Deserve (1989)
The ever-present impulse is to push against restriction and, in so doing, to feel intolerably hemmed in.
The Culture We Deserve (1989)
No idea working alone has ever demoralized society, and there have been plenty of ideas simpler and more exciting than Relativism.
The Culture We Deserve (1989)
Philosophers no longer write for the intelligent, only for their fellow professionals.
The Culture We Deserve (1989)
Great works of art are great by virtue of being syntheses of the world; they qualify as art by fusing form and contents into an indivisible whole; what they offer is not "discourse about," nor a cipher to be decoded, but a prolonged incitement to finesse.
The Culture We Deserve (1989)
On reflection, moral judgment in the arts appears rather as a tribute to their power to influence emotion and possibly conduct. And reflecting further on what some critics do today, one sees that a good many have merely shifted the ground of their moralism, transferring their impulse of righteousness to politics and social issues.
The Culture We Deserve (1989)
Criticism will need an injection of humility — that is, a recognition of its role as ancillary to the arts, needed only occasionally in a temporary capacity. Since the critic exists only for introducing and explaining, he must be readily intelligible; he has no special vocabulary: criticism is in no way a science or a system.
The Culture We Deserve (1989)