Recently I read an essay by Cynthia Ozick from her book Quarrel & Quandary that resounded closely with some of the beliefs that I have. In her essay Public Intellectuals, Cynthia Ozick discusses what the term “public intellectual” means and the responsibilities that anyone who wants to claim that title need to understand. She does this by examining E.M. Forester’s remarks in 1941 when he was at the seventeenth International PEN Congress when he said, in simple paraphrased text, that even though World War two was raging around the world, artist still needed to make art simple for Art’s sake.
While a delightful sentiment that could inspire some during times of great tragedy and tribulation, Cynthia Ozick reminds us that for those who are suffering from “deep necessity”, the peoples in occupied lands, the soldiers on the front, the multitudes suffering from racism, antisemitism and any other -ism, art for Art’s sake rings hollow and does not serve the public discourse in the way those who would claim the mantle of public intellectuals should. A sentiment which E.M. Forester himself acknowledged later in 1941.
As humans, we need art for Art’s sake, but we also need to address the deep necessity which the troubles of the present times provide.
Painting: The Course of Empire – Destruction by Thomas Cole 1836.
-Public Intel
Public Intel 