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c. Should political and economic development place priority on popular participation? or on criteria of efficiency?

## Monday, August 12

### Alliance, alignment, and bridge-building

a. In what ways should existing alliance systems be reshaped to facilitate greater cooperation among blocs?

b. What are the benefits, constraints, and costs of closer US-USSR collaboration?

c. What are the limits of international accommodation for a Socialist state in its dealings with the West?

## Tuesday, August 13

### International peacekeeping

a. To what extent ought great powers to act as "international "policemen"?"

b. What national or international agencies best can be employed in strategies of tension-reduction in danger spots (e.g., the Middle East, Cyprus, etc.)?

c. How can peacekeeping strategies facilitate peaceful change?

## Thursday, August 15

### Conditions of world order

## READING LIST

* John Stoessinger: *The UN and the Superpowers*
* DAEDULUS, Spring 1966, "Conditions of World Order"
* Paul Seabury, *Power, Freedom, and Diplomacy*
* Arnold Wolfers, *Discord and Collaboration*
* Charles Wolf, *United States Policy and the Third World*

There are 3 copies each of the following books in the office. Please borrow them and return the books as soon as you have completed the reading so that other people can use them.

* George Ball, *The Discipline of Power*

* Lincoln Bloomfield, *International Military Forces*

1968 Harvard International Seminar

Politics and Economics Group

Chairman: George Lodge

Ninth Session, Thursday, July 23

Mr. Lodge opened this session by inviting Mr. Price to make some observations on economic planning in Great Britain in response to remarks made in an earlier session (the fourth).

Mr. Price began by pointing out that British planning has more critics than America has dollars and that much of the criticism has been unjustified. In the first place, Britain does not really have economic planning, if that is understood to mean government control and direction. Most major decisions are taken by the boards of large industries. Industry and commerce are almost entirely in the hands of free enterprise. In fact, Britain's economic problems are caused by free enterprise. On the other hand, the Government does intervene in the economy in piecemeal fashion. It lays down guidelines. It offers tax and export incentives. It grants money to certain industries. But most of its measures are dependent on persuasion, not direction. Mr. Price- agreed with the arguement that Britain's resources are incommensurate with her global responsibilities. Correct also is the notion that the crux of Britain's economic problems is her need to import food. Another cause of these problems is the quality of her European competition. It would be more accurate to say, however, not that Britain is selling too little abroad, but rather that she is buying too much. It is true that British management is very old fashioned. Mr. Price disagreed with the arguement that British leadership has been unwilling to demand sufficient sacrifices from the British people. Why is Prime Minister Wilson so unpopular, if he isn't asking for sacrifices? It is also wrong to think that Britain's trade unions have too much power. Britain is not strike-bound. She loses less time because of strikes than any other industrialized nation. Furthermore, there is nothing wrong with the British worker, who is very willing to work. Mr. Price said that the causes of British economic problems were to be found elsewhere. There are inadequacies in the planning itself.

There have been difficulties which could not have been foreseen by the plan. Moreover, the Tories left behind the biggest trade gap in British history, which they themselves did nothing to correct. To be sure, the Labour Government has made mistakes of its own. It underestimated the extent of these problems; it underestimated the role of speculators; it has been too optimistic about the imminence of prosperity. However, there are encouraging signs. Britain has developed one of the world's most sophisticated computer industries; her aircraft industry is expanding; her exports are increasing. The Labour Government does believe that it is on the right course. It is due now to reap the benefits of devaluation, which it was known would take nine months to produce the expected results. The Government has just produced the toughest budget in British history. Although expenditures have increased, the rate of increase is slower than before. Britain has accepted capitalism, and her Government thinks that it can be made to work. Britain won't be the "weak man" of Europe for any longer than is necessary.

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Mr. Lodge noted some conclusions made by the group in its earlier discussion of British planning. Most participants then agreed that the National Plan of 1965 was irrelevant to many of Britain's problems. Most had agreed also that British management left much to be desired. Mr. Price agreed that the Plan is "window-dressing." And he agreed also that British management is too clever not to know where the immediate profits are, viz., at home. British business is all-too dis inclined to seek markets overseas. But the British government is trying to persuade it to do so. Mr. Berger wondered how anyone can believe that Britain is deflating when it continues to increase public expenditures. Can foreign bankers be blamed for distrusting her? Mr. Price replied that there are many ways of cutting expenditures. And men on the political left are, of course, disinclined to cut expenditures for social welfare. It is true that the Government is not cutting such expenditures. But, it is increasing them at a lower rate than in the past.

Mr. Lodge then asked Mr. Damm to make some remarks on how West Germany handles its foreign aid. He began by noting that initially foreign aid had little popular support in Germany. But, President Luebke, the Church, and other factors have helped persuade the German public of foreign aid's importance. In fact, a recent poll showed that 77% of the people polled are now in favor of it. Mr. Damm said that 42% of Germany's foreign aid is granted by the Government and the Church. Most German aid is granted in the form of loans. And more than one government agency is involved in foreign aid. There is a Ministry of Economic Cooperation. But the Ministries of Finance and Economics are involved, too. Involved also are other organizations such as foundations. Mr. Damm concluded by noting that Germany thinking on foreign aid has gone through three stages: 1) when it was believed that simply granting money is the only appropriate form of aid 2) when it was realized that technological aid is important, too and 3) when it was finally realized that the motivation and education of people receiving aid is vital, too.

Mr. Lodge observed that one doesn't often hear Americans talking about motivation and education in this context. He then solicited the participants' opinions on the extent to which governments should be involved in foreign aid. Mr. Berger remarked that for foreign governments to involve themselves in the motivation and education of developing countries might be a subtle form of neo-colonialism. Governments don't have the right to impose their countries values on others. Foreign aid should be granted without this sort of interference. Mr. Martens agreed that the way of life and values of a country should be determined by the people who live there. Aid should be granted in order to encourage change which reflects local values. Ideally, such change will take place in a democratic framework, for without democracy a government will tend to impede genuine change.

On some matters there was disagreement. For example, Mr. Al-Amir felt that foreign aid should be kept under the supervision of the government receiving it. Mr. Pimenta-Neves, on the other hand, argued that governments which do not reflect the will of the people should not control the way foreign aid is used. Mr. Frydenlund was of the opinion that while aid should be granted to governments, it should be granted on the condition that it will be employed in a certain way.

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Chief Eke told of how aid granted in order to fulfill a program based on scholarly research an expectation can be very effective. It ought to be determined beforehand if the government about to receive aid is capable of accomplishing the proposed changes. He added that sometimes the danger of revolution can be averted by pointing out to the men in power the need for change and their own inherent interest in such change. Mr. Osei-Bonsu wasn't certain that scholars are ideally suited for determining what sort of aid is to be accepted. The most a country granting aid can do is to have safeguards for making sure that the aid is actually used in the purposes for which it was granted. Mr. Osei-Bonsu then asked whether an outsider granting aid can tell an undemocratic recipient how that aid will be used. Mr. Lodge replied in the affirmative: if a recipient country is about to blow apart, the country granting aid can prescribe certain changes, lest its aid be wasted. In this connection, Mr. Frydenlund suggested that the best agency for allocating aid would be an international agency. And Mr. Papini amplified this idea by pointing out that such an agency would ideally have an international staff, a common conception of the purposes of aid, a common strategy for distributing it, and so on.

Mr. Hsu remarked that nowadays some countries are afraid of receiving aid for psychological reasons. They fear that ideological strings will be attached. When Formosa stopped receiving aid, she was much relieved. Chief Eke commented that "aid without strings" means that the recipient should not be subservient, not that she shouldn't be accountable. Mr. Sirivaradana said that foreign aid should always be for the people of the country receiving it. It should be strictly economic in nature and granted for purposes where its effect can be measured. The ultimate goal of aid should always be to end any further need for aid.

Politics and Economics Group
Eighth Session - Monday, July 22

Chairman: George Lodge

Mr. Lodge opened this session by asking for remarks on *The Veraguas Report* which is a study of social and economic change in central Panama.

Mr. Kieft asked if the radical program described in the report can be actively encouraged by the United States Government which must deal with legitimate governments whose own interests might not be well served by such a program. Mr. Lodge replied that it is possible for a government to encourage economic change in developing countries through non-official channels. The German Government provides a good example: it encourages the German Catholic Church to promote economic change abroad and thus escapes criticism for having itself meddle in the affairs of another country. The American Government, on the other hand, makes the mistake of piping money through its own embassies. Mr. Lodge described how universities, foundations, and "specialization centers" can perpetrate change in developing countries without involving governments at all.

Mr. Buteler wondered whether the "social work," local action techniques described in *The Veraguas Report* can be considered revolutionary as the report implies. Isn't a more far-reaching, national revolution necessary for profound change on the local level? Mr. Pimenta-Neves argued along the same lines, saying that the techniques described in the report might work in highly developed countries. In an underdeveloped country real change presupposes a change in the national political structure. Mr. Lodge replied that a close look at Veraguas today suggests that a revolutionary change -- a radical structural change -- has indeed taken place there. Revolution can be generated on the local level; in fact this kind of revolution can be more effective than a national revolution. A national revolution institutionalizes change, and thus impedes it. A revolutionary who achieves national power soon develops his own vested interest in the new *status quo*.

Mr. Berger was unconvinced that a national government is unsuited to promoting economic development. What about the success of Frederick the Great in Prussia or Colbert in France or Witte in Russia? Or, for that matter, the more recent successes of Stalin? Mr. Sirivaradana noted that at the very least a national government can create a climate which is conducive to change -- as the government in Formosa has done. Mr. Lodge replied that there is little to support this argument in Latin America. For example, there is the case of Cuba. There a revolution was brought about by the existence of a rotten government and a handful of radicals in the hills. But, as soon as those radicals were in power and had a vested interest, they lost some of their enthusiasm for change. Mr. Lodge cited as another example the "new class" of Communist bureaucrats described in the writings of Milovan Djilas. And he noted also that the world's great revolutions (the French, the Russians, etc.) started with the agitation, motivation, and organization of people outside the government. But, once those people were inside, their attitudes changed. Mr. Pimenta-Neves remarked that it depends on the kind of government a revolution produces. And he argued that in Cuba the people do participate in and help direct economic change. There

have been astonishing changes in Cuba since Castro came to power.

Mr. Price asked what a government should do when it wants to promote
change, but the people it governs are ill-disposed to change. Prime Minister
Wilson's government has had such a problem. And now de Gaulle's recent
electoral success has demonstrated how little the people of France want change.
People like the status quo. Mr. Dgany suggested that the Peace Corps be dis-
patched to countries like France and England. Mr. Lodge thought that Mr.
Price's observations substantiated his own point: people outside government
must be motivated before anything can be done, and the government itself
is not the ideal organization for doing so because to do so means the subversion
of its own power base. Chief Eke agreed that the British Government is doing
something which subverts its own popularity. Men in power simply cannot
push too hard if they intend to stay in power. Mr. Price noted in this
connection that Labor governments do tend to introduce their most important
reforms during their first two years in office. And then they hold their
breath until the next election. Mr. Berger remarked that people are more inclined
to want change for their countries than to want change for themselves.

Mr. Lodge emphasized how people will resist change. If one wants to change a man, one has to work on him, educate him, show him why he is poor and how poverty is connected with the whole structure of his community. Sometimes the simplest devices can be used to awaken a man to entirely new horizons of possibility. Such educational, motivational activities are not "social work," and they do have revolutionary implications.

Mr. Maran made some observations about the education of Indian peasants.
They are disinclined to change because they don't know of the existence of
modern techniques. The Indian government has had considerable success on
overcoming this disinclination through educational propaganda, which in places
has had extraordinary success. Mr. Dgany related some of his own experiences
in the education of Israeli peasants. The key to success in such an undertaking
is not administrative; it is psychological. A peasant will never be convinced
of the technical benefits of some innovation unless his confidence can be won.
And change which is initiated from above is not designed to generate confidence
below.

[Y]

30

HUMANITIES SECTION Seventh Meeting, Thursday, July 18, 1968

While Mr. Cavell sat preoccupied over his coffee, a noisy debate began about the merits of Chaplin's "Monsieur Verdoux." With a critic's gleam of vindictive delight in his eyes, Mr. Pottersman let go. "The sheerest corn ... trite... not an iota of character development in the film, and Verdoux himself has no appeal at all except for a brief moment ..." More temperately and as if with regret, Mr. Cassin agreed. "The comedy was, I have to confess, often rather off-putting." Miss Mandel mur mered into Mr. Fichter's ear that "They just don't understand." Mr. Fichter, in turn mur mered to himself that they understood perfectly well, that the film was an example of contradictory intentions and techniques, but having no experience in critical street fighting, he bent over his notes. Half a dozen people waited for Mr. Cavell to declare himself - yet when he found out that only a third of the group had seen the film, he ruled it out as a topic for discussion. He then invited Mr. Toca to talk about his view of culture - high, popular and folk.

"The growth of popular culture is very strange," Mr. Toca began. And then picking up some random comments Mr. Cavell and others had made about the content and attitude of TIME magazine, he said that there seemed to him a rough sort of parallel between the conscious creation of taste in America and an observation the art historian Hauser had made about the Baroque. In the seventeenth century the high church had tried to create, consciously, an art for the masses which had come out being low, vulgar art. "Can we make a distinction between folk and popular culture?" Mr. Toca asked. His answer was yes. In Romania of three centuries ago there existed, along with the culture of the court and the monasteries, a quite distinct culture. People who were able to read, also wrote. The *Life of Alexander* and Aesop's fables existed quite independently of the self-proclaimed sustainers of cultivated life. [Certain inconsistencies in the train of thought may be blamed entirely upon lacunae in the secretary's notes.] "What does popular culture mean in the fine arts?" Mr. Toca went on. "During the Gothic period the people themselves were the artists, the artisans. They were both creators and the consumers at once. Now in Romania today we try to preserve real popular culture. The state tries to buy only the best, the most authentic products of peasant craftsmen."

"But if you put these things in museums - then what have you got," Mr. Agamben asked, tartly challenging Romania and Mr. Toca together. "Is this folk art or a cult?" Mr. Pottersman demanded of the beleaguered Toca. "It is," Mr. Toca answered in defense, "because although some people try to manufacute these things, they still are made in the villages in the old way." Mr. Agamben grinned. "Like these Yugoslavian things we see for sale on Brattle Street?" While the western side of the table made faces at one another, Mr. Cassin whispered in Mr. Fichter's ear: "Never saw shillelaghs till the Americans brought them to Ireland."

Mr. Cavell had meanwhile been scribbling a complicated schematization of ideas on the blackboard and said, in summary, that we could spend a month sorting out the questions introduced by Mr. Toca's remarks and deciding the bases for evaluating the assertions. He also asked to be allowed to include music in our inquiry. Mrs. Subotic mentioned the term 'elite', and Mr. Cavell agreed that it was a useful term to work with, perhaps a very useful term when trying to arrive at some notion of what popular culture was really all about. He added, however, that Hauser's interpretation bothered him; that dialectically the words might mean entirely different things in different epochs.

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Jumping somewhat, then he said Carl Sandburg claimed he could never play the guitar really well because he'd never been in prison. Here is an instance, perhaps of an environment producing something that might pass for folk art. "But where," Mr. Cavell asked, warming to one of his favorite interests," should we put jazz, which certainly is not 'popular.' Jazz is, if anything- or at times has been - elite. No white man could claim, for a time, to be able to play jazz. It was more than elite; it was almost esoteric, almost a foundation of priestly mysteries. One can say that jazz is, or was, played deliberately. I can remember," he went on, "hearing Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie - jazz men who were pretty obviously *not* entertainers." He then added some very brief notes on the history of jazz, its movement North, its permutations. "We can almost hear the black man saying," he mused, "imitate me white man, and I'll change; you'll never catch up. And here is something essential to modernism - the necessity for change. Manet was a man who recognized it: a crisis in the arts when it became imperative that things be done differently - for the sake (though we haven't gone into it) of being different." As a medial closing, he added that a line of demarcation came when jazz ceased to be danceable- danceable as it had been, for a time in Harlem, for the time when the Apollo was ("You'll think I'm kidding") no less than Valhalla to the white cognoscenti.

"Also," he went on careening the class like the passengers in a Sennet automobile, "we should watch some television." Mrs. Subotic groaned most prettily. "Don't worry," Mr. Cavell reassured her; "we'll hold hands - for four hours at least."

"For four hours of American television, I'll insist on an increase in my allowance," Mr. Pottersman said - a most interesting demand when one considers that between three and puberty would rather lose their allowances than four hours of television.

After an exchange on sports as an aspect of culture and the etymology of 'ofay' (American Negro slang: corruption of *au fait* (?), Mr. Pottersman launched another charge. "All art forms, in some way, have," he said, "taken on this repulsive esotericism. You have to be an expert to understand anything. Artists are simply forgetting that they have an obligation to entertain!" Mr. Cavell called upon his absent daughter to repudiate him. "Rachel's eleven, and there's nothing played on the radio now that she doesn't know - lyrics, groups, the members of the groups." (Visions of the Peanutbutter Conspiracy, The Ultimate Spinach). "For her the Beatles are great but a little passe. If she hasn't heard something, it's either very new or not important."

Miss Mandel noted that jazz and rock were very split now - so much so that they're even played on different radio stations. With a doubtful look toward Mr. Cavell, she confessed that jazz was, for a while, unbearable to her. "I was leading to a difference between the audience for *Ulysses* and that for *Finnegan's Wake*," Mr. Pottersman cut in, having just been cut out in mid-thought. But Joyce got a very short hearing. Mrs. Subotic had had enough of digressions and went back to the main issues, somehow suspended since Mr. Toca's close. "We must look at folk art in the context of modern international art," she said. "What ties are there between folk art and the modern arts? We have, now, *masses* - people aesthetically conditioned by modern education and by television with all its - unfortunately - bad advertising and bad films."

"In a socialist country?" Mr. Agamben asked.

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Mrs. Subotic was not to be put off by irreverence or irrelevance.
"Development in the arts now means accepting what has already been accepted, what we have no power to control. Folk art conveyed to the masses through popularization is enormously changed. Yet genuine folk art does remain; it can be found in the Balkan mountains where designs are based on symbols of ancient origin. But where popularization destroys the roots of an authentic folk culture, then there is no hope of preservation alive. The United States may have its primitive arts," she went on. "But according to this statement of the situation, it has no folk art because everyone has been exposed to mass communication."

"But you can't conserve folk arts," Mr. Cavell said. "Of course not," she answered. I have been telling you just that. No, the question is how they have been and how they are to be transposed from their native grounds into the medium of an international modern art. I am asking, then, how national differences can be maintained within the context of international art." Mrs. Subotic's remarks, both coherent and germaine, might have led on to a fruitful discussion liberated from some of our previous circularity - except for two small problems: the shortness of time and a professional dispute that borke out, in a most unseemly way, between her and Mr. Toca on the folkiness of Brancusi. "Half his motifs are from Romanian folk culture," Mr. Toca argued. "But have you compared those motifs with similar motifs in Serbia," Mrs. Subotic asked looking around a serene Mr. Agamben. "No, I don't think so," Mr. Toca answered cryptically. At this intense and critical point, the secretary's ball-point pen ran dry and while he went about borrowing another one, the bried, acrimonious and intricate debate boiled itself out. "Well," Mr. Cavell said, blowing blue smoke into the air conditioning system, "it seems the only passion left in this world is the passion for scholarship."

Mr. Pottersman here introduced the name of George Mackay Brown, an Orkney Island poet who has never been south of the Scottish border and who claims that in XX their ballads the Orkney Islanders formerly ritualized their seafaring tragedies. But since the telly, London has given them canned tragedy. What the islanders do now to come to terms with local disasters, Mr. Pottersman trailed off, is a mystery not to be thought of. Mr. Pillsbury suggested that people still do find ways of ritualizing their experiences, and as an example, he offered the American kids who customize cars, turning them into hot rods. But even then, he said, having second thoughts, industry tries to pre-empt native expression. Mr. Cavell agreed with him. Now that affluence has come to almost everybody, the old Chevy in the backyard is as much a thing of the past as Orkney ballads. And then, opening a new line of thought - or a previous line of thought that there could be such a thing as folk art in an urban environment. He added that there were strong arguments for considering folk art as a regional phenomenon. Mr. Fichter asked whether it would be reasonable or productive to think of language itself as a manifestation of a folk culture. At this point the politicians entered and the humanists carried away their coffee cups, excited yet with their taxonomy of culture still incomplete.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR

HUMANITIES SECTION

Tuesday, July 16

Sixth Session

Mr. Cavell softly confessed that he is entering a crisis as to what teaching is, and as to what discussion is. Mr. Cassin inquired if we are to blame. No, the difficulty has arisen thanks to the introduction Mr. Cavell is preparing for his book. He finds himself approaching the task on the basis of his experience as a teacher; sometimes he feels he no longer knows what it is to teach philosophy. (He later spoke with feeling of John Stuart Mills' identity crisis.) In any case, he suggested that one has several options from teaching philosophy, and, mentioning Wittgenstein, he pointed out as an example, the capacity to be silent for a long time. One assumes, he said, that this is a virtue. Mr. Cavell admitted he sometimes felt he could make a virtue of anything, as perhaps we thought he had done during the discussion of the *Bank Dick*. Murmurs.

He asked if we would like a list of topics to be discussed. Silence. He underlined our failure to discuss writing specifically in the discussions of Lowell and Melville; a failure to discuss the language, the actual making of the object. Pillsbury wondered if it weren't significant that we *had* followed such a course in the discussion of films. Mr. Cavell agreed that there was a significance, but we didn't unearth it.

Mr. Cavell entered claims for Agee and Warshow as best instances of certain kinds of writing. Warshow examines films as social phenomena, through a form of intuitive motive analysis of culture. A number of sociologists do this, particularly in America. C. Wright Mills was given as an example of a writer of popular sociology. David R esman, too, Mr. Cavell expressed a lingering sentimentality about the idea of provincial life in the U.S.A.; the provinces do not exist here as they do in many other countries, because one cannot be certain about what our capital city might be. New York is not fully analagous to Paris or London. Certain kinds of writing don't occur in New York, and certain kinds only occur there. Warshow's is of the latter breed. The *Partisan Review* was mentioned. Is there social epistemology in any serious sense? Why do few philosophers or sociologists address themselves to the problem of "How does one *know* in social matters?" Most philosophy is crude on this subject. Mr. Cavell expressed astonishment that epistemology has been the "crown subject" in Western philosophy (especially in England to the present day and in Germany until Hegel), while few philosophers have analysed the significance of this devotion itself. Heidegger is an exception, and much of his writing is a response to epistemology itself. He has tried to transform philosophy by breaking away from an uncritical impulse to *do* epistemology.

Mr. Kovaly agreed, but asked whether this could be said for 19th
century American philosophy. Mr. Cavell wondered how one might characterize
19th century American philosophy. He asserted (without contradiction) that
America has no major philosophy, no philosopher of international stature -

at least until William James. Much of 19th century American philosophy was an adaptation of German idealism. To some extent, Western philosophy was merely repeated in 19th century America; there was no breaking away. Mr. Cavell therefore hypothesized that current American scientists may be more speculative than their European counterparts; this, he affirmed, was certainly true of literary figures, and he cited Whitman. He spoke again of the concern with epistemology, and mentioned Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, and Mills as having had four dazzling IQ's. The IQ's were tested posthumously. General astonishment in the group, Mr. Cassin, Mr. Kovaly, and Miss Sommerkorn the most vociferous. Miss Sommerkorn, charmingly (yet, one felt, definitively) asked how this had been possible. Mr. Cavell played it cool and asked if IQ tests were possible at all. Mr. Agamben asked whether Mills had a place with the other three. Mr. Cavell said that for his achievements he did not, but for his natural genius he did. He backed it with a sketch of Mills, capping the demonstration with Mills' identity crisis. Mr. Cavell said that all four men had worried about whether the table and chair are really in the room but not, for example, about how a person can be said to be in a given social class, or to have authority, or to be in love. Only Marxists or writers influenced by Marx seem concerned with these problems (even love?). To analyse class consciousness, family consciousness, or national consciousness one must give some importance to the role of history and to one's level in society. In this sense the *Partisan Review* is Marxist. Popular sociology books figure on all USA best-seller lists today. This is significant of the USA, of the state of the popular mind in America, and also indicative of academic fashion (Reisman's *The Lonely Crowd* began the fashion in the early fifties.) Mr. Cavell reiterated that Heidegger wants to remove epistemology as the dominant fact of philosophy, but he asserted that the form of social analysis (in *Zein und Seit*, for example) is uninteresting -- a social-intuitive epistemology which today strikes us as clichés. Of course, Heidegger did this before others, but today even Barry Goldwater knows about the loneliness of the individual in modern society.

Warshow did write popular sociology, in a way which Mr. Cavell find congenial. A popular sociologist, Mr. Cavell asserted (an assertion which Mrs. Pillsbury later recalled as she laid a careful trap), must write about his own society -- his writing is a kind of autobiography. Within American academia there is a debate about the value of popular culture -- this remark by Mr. Cavell conditioned the rest of the discussion. Warshow does not question the value; some, however, see popular culture as a plague on high culture, a plague which is slowly killing high culture. Marxists will be delighted if this is so. Agee, on the other hand, represents the best of an entirely different kind of critical writing. He simply tells us what he saw and how he responded. No theorizing. Never says "Films of this sort." We always want at least this much from a critic (i.e. that he talk about "what he saw.") Once we ask "what are films like this like?", we reduce films to mere documents. Journalism about the arts should at least write knowledgeably about the work of art in question, but, Mr. Cavell asserted, such journalism hardly exists in America. Reviews are written by ignorant people, and the reviews are not even informative.

* Mr. Siravaradana: Is Kauffman an exception?

* Mr. Cavell: Yes.

* Mr. Cassin: But journalists cannot have standards. They are writing to satisfy popular demand.

* Mr. Cavell: Not valid. The *Globe* should devote a page to those interested in writing about the arts. It is hard for Americans to believe that technique is necessary for those who wish

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to write about arts. Jefferson, Washington, and Adams all wondered if we had
time for high arts.

Mr. Toca asked what "popular culture" means, and what it means in America.
Mr. Cavell: Anything with a wide audience. Mr. Toca: you spoke of Marxist
opinion about popular culture, but that popular culture isn't of the American
sort. What is popular culture in the USA? Mr. Cassin: Mass entertainment.
Mr. Cavell: maybe you are speaking of folk culture.

Murmurs and troubled gestures, throaty Miss Kourilsky particularly audible.
Mr. Cassin suggested that the terms "popular culture" are contradictory. Mr.
Cavell reminded us that "culture" denotes both high intellectual or artistic
activity, and the ensemble of an entire civilization. It is strictly impossible
to be "uncultured". Popular culture is now that part of culture having to do with
the mass. Miss Kourilsky wanted to know the distinction between folk and popular
culture. She asked Pillsbury for the English translations, but Pillsbury was bent
over these notes. Mr. Cavell asserted that the emergence of popular culture probably
marks the death not of high culture, but of folk culture. Folk culture is a form of
popular culture, but is the reverse true? Mr. Fichter wondered if in America there
is still a living folk culture. Mr. Susil said folk culture is becoming a museum
piece; Mr. Kovaly also. Murmers and mutterings. Mr. Agamben suggested there may
be no essential distinction between folk and high culture. Miss Kourilsky asked if
Shakespeare were high of folk. Mr. Cavell impatiently retorted "of course, high."
Yet, as Mr. Pottersman pointed out, Shakespeare "exactly in the original version"
can be performed for wide audiences. Miss Kourilsky said that the distinction between
high and popular culture is a sickness in our society today; it was not so, she said,
in the 16th century. Mr. Agamben said that at least in the Gothic period no such
distinction obtained. Loud murmers and noes. Mr. Cavell denied these two remarks.
But he went on to point out that folk culture represents a region; popular culture
not. One has the feeling that popular culture may be neither popular nor culture.
Not authentic, as distinct from folk culture. In Hollywood the "mass arts" are
defended as being what the people want. Mrs Pillsbury said that twenty years from
now maybe real values will be discovered in today's TV.

Mr. Cavell: You mean "Who's gonna say right now?"

Mrs. Pillsbury: Yes.

Mr. Cavell: I am. Toss something to a hungry man, and he'll eat it. The
producer says: "They ate this. So it's good."

Mrs. Pillsbury said this was our fault, and implied that Mr. Cavell should make
movies. He said maybe he should; but, he said, it has taken fifty years of just
edible popular culture to discover this. The problem isn't entirely new by any
means. The quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns really involved similar problems.
Some Renaissance figures proclaimed the supremacy of the Romans; while Lord Bacon
considered Aristotle and Plato schoolboys and prattlers. At least, by such a
quarrel we have a revelation about our own society: we realize that we are different
from our forebears, just as the Renaissance society may have discovered its own new-
ness by "creating" the Dark Ages. Mrs. Pillsbury: these distinctions are perhaps
futile. Why don't we just look at the art or culture in question. Mr. Cavell:
nothing is more difficult than just looking. Misunderstanding this was the great
error of the positivists. Mr. Cavell then wondered again why journalists are so
flat and empty. Mr. Fichter, who with Miss Mandel is our link with swinging America
(since Mr. Cavell is over 30, and Mr. Pillsbury both over 30 and an expatriate,
said that as soon as a journalist says "ART" he alienates his readers. Mr. Cavell:

- 4 -

Why? Sports writing is good. Fichter: But the sports audience is well-informed. Mr. Cavell: but so are theater and Film lovers. Mr. Cassin: The journalists criterion is sales. Mr. Cavell: No, you have the funnies and the ads (and - reporter's note - the obits) for sales. Mr. Pottersman said that a British editor will accept any project if he has confidence in the person writing; he spoke of a few strategic dinners of his own, during which an editor accepted his notion that the paper needed an arts column. Mr. Cavell said that America's only outstanding journalist has been Edmund Wilson; he also praised Renata Adler's movie reviews in the New York Times.

To summarize at this point Mr. Cavell asked if awareness of popular culture was in fact a sickness, and he answered NO. In the 16th century the gap was so wide that no one questioned it. Today we have the disheartening phenomenon that we no longer accept the split. Miss Kourilsky said it was evident that in different social classes one must find different cultures: the 16th century English aristocracy had their metaphysical poets, and the mass had its folk cultures; she thinks today the gap is wider. The point is that the bourgeois in France own the means of transmission of culture, and force "popular culture" down the throats of the populace. Mr. Cavell here laid into TIME magazine as an instance of people cynically making a product for other people whom they considere inferior. Mr. Cassin asked, "Who is corrupting whom?" Mr. Agamben said that the nature of popular culture is not defined by the content, but by the medium. Mr. Pottersman: MacLuhan is the most boring man I ever read. Mr. Cavell: Yeah, what could be duller than pointing out that printing is linear? Mr. Pottersman: Consider the NEWS OF THE WORLD, the most obscene paper in London and very probably therefore in the world. "All human life is here" figures on the masthead. The crucial difference between popular and high culture is that the popular variety is a commodity in the Marxist sense. An object from the high culture may be exploited as such a commodity, but its purpose and essence are completely different.

Mr. Fichter here recalled Mr. Cassin's corruption question. Mr. Cassin asked again where the corruption of the writer starts, but the issue got lost in a brief argument between Messrs. Fichter and Cavell as to whether *Time* magazine journalists are writers. Mr. Susil said the corruption is a question of money. Mrs. Pillsbury suggested that TIME could condeiveably be defended as the most professional of all magazines. Mr. Fichter said that even in the worst writers one finds some insights; he also pointed out that Luce is not cynical at all.

Mr. Pillsbury brought up Warshow's attempt, in articles on gangster and western films, to find in popular culture artistic results not totally removed from high culture. But Mr. Pottersman said that one could not seriously talk of a Western and Oedipus Rex on the same level. Mr. Cavell partially agreed ("bad faith" to speak seriously of westerns?) but wondered whether Sophocles really exists for us anymore. Mr. Pottersman had attended a performance of *Trojan Women* so powerful as to leave him practically sick. Mr. Cavell wondered whether we have any right to expect popular culture to give us the same thing as high culture. Miss Kourilsky had said we should speac not of "high" and "low" cultures, but rather of class cultures. Mr. Cavell said this would not do in America; in America, where there has been neither an aristocratic nor a worker culture, it is more accurate to speak of "high" and "low".

Mr. Cavell then asked Miss Kourilsky, Mr. Agamben, and Mr. Toca to speak about their own popular cultures on Thursday.

Mr. Toca explained that he does not speak English. Mr. Toca was not taken all seriously. Presumably he will do his five minutes on Thursday. Mr. Subotin mentioned that folk culture definitely still exists in underdeveloped countries.

INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR

6/27

[y]

GUEST SPEAKERS

Mon. July 8: Franklin Ford

Tues., July 9: John Morsell

Thurs. July 11: William Rusher

Mon. July 15: Harold Gibbons

Tues. July 16: David Riesman

Thurs. July 18: Emmanuel Mesthene

Mon. July 22: Robert Coles

Tues. July 23: David Riesman

Thurs. July 25: Tom Wicker

Mon. July 29: Carl Kaysen

Tues. July 30: Elliot Richardson

Thurs. Aug. 1:

Mon. Aug. 5: Edwin Reischauer

Tues. Aug. 6:

Thurs. Aug. 8:

Mon. Aug. 12:

Tues. Aug. 13:

Thurs. Aug. 15: Myers

Bator is to let us know by the end of the week if and when he can speak Kistiakowsky seems fairly definite (see letter)

John Gardner's assistant will call, hopefully today or tomorrow

Bill Moyer's office will let us know sometime next week

I have asked Stanley Cavell to come up with a humanities speaker (he hasn't done anything yet, to my knowledge)

One of the dates in the last week is an extra, since the review session can be held

In an emergency, we can always throw together a panel of students to discuss the New Left, etc.

The following people have dropped out:

Dennis Cunliffe from Peru - promoted to a higher position

Francis Minah - Sierra Leone - no reason given

Pochitalin

Miss Dulari Akhter - E. Pakistan - something about being married to an American by proxy and her family won't let her leave Pak.

John Cassin may be sick - see letter

Guy Berger has agreed to solicit ideas for the first Open Forum on the boat; he and Henry Pillsbury will coordinate getting the boat people to the airport, where we have tickets waiting for them.

Everything is set for Winthrop HOuse -- all participants have single rooms, though some share a common room. The women are all in one entry. We were given use of a couple of the memorial rooms, which are much nicer than the Common Rooms

The $25,000 from Ford seems to have gone through (or be just about to) (see carbons) and the Kennedy Institute will transfer the $15,000 on 7/1

PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS
OF HARVARD COLLEGE

MASSACHUSETTS HALL
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

SIR,

I beg to inform you that at a meeting of the President and
Fellows of Harvard College held June 3, 1968
you were appointed

Executive Director of the Harvard Summer School
International Seminar

to serve for one year from July 1, 1968.

Your obedient servant,

Professor Henry Alfred Kissinger

1968 SCHEDULE - THIRD WEEK (July 15 - 21)

Monday, July 15

9:30 - 11:00 Meeting of the Humanities Group in Lehman Hall

11:00 - 12:55 Meeting of the Politics Group in Lehman Hall

2:30 - 4:00 Guest Speaker: (Holyoke Center B and C) HAROLD J. GIBBONS, Vice President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Mr. Gibbons, a pioneer in the development of the union's health and welfare programs, has been a trade unionist for more than thirty years.

7:30 MOVIE in Boylston Hall: *Swing Time*. In the darkness of the Depression years, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers brought a touch of gaiety and elegance into American life. This was Hollywood at its best, bringing the glitter of escape into the drabness of everyday life. There is the charm of a style which is sophisticated and at the same time utterly and delightfully naive. Cinderella and Prince Charming dancing to some of the finest music produced by an era still dominated by memories of George Gershwin and the actuality of Benny Goodman -- such is *Swing Time*.

Tuesday, July 16

2:30 - 4:00 Guest Speaker (Holyoke Center B and C): HERMAN KAHN, Director of the Hudson Institute, physicist, and public policy analyst. After working for the RAND Corporation for 12 years, Mr. Kahn helped found the Hudson Institute in 1961. At the Institute, his main fields of interest have been studies on Latin America, inquiries into alternate world futures and long-run (10 to 35 years) political, economic, technological and cultural changes, and research into strategic warfare and basic national security policies. Mr. Kahn has written numerous articles and five books, including *On Thermonuclear War and The Year 2000: A Framework for Speculation on the Next Thirty-Three Years*.

-2-

Wednesday, July 17

9:30 - 12:30 Please meet Bob Fichter in the International Seminar office in Lehman Hall to go by subway to Boston City Hall. The first meeting will be with Daniel Finn, Public Services Director, and the second meeting will be with Hale Champion, the administrator of the Boston Redevelopment Agency. Mr. Finn is in charge of the "Little City Halls" project which has been established to decentralize the administrative structure and services of the city. Mr. Champion is head of the planning department and urban renewal agency of the city.

8:00 INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR PUBLIC FORUM in 105 Emerson Lecture Hall. A reception will follow in Ticknor Library, Boylston Hall. Messrs. Chiang, Damm, Eke, and Kim will discuss "Nations Divisible and Indivisible".

Thursday, July 18

9:30 - 11:00 Meeting of the Humanities Section in Lehman Hall

11:00 - 12:55 Meeting of the Politics Section in Lehman Hall

2:30 - 4:00 Guest Speaker (Holyoke Center B and C): EMMANUEL MESTHENE, Director, Harvard University Program on Technology and Science. Before coming to Harvard, Mr. Mesthene spent 11 years on the Senior Staff of the Economics Department of the RAND Corporation; he was also Consultant to the Special Assistant to President Kennedy on Science and Technology.

4:30

Visit to the Country. Spend a late afternoon and evening with a family in Wayland, a suburban community west of Boston. Please contact Dana Holland if you wish to go.

Friday, July 19 Visit to the campaign headquarters in New York City of Nelson Rockefeller. Details to be announced.

Saturday, July 20

1:00 Baseball Game!!! Boston Red Sox vs. the Washington Senators at Fenway Park in Boston. Please meet Tom Hargadon in the Winthrop House Court Yard to go by public transportation.

9:00 PARTY at the apartment of Mary Hannigan, 22 Hilliard Street, Cambridge (Moderately informal).

Both Lodge and Cavell are all set. We produced some of the articles
Lodge wanted ourselves to save money and are still working on that
project.

Trips and Tours are all set, though there are a few confirmations to
get straight. Do you remember Chuck Fraggos? I had written him the
usual letter about the South End Settlement, and he finally called to
say that he was no longer employed by them, that nobody else was suitable
for the job of showing the Seminar around, but that he would do it for
a $35 honorarium. He also wanted to talk to you about job possibilities.
I told him I would talk to you about the honorarium, but it hardly seems
worth it to me. Fraggos usually bores the participants, and I am sure
we can get David Kieft to take them to the South End, as he knows his
way around quite well. Shall I tell him that it's against our policy
to pay honorariums?

David is arriving on Monday the first

We are having a picnic outside on the Winthrop House courtyard on the
first night rather than going to a restaurant -- it's cheaper and I
think it's a much nicer way for everybody to get acquainted.

Our office is in Lehman Hall (basement), and we've managed to make it
look quite comfortable. Still no telephones, but we can be reached
on x727 (down the hall) or 4161 (2 flights up). I hope the strike ends
soon.

1968 HARVARD UNIVERSITY INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR

**AFGHANISTAN**
Mr. Nour Mohammed RAHIMI
Karte-e-Parwan
Sarak-e-Awal 1200
Kabul

Assistant Editor, *The Kabul Times*

**ARGENTINA**
Mr. Patricio BUTELER
Chile 952
Mendoza

Judge of Criminal Court; Professor of Criminology, Center of Criminological Studies, Mendoza

**BELGIUM**
Mr. Wilfried A. E. MARTENS
Guido Gezellestraat 14
Ghent

Barrister, Court of Justice in Ghent; Adviser to the Prime Minister's Cabinet on problems of science policy, national education, and culture

**BRAZIL**
Mr. Antonio Marcos PIMENTA NEVES
Rua Cubatao, 838, apt. 61
Sao Paulo

Managing editor of *Folha de Sao Paulo*, newspaper

**BULGARIA**
Mr. Krustan D. DYANKOV
92 E. Thälman Boulevard
Block 23, Apt. 38
Sofia 8

Assistant Editor of *Obzor*, quarterly published in English on Bulgarian literature, poetry, and theatre

**CEYLON**
Mr. Susil STRIVARADANA
15/6 Alfred House Gardens
Colombo 3

Officer of the Ceylon Administrative Service, Ministry of Land Irrigation and Power

- 2 -

<table>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>CHINA, Republic of</td>
      <td>Mr. Peter Shao-ming HSU<br>Secretariat, Kuomintang Central Committee<br>11-1 South Chung-shan Road<br>Taipei, Taiwan<br><br>Secretary in Foreign Affairs, Secretariat,<br>Kuomintang Central Committee; Professor, College<br>of Chinese Culture, Taipei</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>CZECHOSLOVAKIA</td>
      <td>Mr. Pavel KOVALY<br>Tehovska 542<br>Prague 10<br><br>Scientific worker and Head, Department of History<br>of Philosophy, Institute of Philosophy, Prague</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>FRANCE</td>
      <td>Mr. Guy BERGER<br>19 rue des Ormeaux<br>92-Fontenay aux Roses<br><br>Auditeur à la Cour des Comptes<br><br>Miss Françoise KOURILSKY<br>67 rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis<br>Paris 10ème<br><br>Assistant Professor at the Sorbonne; Dramatic<br>critic for the "Nouvel Observateur"</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>GERMANY</td>
      <td>Mr. Carl Wilhelm DAMM<br>Heinrich-Goebel-Strasse 5<br>2 Hamburg 67<br><br>Member of Parliament; Headmaster, Roman Catholic<br>Primary School, Hamburg<br><br>Miss Ingrid SOMMERKORN<br>Hundekehlestrasse 30<br>1 Berlin 33<br><br>Research Co-ordinator and Personal Assistant to<br>the Head of the Sociology Department, Max-Planck-<br>Institute</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>GHANA</td>
      <td>Mr. Kwabena G. OSEI-BONSU<br>P. O. Box 886<br>Kumasi<br><br>Barrister-at-Law and Solicitor of Yaanom Chambers</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

- 4 -

<table>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td rowspan="3">ITALY</td>
      <td>Mr. Giorgio <u>AGAMBEN</u><br>Piazza delle Coppelle 48<br>Rome</td>
      <td>Literary critic for the magazine <u>Tempo Presente</u>;<br>Theatrical critic for the magazine <u>Sipario</u>; Con-<br>tributor to cultural programs of Italian Radio<br>Broadcasting</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Mr. Roberto <u>PAPINI</u><br>Via Archimede 28<br>Rome</td>
      <td>Department of International Relations, Political<br>Secretariat of Christian Democrats</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Miss Matilda Satoe <u>BAN</u><br>3-8-10, Higashinakano<br>Nakano-ku, Tokyo</td>
      <td>Research Staff, Japan Institute of International<br>Affairs; Lecturer, International Law and Inter-<br>national Relations, Meiji University, Faculty of<br>Law</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td rowspan="3">JAPAN</td>
      <td>Mr. Hiroshi <u>HARA</u><br>c/o KYOEI Building 3-35 Nishiokubo<br>Shinjuku-ku<br>Tokyo</td>
      <td>Assistant Professor, TOKYO University; Architect</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Mr. Mahmoud <u>SAMRA</u><br>Deputy Dean<br>Faculty of Arts<br>Jordan University<br>Amman</td>
      <td>Deputy Dean and Professor of Arabic Literature,<br>Jordan University Faculty of Arts</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Mr. Dong Hwan <u>KIM</u><br>429-3 Shindang-dong<br>Seoul</td>
      <td>Member, National Assembly of the Republic of<br>Korea; Member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

- 5 -

<table>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>NETHERLANDS</td>
      <td>Miss Nel BARENDREGT<br>Feijenoordkade 17a<br>Rotterdam<br><br>Member of Parliament for the Dutch Labour Party</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>NIGERIA</td>
      <td>Chief Abudu Yesufu EKE<br>6 James George Street, Ikoyi<br>Lagos<br><br>Registrar, Chief Administrative Officer, University of Lagos; Director, Institute of Mass Communication, University of Lagos; Commissioner for Finance and Economic Development, Midwestern State of Nigeria</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>NORWAY</td>
      <td>Mr. Knut FRYDENLUND<br>Skjaerstadveien 4 B<br>Oslo 3<br><br>Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Research Division of the Labour Movement</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>PAKISTAN</td>
      <td>Miss Dulari AKHTER<br>40 Purana Palton<br>Dacca-2, East Pakistan<br><br>Professor of Political Science, Government Intermediate Girls' College, Dacca<br><br>Mr. Farouq AYUB<br>28-A, Bahawalpur House<br>Lahore, West Pakistan<br><br>Deputy Secretary (Central), Services and General Administration, Government of West Pakistan</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>PERU</td>
      <td>Mr. Dennis CUNLIFFE Lanas<br>Bresani 180<br>Barranco, Lima<br><br>Mayor of Sayan</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

- 6 -

**PHILIPPINES**
Mr. Aurelio B. CALDERON
1353 Perez, Paco
Manila
Chairman, Social Science Department, De La Salle
College; Columnist, Book Reviewer, Manila **Chronicle Magazine**

**POLAND**
Mr. Kazimierz Karol DZIEWANOWSKI
Sady Zoliborskie 13 m 15
Warsaw
Editor, daily paper "Zycie Warszawy"

**ROMANIA**
Mr. Gheorghe-Mircea TOCA
Emil Isac 2
Cluj
History of Art Department, University of Cluj

**SIERRA LEONE**
Mr. Francis M. MINAH
22 Westmoreland Street
Freetown
Solicitor and Advocate, Sierra Leone Supreme
Court

**SINGAPORE**
Mr. CHIANG Hai Ding
Department of History
University of Singapore
Bukit Timah Road
Singapore 10
Lecturer, Department of History, University of
Singapore

**SWEDEN**
Mr. Sten Gustaf DELIN
Västra Trädgårdsgatan 17, 4 tr
Stockholm C
Secretary General of the Platform Committee of
the Conservative Party

**U.S.S.R.**
Mr. Igor G. POCHITALIN
c/o U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences
Leninsky Prospect 14
Moscow V-71
Learned Secretary of the Soviet Academy of
Sciences, Moscow

- 7 -

YUGOSLAVIA

Mrs. Irina SUBOTIC
Scerbinova 7
Belgrade

Curator, Museum of Modern Art, Belgrade

UNITED STATES

Mr. Robert FICHTER
20 A Prescott Street
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138

Faculty Assistant, Humanities Section of the
Seminar; B.A., Harvard College; B.Litt., Oxford
University; Candidate for the Ph.D. degree, De-
partment of English, Harvard University, Teach-
ing Fellow in General Education, Harvard Univ-
ersity

Mr. David KIEFT
Department of History
College of Liberal Arts
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, Minnesota

Faculty Assistant, Politics and Economics Sec-
tion of the Seminar; B.A., Harvard College; Ph.D.,
University of California at Berkeley; Assistant
Professor of History at the University of Minne-
sota

Mr. Henry PILLSBURY
5 rue Nicolas Houel
Paris 5, France

Faculty Assistant, Humanities Section of the
Seminar; B.A. and M.A., Yale University; Actor,
writer and director of films and plays in Paris