Photo by Tom Davis —
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The conservative press in America is having a field day with two stories, this week, about cultural icons of the left: Arthur Miller and Pete Seeger.
Miller, whose plays center on the common man to question the fairness of a society focused on business and success, is certainly one of the great playwrights of the twentieth century.
Seeger’s songs and performances helped rally generations for causes of social justice and civil rights.
The September issue of Vanity Fair magazine features a story on Arthur Miller’s treatment of his son, Daniel, who was born with Down syndrome. Born in 1966, Daniel was the second child Miller had with his third wife, Inge Morath. The couple institutionalized Daniel a few weeks after his birth. Miller apparently had very little connection to his son throughout his life, and made no mention of him in his autobiography, or even with close friends. Daniel’s story became public when Arthur Miller’s will included the same share to Daniel as to his other children. Receiving a large inheritance triggered the state of Connecticut to seek reimbursement for Daniel’s public care when he was a minor.
The New York Sun carried Ron Radosh’s story about his recent correspondence with Seeger. Radosh has known Seeger for a long time, even studied banjo with him when he was young. Radosh had written to Seeger when he wasn’t included in a documentary on Seeger: he wanted a platform for his views attacking Seeger’s earlier blind support for communism. Seeger wrote Radosh, now a historian and fellow at the very conservative Hoover Institute, to agree that he was wrong to be silent on the acts of the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin.
And so the conservative press sweeps in to question why we should continue to see Miller’s plays or listen to Seeger’s songs now that we know that they were less than perfect men. As their argument goes, unless the artist leads a perfect life, we should not hear or see the value in their work — especially when it questions our own values.
Given the heat and the vitriol, you would think that the conservative press thinks that artists must be as important as political leaders. If so, that’s definitely good news for the arts.
There is, though, a crucial difference between a politician and an artist: An artist questions society; a politician makes laws that rule society.
What is not in question, much to the disappointment of these critics, is that the work of Arthur Miller and Pete Seeger will continue to astonish and inspire audiences around the world for a long time.
These two figures have been joined together for a long time in American history. Miller and Seeger were both indicted for contempt of Congress for refusing to name names in the McCarthy era of personal destruction for leftist affiliations. What’s clear, again, is that many in the conservative political circles have never forgiven Miller’s and Seeger’s principled stands for freedom of expression and association.
Even if you want to take the low road of questioning each man, it seems as though they both tried to overcome their own sense of failings. Seeger has even written a song, which he included in his letter to Radosh. The song, “Big Joe Blues” includes the lyrics:
He ruled with an iron hand.
He put an end to the dreams
Of so many in every land.
He had a chance to make
A brand new start for the
human race.
Instead he set it back
Right in the same nasty place.
As in all good stories, this one too has the dramaturgical advantage of characters’ actions disguising a larger truth. At the same time these stories broke, there was also the Republican Senator, who had been a leading voice in his party to penalize gays and lesbians and criminalize homosexuality, caught soliciting sex in a men’s bathroom.
Is there a moral?
Maybe, we should trust artists’ questions more than politicians’ answers.
- Bill Reichblum