![]() ![]() That particular book, it might be said, was closed: it was part of the perfection of her culture. They had only to be learned or consulted.įor the mother, all poetry had already been written. She would reject it as an impossibility.” It would be rejected as an impossibility because for the poet’s mother the epics of her country-and to her, they would have been like sacred texts-already existed, had already been written. The friend said, “The only way he would have of making the mother understand what he is trying to do would be to suggest that he is being a poet in the classical tradition. So I asked the young man-bearing in mind that we were in Java, where ancient epics live on in the popular art of puppet plays, “But isn’t your mother secretly proud that you are a poet?” He said in English-I mention this to give a further measure of his education in his far-off Javanese town, “She wouldn’t have even a sense of what being a poet is.”Īnd the poet’s friend and mentor, a teacher at the local university, amplified this. She was elegant in visage and dress and speech her manners were like art they were Javanese court manners. This mother was a person of culture and elegance that should be stressed. This ambition had been given him by his modern education but it was hard for the young man to explain to his mother exactly what he was up to. Eleven years ago, when I was traveling in Java, I met a young man who wanted above everything else to be a poet and to live the life of the mind. Sometimes an atmosphere can be too refined, a civilization too achieved, too ritualized. The sensibility itself is created, or given direction, by an intellectual atmosphere. ![]() To be a writer, you need to start with a certain kind of sensibility. It is the civilization in which I have been able to practice my vocation as a writer. ![]() It is the civilization, first of all, that gave me the idea of the writing vocation. I will only speak of it in a personal way. I am not going to attempt to define this civilization. And so the theme of my talk, “Our Universal Civilization,” was given me. I felt that the very pessimism of the questions, and their philosophical diffidence, defined the strength of the civilization out of which it issued. But I got to feel, over the next few days, and perhaps from my somewhat removed position, that I couldn’t share the pessimism implied by the questions. ![]() Of course, I was on the side of the questioner and understood his drift. You know how words can be used: I am civilized and steadfast you are barbarian and fanatical he is primitive and blind. There was a clear worry about certain fanaticisms “out there.” At the same time, there was a certain philosophical diffidence about how that anxiety could be expressed, since no one wants to use words or concepts that might boomerang on himself. It was easy to read through to some of the anxieties that lay behind the questions. Are we-are communities-only as strong as our beliefs? Is it enough for beliefs or an ethical view to be passionately held? Does the passion give validity to the ethics? Are beliefs or ethical views arbitrary, or do they represent something essential in the cultures where they flourish? They were very serious questions, very important. We talked on the telephone then, some days later, he sent me a handwritten list of questions. Myron Magnet, a senior fellow of the Institute, was in England at the time. That was why I thought, when this invitation to talk came, that it would be better for me to find out what kind of issues that members of the Institute were interested in. To work in the other way would be to know the answers before one knew the problems that is a recognized way of working, I know, especially if one is a political or religious or racial missionary. That is why one travels and writes: to find out. To me, situations and people are always specific, always of themselves. I feel I should explain how it came about. I’ve given this talk the title “Our Universal Civilization.” It is a rather big title, and I am a little embarrassed by it. We are pleased to present his remarks here in full. He described the personal and philosophical turmoil of those who find themselves torn between their native civilizations and the values of universal civilization. Naipaul took as his subject the “universal civilization” to which the Western values of tolerance, individualism, equality, and personal liberty have given birth. Wriston lecture in Public Policy, sponsored by the Manhattan Institute. Naipaul, considered by many to be the greatest living English-language novelist at that time, delivered the fourth annual Walter B. ![]()
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