February 3, 2004
Barenboim and Ozick on political responsibility for artists
Daniel Barenboim, head of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin since 1992 and co-author of a book with the late Edward Said, is profiled in this article. (Link via ArtsJournal.) Barenboim is a model for the politically engaged artist, speaking out repeatedly against the Israeli government whlie also engaging in activities that work to bridge the gap between Israelis and Palestinians (such as teaching classical music classes in the West Bank and conducting a youth orchestra comprised of children from both sides of the divide.)
It is difficult, especially in times of conflict, to recede fully into the comfortable lair of "art for art's sake," and often equally difficult to find a noble expression of political views within one's art practice. Whatever you think of Barenboim's politics, his activity is to be commended because it engages his twin practices--classical music performance and political activism--as separate but equal strands of his life. Holding the two in balance strikes me as the appropriate course for myself as well.
The article also occasions an opportunity to quote from Cynthia Ozick's essay "Public Intellectuals," which I re-read last night in her collection Quarrel & Quandary:
"History isn't only what we inherit, safe and sound and after the fact; it is also what we are ourselves obliged to endure."
"The responsibility of intellectuals includes also the recognition that we cannot live above or apart from our own time and what it imposes on us; that willy-nilly we breathe inside the cage of our generation, and must perform within it. Thinkers--whether they count as public intellectuals or the more reticent and less visible sort--are obliged above all to make distinctions, particularly in an age of mindlessly spreading moral equivalence."
I suspect that most thinkers, and artists and writers, fall into the "more reticent and less visible" category when it comes to pressing political matters, but I think Barenboim would appreciate the way Ozick imparts a culpability for thoughts and actions to us all.