WEBVTT

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I think the United
States is particularly

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vulnerable to cultural matters.

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I think many of our political
problems and difficulties

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have cultural roots.

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I think that what
holds us together

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is a permanent problem, a
very long-standing problem.

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The Civil War and
the racial division

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and that regional
division is kind

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of an egregious, easily
identifiable manifestation

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of that.

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You take health care,
who the kids who are now

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doing their second,
third, fourth tour of duty

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in Iraq, the way social
issues that are not

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issues in many, many other
Western democracies become

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social issues here, anything
you name, social security.

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All of these things have
cultural roots in my opinion.

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They are matters of imagination.

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I don't believe whole countries
become depressed or not,

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except economically.

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But we do have a
problem of imagination

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that is a collective problem.

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And one of my fears is that
the recognition of that

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will just translate
into sophistry.

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So the Democrats will hire a
better sophist than the sophist

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that the Republicans had.

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And this sophist
says, we can appeal

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to the Christians this way.

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And the sophist says, well, if
we put the question this way.

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And if I think what is the
counterbalance to sophistry,

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it's honoring our artists.

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So I've already said last
night, yesterday afternoon,

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that I think the most
important aspect of education

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is teaching very small
children music and poetry.

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Probably for the
college kids, I would

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say they need to read
William Carlos Williams,

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they need to see the
films of Preston Sturges,

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they need to read
Willa Cather, they

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need to read American
works that deal

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with the strengths
and weaknesses

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of American imagination.

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You know, Mark
Twain must guide us.

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We all have many reservations
about Bill Clinton.

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He said something that I
remember at a reception

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at the White House.

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They had Nadja-- what's
the violinist name?

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It's a hyphenated name.

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The woman, young woman.

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Yeah.

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[INTERPOSING VOICES]

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Sonnenberg.

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Nadja Sonnenberg played.

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And she played light stuff.

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She played a defiant piece,
she played somebody's setting

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of a Gershwin.

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I can almost remember who.

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And she mentioned before she
played that it was the 100th

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anniversary of Gershwin's birth.

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And I believe extemporaneously
or if not anyway impressively,

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Clinton, who does like to
talk, stood up and said,

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"You mentioned that it was the
100th anniversary of George

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Gershwin's birth.

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The other day we celebrated the
100th anniversary of William

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Faulkner."

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Then he said, he used the
word that you and I are using,

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he then said, "Think of those
two imaginations, William

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Faulkner and George Gershwin.

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Just think how different the
history of our country could

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have been for the last 50 years
if we had been guided by those

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imaginations."

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I thought, here's
a politician who

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can use the word
imagination without making

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you feel embarrassed.

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And here is a good point.

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So I don't think there's an
easy or simple relationship

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between art and politics.

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And the only thing I'm
really an expert on

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is arranging the
sounds of words.

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I am an expert.

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I don't know anybody
who knows more than I

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do about consonants and vowels.

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I really mean that.

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But on questions like this, I'm
really talking from my head,

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I have a strong sense
that probably everywhere--

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I'm sure in France
they would tell you

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right now that their political
problems are cultural problems.

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But I think in a
particular way for us,

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because memory is
such an issue for us,

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memory is such an
important issue.

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In a particular
way for us, culture

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is a terribly important matter.

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