Dave Lampson wrote:

>[Randol forwarded this copy of a letter to the UCLA regents concerning the
>arbitrary renaming of the Schoenberg Hall at that university.  -Dave]

I can understand the upset that a man must feel to have recognition of
his father's works taken from him.  But I think it very likely that in a
hundred years time that Arnold Schoenberg will not need a hall to remember
him by, where the name Ostin will probably be inscribed on a few gold
plated statuettes, and not even on the hall that now bears his name, having
been replaced by the next large donor - or the building itself torn down
and replaced by a new multimedia performance center where every seat has
its own built in video station.  And it will probably not be a person but
something like "United Airlines Hall" or "Universal Studios Performance
Center".  And also, in truth, the university of California has tried to
distance itself from Schoenberg in a variety of ways.  But it is very
likely that were they run away, others will fill in the breach.  Any old
thing belongs to those who would preserve it.  40 years ago Isaac Stern
stepped into the breach for Carnegie Hall, and in that sense, to him and
those who aided his efforts, the hall, in some measure, belongs.

There is however a deeper lesson here, and one which is not popular among
the hallowed halls of academia - and that is of the ultimate failure of any
elite art culture which denies its responsibility to connect with the broad
populace.  You see, the broad populace will think something, and if it is
not an interaction with art, then the void will be filled by entertainment,
or worse still - the kind of yellow press pandering which is now a
substitute for discourse in so many areas.

The shock of the popular hit art hard, the ability to record and diseminate
put the popular on an equal - even more than equal - footing with the
artistic.  However, there is a limit - and that is that a society which is
based on the lowest common denominator must, of necessity, enslave its best
and its brightest to churning out filler for that lowest of the commons.
It is not that the public will ever tire of the bad - because as soon as
one part of the public does, there will be a new generation of teenagers
willing to answer the call - it is that the grinding soul crushing
necessities of serving the popular culture create a powerful resentment
among those that it most needs, at a certain point, no money will be
inducement enough to suffer it.

It is this reality which the artists of the last generation of the old
order - of who Arnold Schoenberg was one - failed to completely grasp.
They thought it would be the audience that would rebel, the audience that
would accept, the audience that needed art.  In truth it is a relatively
small group of people who are addicted to art, a small group of people
who need the challenge of new creation.  There are some among the best
and brighest who will be happy churning out sound bites for the drinking
classes - but not enough.  A year ago the dot com space was filled with
hopeful intelligentia hoping to make a score.  Now, even with 6 figure
salaries, there is a desertion of a sinking ship.

In truth, those who have done the renaming dishonour not the artist, but
themselves.  But an art culture that turns its back on the broader public,
that is unwilling to bear the trouble, and in truth suffering, that trying
to educate that public entails, will find that there are others willing to
take the trouble - though what they teach comes at a very high price.  It
might say that it honours the purity of art, but instead dishonours itself
by failing to give back to the society from which it draws its sustenance.

Many people - myself included - have stated that ones taste in art is
no assurance of higher intelligence, nor of better character, nor even
of greater artistic spirit.  But the reverse - a culture without art -
is one which is unable to structure its own thoughts and words - which is
prey to which ever slogan can be taught to the largest group of sheep -
which forgets its own past, and hence repeats it.  It is true that art
can be used to corrupt, to debase, as an aid to every form of totalitarian
atrocity.  But it is also true that the artistic experience is one of the
few weapons against the totalitarian regime, because it gives a meaning to
live and die for beyond the pleasures and pains of the moment.

In short, art is not sufficent, but it is necessary, for a civilised people.

stirling s newberry
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http://www.mp3.com/ssn