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Introduction: Artist and Society
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11531 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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10 / 1986 |
425 Words |
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The October section of Modern Thought consists of three different clusters of essays. One group contains two essays that treat perceptions of the Soviet Union among American intellectuals. Paul Hollander's study of the existential roots of the pre-Soviet mentality may help to explain the shifting picture of the Cold War so carefully shown by John Braeman. Both essays tell as much about the class that produces foreign-policy alternatives and alternative historiography as about the policies and scholarship produced.
The contributions by David Gress, Alexander Bloom, and Gary Bullert continue the discussion of neoconservatism begun in September. All three essays bring perspectives that were not previously represented: that of a somewhat detached European spectator, that of a member of the democratic Left, and that of a Christian traditionalist. Other essays on neoconservatism from other points of view will be published in later issues, some of them in response to pieces that have already appeared.
The longest single group of articles this month deals with the artist, broadly understood, and his relationship to society. All the contributors to this series assume that there is an adversarial relationship between the two. Nonetheless, they examine this antagonism in different contexts with varying degrees of sympathy for the men of letters, painters, filmmakers, and others who live from artistic imagination. Virgil Nemoianu focuses on the difficulty-ridden litterateur stranded in an age that values progress and technology but is forced to live off "secondary, marginal" interests and pursuits. James J. Thompson, Jr., eloquently describes the plight of the modern Southern writer lured by social and material temptations away from his
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