THE ELIXIR WITH A HANGOVER

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 502, 4 February 1949, Page 18

THE ELIXIR WITH A HANGOVER

An Inquiry into the Recent Cultural Upsurge. Written for "The

2 Listener' by

A. R. D.

FAIRBURN

worthy development that has occurred in New Zealand during the past 10 years, apart from the. steady rise in the totalisator figures to record levels, is the way in which we have become culture-conscious. A National Orchestra has been formed; a State Literary Committee has been set up; art exhibitions have multiplied in their numbers; stage productions and musical "events" have crowded more and more thickly upon us; an opera has- been produced; prizes have been offered in a public poetry competition; and the outcry about the need for a National Theatre rises into a full-throated bellow. There can be hardly any doubt that by this time we take culture seriously. I use the word "culture" because of the lack of any other word that would convey my meaning. One never uses it.in the generic sense, of course, without wincing slightly. (As for "cultureconscious," it ‘is unforgivable.) The advantage of employing the wordwhich Time, I feel, will deal with as harshly as it has with "genteel"-is that I am saved the trouble of defining it. Everybody knows what it means. Everybody is in, favour of it. Even people one might fairly regard as philistines never dare, nowadays, to defile the altar of this latest addition to the national pantheon with a frown or a sneer. There is a general feeling that culture is good for us, and that "the State ought to do something." "After ali," it js said a’ thousand times in buses, trams, drawing-rooms and dentists’ chairs, "the State is only ourselves, and we ought to help our artists, writers and musicians." Far be it from me to question the generous impulses, and the honest aspiration, that lie behind all this. I have no intention, either, of dis- =~ os the most note-

cussing here and now the implications of State patronage. I should be led into deep water. I should have to go into such questions as whether literature is a business career,a religion, or a form of indoor sport; whether orchid-growers may be reckoned in the Same category as mar-ket-gardeners; and which came first, the hen or the egg. What interests me at the moment is a problem I have thought about, off and on, for a very long time, without coming to any very satisfactory conclusion, * * HE notion that lies behind all this cul-ture-organising is, I take it, something like this -that if we have more

culture, more music and poetry and painting and drama, we shall all become nobler, kinder, happier, more civilised human beings — in brief, much nicer people in every possible way. It is with the greatest hesitation that I say anything that might be taken as casting doubt on this suggestion. Only after a prolonged morai struggle have I brought myself to the point of mentioning the matter at all. After all, I am in the culture-diffusion business myself. I don’t want to knock the profits. I don’t want to have my membership card cancelled and be drummed out ‘of the union. An unfrocked cul-ture-diffusionist would make a pathetic sight, fumbling his way along the gutter and picking up the cigar-butts of the frock-coated novelists, the sleek conductors and _ stage-producers, and the prosperous poets who had wisely held their peace and sat tight on the bandwagon. I shall proceed with what I have to say only on the firm understanding that all the characters in this inquest are entirely imaginary, and that my remarks have no reference to any living person whatsoever. % ES : HAT worries me (to come to the point) is this: If culture makes us much nicer people, how does it come about that so many writers, artists, musicians and actors-the purveyors of this. highly-vitaminised diet that is held to be so beneficial-are themselves not very nice people? . I have had a good deal to do; in my time, with the private soldiery of the culture-diffusion army, and have even met a few colonels and an odd generalissimo. Not all of them have been blackguards, or pathological egotists. Far from it. But on the whole I have been very disappointed with them. To listen to great music well-played is one of the most uplifting experiences in human life. Music steals into the Se eS oe |

soul like a healing balm, restoring the ‘mind to its clear vision of ultimate Truth, Beauty and Goodness. The man that has no music in his soul, we have been told on high authority, is fit for reasons, stratagems and spoils. We are advised to put no trust in him. But have you heard one musician discussing another? Have you listened to the gossip of a small community of musicians? On the whole they are as amiable as, starving rats in a barrel. Actors are, if anything, worse. Judge Jeffreys summing up against a fratricide would haye sounded mellow compared with the actor who is asked his opinion of a fellow-actor’s performance. I greatly fear that things are little different with novelists, poets, dramatists and painters. The poet who hymns the Eternal will quarrel with the barman on the smallest provocation. The novelist whose work is broad and generous, breathing the very spirit ‘ of universal compassion, will gossip maliciously about the woman in the flat above, and ram borrowed tobacco into his pipe so tightly that it will hardly draw. The poet of the religious revival will bilk the tradesmen and delight in one

robbing his little daughter’s money-box with a table-knife. Wherever one turns within this world of culture and enlightenment one is likely to shed some longcherished illusion. It would be unjust for me to suggest that all artists, writers, musicians and actors are of this character, because that, in my own experience, is plainly untrue, Over the years I have met several who are not. But there is substance in what I have said-substance enough to make the philosopher bury his head in his hands. Not that you can be sure, when you see a philosopher in that posture, that he is in fact pondering any such mysteries as the one I have been discussing. If my experience is a guide, he is much more likely to be worrying about the weather, or trying to think of a reply to what his wife said to him at breakfast.

; * * SUPPOSE one might say that there are, basically, two opposing philosophies open to the choice of humanity. One of them asserts that the eternal verities, Truth, Beauty and Goodness, are inseparable; the alternative view is that they exist if at all, separately, and have no necessary connection with one another, As Dr. Johnson said of predestination, all argument supports the former doctrine, and all experience is against it. Like the rest of us, I keep on believing that culture is good for us, and anxiously seeking for the evidence. I look constantly to find Truth, Beauty and Goodness living peaceably in the same house-or even camping together for a fortnight. But I sometimes find myself wondering, in’ the still of the night, whether some of the money we spend on culture-diffusion might not better be devoted to providing help for over-worked young mothers, or free psychiatric services for everybody under the Social Security scheme.