Howard Zinn - Artists in Times of War

2003 by Howard Zinn

Open Media series editor, Greg Ruggiero.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, electric, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Cover photo and design: Greg Ruggiero
Photo taken September 14, 2001, Union Square, New York City

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Zinn, Howard, 1922
Artists in times of war / Howard Zinn.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-1-60980-167-0
1. Peace movementsUnited StatesHistory. 2. Government, Resistance toUnited StatesHistory. 3. Art and societyUnited States. 4. ArtistsUnited StatesPolitical activityHistory. 5. War on Terrorism, 2001 6. Goldman, Emma, 1869-1940. 7. AnarchistsUnited StatesBiography. 8. Motion picturesPolitical aspectsUnited States. 9. PamphleteersUnited StatesHistory. 10. Protest movementsUnited StatesHistory. I. Title.
JZ5584.U6 Z56 2003
303.66dc22 2003020849

v3.1

An edited version of a talk given at Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, Mass., October 10, 2001.

When I think of the relationship between artists and societyand for me the question is always what it could be, rather than what it isI think of the word transcendent. It is a word I never use in public, but its the only word I can come up with to describe what I think about the role of artists. By transcendent, I mean that the artist transcends the immediate. Transcends the here and now. Transcends the madness of the world. Transcends terrorism and war.

The artist thinks, acts, performs music, and writes outside the framework that society has created. The artist may do no more than give us beauty, laughter, passion, surprise, and drama. I dont mean to minimize these activities by saying the artist can do no more than this. The artist neednt apologize, because by doing this, the artist is telling us what the world should be like, even if it isnt that way now. The artist is taking us away from the moments of horror that we experience everydaysome days more than othersby showing us what is possible.

But the artist can and should do more. In addition to creating works of art, the artist is also a citizen and a human being. The way that society tends to classify us scares me. I am a historian. I dont want to be just a historian, but society puts us into a discipline. Yes, disciplines us: youre a historian, youre a businessman, youre an engineer. Youre this or youre that. The first thing someone asks you at a party is, What do you do? That means, How are you categorized?

The problem is that people begin to think thats all they are. Theyre professionals in something. You hear the word professionalism being used often. People say, You have to be professional. Whenever I hear the word, I get a little scared, because that limits human beings to working within the confines set by their profession.

I face this as a historian. During the Vietnam War, there were meetings of historians. While the war was raging in Southeast Asia, the question was, Should historians take a stand on the war? There was a big debate about this. Some of us introduced a resolution saying that We historians think the United States should get out of Vietnam. Other historians objected. They said, Its not that we dont think the United States should get out, but we are just historians. Its not our business.

But whose business is it? The historian says, Its not my business. The lawyer says, Its not my business. The businessman says, Its not my business. And the artist says, Its not my business. Then whose business is it? Does that mean you are going to leave the business of the most important issues in the world to the people who run the country? How stupid can we be? Havent we had enough experience historically with leaving the important decisions to the people in the White House, Congress, the Supreme Court, and those who dominate the economy?

There are certain historical moments when learning is more compressed and intense than others. Since September 11, 2001, we have been in such a moment.

One of the things we learned about during the Vietnam War was experts. When the war started, people would ask, Why are we there? These experts would come on television and tell us why. The British actor Peter Ustinov spoke out against the war in Vietnam. Then somebody said, Ustinov? Hes an actor. Hes not an expert. Ustinov made an important point. He said that there are experts in little things but there are no experts in big things. There are experts in this fact and that fact but there are no moral experts. Its important to remember that. All of us, no matter what we do, have the right to make moral decisions about the world. We must be undeterred by the cries of people who say, You dont know. Youre not an expert. These people up there, they know. It takes only a bit of knowledge of history to realize how dangerous it is to think that the people who run the country know what they are doing. Jean-Jacques Rousseau said, I see all sorts of people doing this and that but where are the citizens among us? Everyone must be involved. There are no experts.

So the word transcendent comes to mind when I think of the role of the artist in dealing with the issues of the day. I use that word to suggest that the role of the artist is to transcend conventional wisdom, to transcend the word of the establishment, to transcend the orthodoxy, to go beyond and escape what is handed down by the government or what is said in the media. Some people in the arts and in other professions think, Yes, lets get involved. Lets get involved in the way we are told to. You see them getting into line in the way they are expected to when the president asks them to do so. And that is echoed by everyone else in politics.

How many times have I read in the press since September 11 that We must be united? What do they mean by that? I would like us to be united. But united around what? When people say we must be united, they state explicitly or implicitly that we must be united around whatever the president tells us to do.

CBS news anchor Dan Rather is an anchor of the establishment. He has gone on TV and said, Bush is my president. When he says get into line, I get into line. After I heard Rathers comments, I thought, here is an important and influential journalist whos forgotten the first rule of journalism: Think for yourself. Hes forgotten what I.F. Stone, one of the greatest journalists of the twentieth century, once said. Stone used to write for major newspapers until he realized he wasnt allowed to say certain things. So he left the mainstream media and set up his own newsletter, I.F. Stones Weekly. It became famous for providing information that you couldnt get anywhere else. He was invited to speak to journalism classes. He told the students, I am going to tell you a number of things, but if you really want to be a good journalist you only have to remember two words: governments lie. Not just the U.S. government, but, in general, all governments lie. That may sound like an anarchist statement, but the anarchists have something there. They are right to be skeptical and suspicious of those who hold official power, because the tendency of those who hold that power is to lie in order to maintain it.