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©Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University.

FIRinG 1ne GUEST: WILLIAM BENNETT

SUBJECT: "THE HUMANITIES AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT"

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SOUTHERN EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION

Th fIRING LIN t I as1on nn ' a produclaon of lh South on Educat onal Communocat ons Assoc1atoon 928 Woodoow St P 0 Box 596 Cofumboa S C 29"50 and 1 transmollcd through tt e fac1loto s of lh Public Broadcastmg Serv1ce FIRING LINE can be

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SECA PRESENTS ®

FIRinG Line

HOST : WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY JR.

GUEST: WILLIAH BENNETT

EXAMINER : MICHAEL KINSLEY

SUBJECT : "THE HUHANITIES AND THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT"

FIRING LINE isproducedanddirectedby WARREN STEIBEL

This is a transcript of the FIRING LINE program taped in New York City on January 5, 1983, and telecast later by PBS .

SOUTHERN EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION

©Board of Trustees of the L land Stanford Jr. University.

c 1983 SOUTHERN EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION

MR . BUCKLEY: A year or so back , after much deliberati o n , !ir . Reagan nominated a new chairman of the National End owmen t for the Humanities. This wasn ' t easy to do for a numbe r o f reasons . There was a populist lobby around hoping that the s uccessor to Mr . Duffy would be another Santa Claus for cottage cultural projects , preferably oriented to the here and now. Then there were those who wished an executive more clearly asso c i ate d wi th the conservative movement. And finally, there were s till other s who wondered what the federal government was doing messi ng around with the humanities in the first place. These las t , I might add , were partially appeased by a reduction i n the approp ria tion for the NEH from $130 million to about $100 million .

In any event , the choice of rtr . Reagan was Will i am J. Bennett who , after serving one year, is obviously better able to discuss what it is all about. Mr. Bennett , at the time he was designa t ed , was serving as president ~d director of the Nati onal Humanities Center in North Carolina . He is a native of New York who a t t e nde d high school in Washington , took his BA degree from \•/ill iams , a nd then went to the University of Texas to get a PhD in philosophy . Somewhere along the line he got a law degree from Harvard , ta ught law and philosophy in Southern Mississippi, at the Un iversity of Texas, at Harvard , at the University of Wi s consin, a nd at Boston . Since he is only 39 years old , one wonders how he a c c omp l ished all of this. Perhaps he allots only a year o f h i s time to a ny si ngle client . I should a d d that Mr. Benne tt survi v ed a l so t he job of assistant to John Silber, the exact i ng a nd bri ll iant president of Boston University . Notwithstanding that much of his time is taken by administrative business, Mr . Bennett recently r eaf f irmed his calling as a philosopher by reading a paper o n mora l education at the American Philosophical Associat i on.

Our examiner is Mr. Michael Kinsley, t he edi t or of Harper ' s maga ­z i ne , about whom more in due course.

I should like to begin by asking Mr . Bennet t, be f ore we get into an exploration of what it is that the human i t i es mostly need right now , to explore t he role o f the federal g over nment in s u ch a venture . Suppose that t he Ford Foundation were to appro p r iate $100 million per year , aff i x i t t o a c harte r ident i cal to that of the EH . 1-lould yo u applaud that substitute?

MR . BENNETT : \"/ell, I would very much wan t t o see the guidelines under which they were operati ng. I n my dea l i ngs with the Ford Foundation I have f ound that thing s a re r a re ly presented in such a way t hat one would expe c t to see t hat this would be support for the humaniti e s willy-ni l l y . I ' d be very interested to see the kind of emphases, the kind of particular inter ests that such a designa­t i on would carry with i t.

MR. BUCKLEY: I t h ink you're in trod ucing extr insic considerations , because I s a i d, "Suppose t he Ford Foundation were to give you $100 million with a n iden tical c har ter ," meaning that you would hav e , u nd er i t s auspic es , the same liberties yo u now have , which is no t an invitation to invoke past practices of the Ford Founda ­tion.

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MR . BENNETT: Oh , if the Ford Foundation were to give the National Ennowment $100 million?

MR . BUCKLEY: No , to give you .

MR. BENNETT : To give me?

MR . BUCKLEY : You as chairman of an organization set up to do what the charter now sets your NEH up to do .

MR . BENNETT : Would I take it?

MR . BUCKLEY: No , I ' m saying would you welcome the substitute of private for public funds whose mandate is identical?

MR . BENNETT: Yes, I think I would . I take i t, then , this would substitute for the present fund?

MR. BUCKLEY : Right.

MR . BENNETT : Present funding source .

MR . BUCKLEY : Right .

MR . BENNETT: Yes , I think I would if- - again--if we could use a number of the procedures and steps that we use at the Nationa l Endowment .

MR . BUCKLEY: liell , let me ask you this : What is it that one can point to that you can ' t do because you are a federa l outfit that you could do if you were an outfit created by the Rockefeller or the Ford Foundation or whoever?

MR . BEN ETT : Well , I think the greater latitude would come there in that one would not have to follow the historical patterns of evolution at the National Endowment. lihen one gets this job-­the job I have--you inherit a structure . Some parts o f that structure are unexceptionable ; they ' re fine . Other parts--

MR . BUCKLEY: You inherit a statulory structure or a traditional structure?

IR . BE NETT : A traditional structure . It ' s not written into the legislation. The legislation stales aims for the National Endow­ment , but does not tell the chairman how he shall structure it . Bllt­l>'ith such structures evolve people \vho are used to receivina ':!rants fran the National Endowment . They call themselves constituencies-­an incorrect , I think , use of the term. But to have greater freedom , T think , to work within that structure or to work another structure might be a good thing. I , of course, have flexibility , with the advice of the ·ational Council , Lo tinker with the present struc­ture , and we ' e been do~ng th t for the last year .

R. BCCKLEY : \ell now, do I understand thal the members of your board have to sanction any structural rearrangements that you seek

o make?

~IR . BE:, 'ETT : I must seek heir advice . I seek t i1cir advice both

on structure , matters of organization and on grants.

MR. BUCKLEY : Well , there you need their consent if it ' s more than x , don 't you?

MR . BENNETT: No, I don ' t .

MR. BUCKLEY : You don't?

~1R . BENNETT : As a matter of fact , it ' s very interesting, with all- ­

MR . BUCKLEY : You mean you could give me a million dollars after this show?

~R. ~ENNETT: I could, but I don ' t know how long I ' d last in the JOb ~f I JUSt penned the check . But it ' s interesting , with all the rule~ and regulations that one has , that one finds inevitably in Wash~ngton , that the only person who can refuse a grant or give a ~rant at the National Endowment is the chairman . What must occur ~s that the Council must meet and offer its advice to me , but then I am free , legally , to disregard it totally .

MR . BUCKLEY : Well , on the problem of constituencies that have gotten used to being fed , do you publicly state your intention to disfranchise those, or do you simply wean them slowly away?

MR . BENNETT: Well , I have , I think, made a number of statements that have made it plain , if one can draw an implication from a statement , that we intend to do business in a somewhat different way than was done before. I have also said on a number of occasions both publicly and in my requests and conversations with the Con- ' gress and with the National Council of the Humanities, that I seek change in the structure and I seek to redistribute our funds in a different way.

~R: ~UCKLEY : _Well now , when you said a moment ago , in answer to my ~n~t~al quest~on , that you think you would prefer private to public patronage for this project , why did you hesitate and why did you say you " think"? Is it because you are ambivalent about that substitution?

MR . BEN ETT : o , I think--again , I think , again qualified- - the irst thing that struck me is the source , and as a former fund

raiser , I know rarely does money come even from a private source w~thout expectations . So I ' d want to get a good and firm sense of the 7xpectation~ . But , no , the substitution of private funds for publ~c funds , w~th no other considerations involved , is a good

hing . I think it ' s important to point out here that we are talk­ing-- Well , lve ' re talking about support for the humanities , we ' re talking about he support from private sources anyway and support of s ate legisl~tures and the support from a wide number of sources other than the federal government . The federal govern­ment at most through the ational Endowment for the Humanities contributes one to two percent of the support for the humanities overall in the nation .

~IR . BUCKLEY : I remember in one interview- - or maybe it was an arti ­cle , I forget which--you were commenting on the widespread disap­pointment that was felt by people when the budget was cut from

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130 to 100 . You pointed out that as recently as 1965 it was $5-$6 million , and we don ' t necessarily think back to 1965 as being the dark ages in the contemplation of the humanities . Now , speaking therefore of traditional structures- -in fact speaking of encrustation--do you not now have a situation in which people become once again progressively dependent on the government to do that which was normally thought of as a province of the private sector?

MR. BENNETT : Some people do . I don ' t think there ' s any doubt about it . We have a group of people , individuals and institutions , who are regulars at the Endowment . They come back to the Endowment every year. Some do it because I think they feel the confidence is filling out an application--a proposal--and the odds that they will be successful they feel will be good . Others come because the need is there , and giver. the legislation of the National Endowment , it strikes me as not inappropriate that some of them come back . But let me correct the figure. The budget reduction was from $150 million to $130 million , rather than $130 to $100 . The President ' s request was $96 million , a request which I supported and defended and lost on . But , yes , there are people who come back to the Endowment fairly regularly. For some there are better reasons than for others .

MR. BUCKLEY : Okay, now let me ask you this question : You have here and there in your public statements on education in general and on the job of the NEH in particular expressed some philosphical resent­ment at the inauguration somewhere along the line of relativism as sort of the national creed . Inasmuch as we have the NEH sponsored by the government , is there a sense in which the NEH ought to be committed to certain planted axioms in respect to the humanities? That is to say , inasmuch as it flows from Congress , using funds of the taxpayers , is there a sense in which there is a value commit­ment- - a value tilt--in those funds which you accept and/or endorse?

MR. BENNETT: Yes , I think so . I think one has to be candid about this and not say that the agency is value- free or ought to be value-free. It cannot . It has to , first of all , be against ignorance ; it has to , second , I think , be in favor of--as a corol­lary--be in favor of enlightenment, particularly enlightenment in the humanities . The legislation says that the chairman of the National Endowment will develop and encourage a policy to promote pr~gress and scholarship in the humanities . Progress and scholar­sh~p are value-laden terms , and in these ways , I think, yes- -

IR . BUCKLEY : \~ell, I happen to agree with you , but I ' m not certain that you could get away with that generality if you were , say, facing B. . F . Skinner. He \voulcf say that there is no way of measur­ing progress ; there is only a way of measuring movement. In other words, did , for instance, the people of Ghana progress when they moved into the hands of the Osagyefo over against the ante=edent hands of , say , the British colonials? It is technically marked as progress because of anti- imperialism, but it would be rather difficult , I think , to maintain empirically that there were signs of progress in the life of the individual citizen . So to say that you ' re committed to progress doesn ' t necessarily mean that you ' ve got a value-laden word, does it?

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MR. BENNETT: Well, not perhaps . right at that point, but I think when one.goes down the road a l~ttle further and one begins to talk.a l~ttle more about what it is that the Endowment does , then I th~nk one becomes value-laden again . One says that part of progr7ss and scholarship in the humanities is , or ought to be c7rta~n~y, that students will learn the humanities , that students w~l~ ~a~~ som7 measure of cultural literacy , that they will gain f~~l~ar~ty w~th great books , great ideas , with literature, ph~losophy and history. Then I think--

MR . BUCKLEY: Well, do you--

MR. BENNETT: --it's unavoidable that we're smack into value-laden questions.

MR . BUCKLEY: Well, do you assume here that familiarity breeds devotion, not necessarily contempt?

MR. BENNETT: No , I don't assume that, but I think that the humani­ties-- In the case of the humanities , if they are taught well , taught by people who k~ow what they're talking about, taught with some measure of enthus~asm , they will gain a number of adherents . I~ any case, I would certainly think that it is part of the b~rth­r~g~t of every individual born in a decent society to have at least m~n~mal exposure to what Matthew Arnold called "the best that has been thought and known."

MR. BUCKLEY: Well--

MR. BENNETT: You see how value-laden this all really is?

MR. BUCKLEY : Sure, because once again , if you say the "best," you have the obligation of identi fying it .

MR . BE NETT: Yes , that ' s right .

~R. BUCKLEY: You said somewhere that "Students who haven ' t been ~ntroduced to the magnificence of the Renaissance or he drama of the U.S . Constitutional Convention are nowadays invited to explore the. leqacy of the ' 60s . Students who haven ' t studied Aristotle or Aqu~nas or Kant are urged to examine e hical dilemmas on their own ." ow, I agree with the conventional raditionalist view that we all .s~and on the shoulders of antecedent giants and that the probab~l~ty of any of us getting to know as much as some of our forebears knew is sligh t, and therefore to proceed without he advantage at least of some inquisitive knowledge of \vhat it wa s that they went throug~ is to disable ourselves . However , the question I wa~t to ask you ~s this: ~h':'t is it that the Ell , federal program or1e~ted towards the human~t~es , can do to change something which requ~res r~ally a total academic reorientation coast to coast?

MR . BE NETT : That ' s a very good question . I should point out that although l egally-- to go back to some hing we were saying before-­a lthough legally it is within my authority to simply write out t~e c hecks as I see fit , that ' s not the way we operate . lve oper, t e w~th a system of peer review and panel review, s o ~e are bring ing people from the humanit~es--teachers , professors , scholars--and t hey do the largest part of our review and reconm~ndation wo r k f o r

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us . That , I think , is in part an answer to your question . That is , it ' s not for me to say by mys e lf. I can make these statements and do make these sta t ements a nd will conti nue to make these state­ments of my convictions about the humanities , but one can ' t pull thi s off by oneself . One need s the coope ration of others . I don ' t think , again to get ba c k t o a kind of general base--a fuudamental level-- that a soc iety s uch a s o urs , which is so dependent upon an appreciation of ideas a nd i deals f rom t he past can afford to ignore those ideas and idea l s , pa r ticularly through our educational system. And again , that gets u s i nvolved in the question of value-laden matters and t he federa l government be ing involved in that , but the federal government is invo lve d in tha t when it s ays that learning is a good thing and that it s hould try to promote learning. That there are disagreemen ts about wha t constitutes progress and scholar­ship in the humanities is cer ta i n ly t r ue , and t h a t ' s why we have some of the interesting a r g ume nts t hat we do . I thi nk the r e a s on for my statements , a part f r o m t he privileged pos ition I hold now, which is that I ' m able to see s o much o f the stuff t hat comes in and that is done , is that I am , f rank ly , d isappoi nted abou t t he s tate of the humanities . I t h ink, aga i n, that t he legis l a t i on creating the NEll is fine , in some ways e xe mpla r y , but I don ' t think o ur pe r­formance in the a c ademic c o mmun i t y a nd s chools and col l e ges i s a l l that it should be . Thus my voice f unctions a s one voice , admi t­tedly an important voice ; a nd when I s ay s omething , as I discovered early on in my job , newspap e r s t e nd to write i t do wn , a nd that ' s all right . The kind of response I ' ve had ha s be en f o r t he mo s t part positive , but some have disagreed wi t h me . Fine . Let ' s join argu­ment on these matters .

11R. BUCKLEY : Well , let me give you a tougher one .

MR . BE NETT : Okay .

MR . BUCKLEY : Suppose someone were to ma intain that p r e c isel y a knowledge of the Constitutional Conven t ion and o f t he Fed e ra l i st Papers and of our republican experienc e asser ts certain values and that those values , under the circumstances , mus t issue out o f the NEll--i. e . , a conscious attempt to encourage t hose va lues-- and those values , for insta nce , comprehend the not ion t ha t o ne l egi t i ma t e ly struggles for freedom over against slaver y a nd t hat e v e n t he s u r ­render of life is preferable to the surrender to slaver y . Suppose someone were then to ask the NEH for a grant , to purpo se of whi c h was to do explicit battle wilh the unilater alis t surrende r of people . Would you consider this a very good transmission of your effective mandate , to subsidize such a venture?

.IR. BC, ETT : It might be . It certainly wouldn 't be ruled 0ut by virtue of the subject matter . One can imagine a philosopher--a political philosopher doing this kind of work . One , of course , \vould want to examine the application : Is the pe r son able to do

he work? Has the person touched base with the relevant scholar­ship--to relevant work in the field already? Yes , that certainly would not be outside the bounds .

, P . BUCKLI:Y : \·/ell , would you automatically exclude the opposite <~!legation?

. IR. BE~.:.TTT: :·o , we would not automatically exclude i t, although

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I think that one would wonder about-- I frankly would wonder , but this wouldn't necessarily mean I would take special action here . One would wonder about--

MR. BUCKLEY : Do you have the veto power in addition to having af­firmative power?

MR . BENNETT: Oh, sure . Sure, I can say no. If everything before me has said yes, I can still say no. I would just want to wonder and would want panelists ana reviewers to ask about the probity of someone who would be arguing to opposite.

MR . BUCKLEY: Well, suppose they're saying , " Look , Mr. Bennett , your antique wisdom is charming, but we live in a nuclear age , and in a nuclear age, all bets are off"--this of course is what Jonathon Schell and some people are saying--"and we need a brand new start , and therefore we want a million dollars from you to encourage thinking along these lines ." l~ould you simply say , "No, because I ' m operating from a writ, and that writ considers such questions as yours closed."?

MR. BENNETT: No, I don ' t think we say a priori that any questions are--

MR. BUCKLEY: You don't?

MR. BENNETT: - - are closed--

MR. BUCKLEY: You don 't?

MR. BENNETT : --provided they fall within our rubric o f t he huma ni ­ties .

MR. BUCKLEY : You just said ignorance is closed .

MR. BENNETT: Well , ignorance is going to be closed out on a cas e ­by-case basis , I would hope , I would trust .

MR. BUCKLEY : Do you mean that generically? Well , i t would be nice , I suppose , if people were ignorant of how to create an atomi c explosion , but that ' s an invitation to a kind of cultivated ignorance. But I ' m surprised to hear you say at t his point that you don't consider any questions closed .

MR . BENNETT: Well , we certainly wouldn't say that any parti cular position on an issue which i s essential to the humanit ies o r r e la ted to the humanities is , for any reason, closed a prior i . We would want to see it, we would want to read it , we would wa nt t o r eview it .

MR. BUCKLEY: Nell, would you want to review an application to help reduce ~orld population problems by genocide ?

MR. BENNETT: Well , we get such appl i cations , and the y are r evi ewed usually with dispatch . (laughter)

·1R . BUCKLEY : v/e ll, reviewed, though-- Revi ewed is-- Yo u ' re using now a r i tua l word, are n't you?

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MR . BENNETT : Yes .

MR . BUCKLEY: They ' re not reall¥ reviewed; they ' re dismissed with dispatch--

14R. BENNETT: Yes , but that ' s --

MR . BUCKLEY : -~because--

MR. BENNETT : That ' s the result of most reviews . We st~ll reject more than we accept , but one of the things that it means to be the National Endowment for the Humanities is that we receive applica­tions or proposals from anyone- - any American citizen--on just about any topic , and , by George , we do . Many of these are reviewed , and dismissed , with dispatch .

~IR . BUCKLEY : So there are operative premises here , but they are not so " closed" that you simply decline to read an application , no matter what it says .

~1R . BENNETT : That ' s right. Of course , I don ' t read--

MR . BUCKLEY : Not necessarily yourself.

~ffi. BENNETT : --very many of them anyway . I think it may be worth saying at this point that my own views , as I have been told , about these matters have stimulated a number of people to agree with me ; some , to disagree . But the fact remains that there are many grants given out by the National Endowment for the Humanities that I ' m not particularly crazy about , that I don ' t particularly like , the premises--

MR . BUCKLEY : But you don ' t want to veto?

MR . BENNETT : --the premises of which I disagree with , but which, for some reason or other , usually that it has been very favorably reviewed all the way through , that I will not veto.

MR. BUCKLEY : Okay . Well now , given your own general criticism of the modern culture of education , do you feel that $100 million spen under your direction over the next two or three years can have a significant impact in strengthening that moral tone for education with which you are generally associated?

IR . BEN ETT : ><ell , I think it can . Obviously there have to be takers ou·t there . There has to be a responsive chord to the th ings that we are saying , and in one sense I think you could say that what we are saying now is a kind of strict construction of the legislation of the Endowment . l~e are reminding people why the Endowment exists , what it ' s there to do , and again , so far I think the response has been very good . Ne have said , for example, to administrators in colleges and universities , " If you truly believe , as we have some reason to believe , that courses in the humanities do not get as much enrollment as they should in the freshm n or sophomore year; if you believe that these courses should be taught rigorously ; if you believe there should be expectations of students that are greater possibly than are being made in many places ,

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then the National Endowment for the Humanities is interested in helping . I think it can make a difference what the NEH does . Otherwise , I think , obviously there would be no reason for the NEH to exist , and I think if we can return--and be clear about our return-- to that original statement of sound purpose, then possibly we can make a difference.

~rn . BUCKLEY: Somewhere along the line you recalled that at the turn of the century at Fisk College students were reading Tacitus in Latin and reading some of the Greek poets in Greek , and you lamented the neglect of foreign languages in modern education . Now , to what extent would you say that this is simply a form of nostal­gia- -academic nostalgia? To what extent would you go further and say , "No , no , no, no , something very important and very serious is lost as a result of a general lack of apprehension of the texture of another civilization through its own language ."

MR . BENNETT : Well , I would want to say the latter . I would want to say that it is not nostalgia . It seems to me that when you ' re talk­~ng about the humanities that in some ways the game is presented in front of you in a way that makes it obvious that you have to look to the past . Someone said to me , " I wish the Endowment would do more future studies--futurology ." That ' s a very strange thing, I think , for a national endowment for the humanities to be doing . Most of our work is in t he past , the far past. And so I hope it ' s not just nostalgia . I ' m pretty firmly convinced that it is not . If these things- - the humanities , these books that we talk about-­are just items of faded prestige and our interest in them is only for the sake of being antiquarian or to appear cultured, then I don ' t think that we really , you know , have much business making strong arguments for educat i on in these areas . \~hat we say is that--and we either mean it or not--is that these books are worth reading aPd worth studying and worth preserving because they really do represent some of the best ideas and thoughts that this civiliza­tion has known and that have guided us .

MR . BUCKLEY : This is pretty uphill stuff because--

14R . BENNETT : Pretty what stuff?

MR . BUCKLEY : Uphill , because--

MR . BENNETT : Yes , sure it is .

~1R . BUCKLEY : --here you are--I don ' t know anybody who ' s acquainted with more academic roosts than you--but here you are , 39 or 40 years old , intimately acquainted with a number of universi ies and colleges in America with a very high reputation , and yet these uni­versities are not manned by faculties who are unaware of Aristotle , Aquinas and Kant , who have heard of the debates of the Constitution­al Convention , and know something about the Renaissance . And yet , right there , you saw , over the past 20 - 25 years , a dropping of any language requirement at all in many cases ; not even a modern language was required . ow , how can you possibly hope to redirect the academic discipline of 220 million people when your own colleagues , with PhDs "irip ing all over the place , don ' t ·have cno qh common sense to preserve the patrimony?

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MR . BENNETT: Well some do and some don ' t, and what we have found i s that some have been waiting, we think , for the_National En~ow­ment to say just what ~t hc!S been saying . I ment~oned the ma~l before . We're getting a lot of mail from individual pr~fessors~ teachers, administrators , saying that, "Wha!;- you ' re say~ng now ~s what you should have been saying all along .

MR. BUCKLEY: Who should have been saying all along?

MR. BENNETT : The National Endowment for the Humanities--the chair­man of the National Endowment .

MR . BUCKLEY : You weren't there all along .

MR. BENNETT: No , that's right.

MR. BUCKLEY : You weren't there at all before 1965.

MR . BENNETT: Well, that ' s right . Well , if--

~1R . BUCKLEY: Who should have been saying it then?

MR . BENNETT : Well, educational leaders , and indeed, they shou~d be s aying it now too--the heads of societies , the scholarly _and d~s­cipl i nary groups should be saying it , as well as the cha~rman of t he National Endowment for the rtumanities. Can one hope to suc­ceed? Possibly . Again, I think Lhere a~e some signs: Many aca­demics --academic humanists--are of two m~nds about th~s . They feel , "Well, yes , these books really are important." _But there are pressure s on them to go the other way , pressures ~ th~~k m~ny of t he m s hould resist . The professionalism--profess~onal~zat~on , it per haps I s hould say--of academic life in ~an~ quarters _has made a good deal less attractive for people, th~nk~ng ~f th7~r short­run s elf- i nte rests , to teach the freshman course ~n Ar~stotle _ and Pla to. The s tature in the profession , I think , is too much t~ed up wi t h p ub licati on; too much tied up with tea~hing t~e fe~est number o f s tude nts you can. There ' s a kind of not~on, wh~ch I ve sug­ges t ed i n a number o f meetings I have had , that the further along you a r e i n the e duca t i onal continuum and the few7r nu~be~ of. students you have a nd the les s difference you make on the~r t~~nk~n~, the more impor tant you are . Now, this is a very odd bus~ness ~f that ' s--

IR. BUCKLEY : We ll, i t ' s paradoxical.

MR . BEN ETT: Ye s , t hat ' s r i ght. Or the friend of mine who was thanked e ve r y year in writ i ng by the c~a~rman of his ~epartment for the sacrifice--he call ed it a sacr~flce--of teach1ng a freshman course in phi l osophy . Now--

MR . BUCKLEY : I can see wher e t ha t would be sacri fi cial.

MR . BE~ ETT : Oh , I -- Well , a s an o l d p hi losophy--a s a forme r , . n~t

old but a former--?hi l o sophy teacher , I don ' t. That ' s the exc~t1ng one : That ' s where t he s tude nts come in and say , "Don't i mpose your values on me , the just is wha t you t hink it is, _ differe~t . strokes for different folks "--the arg ume nts have dec lined ~nth ~he ~ d lom--but

'that ' s where you ' re taking on some of t hese th~ng s 1n a w~y that tests you . I found myself--disposi t ional l y found--that k1nd o f

10

teac hing mo re interesting than third- year graduate students . You know, is t he " the " on page 1 7 the same as the " the " on page 68 . Bu t no t e veryone has to be of that taste , but I think educational ins ti t utions have to , at some point , recognize their responsibility to teac h , a nd I think a college or university that is worth its salt is going to take the teaching of the humanities seriously. I t' s a n i mportant part of an individual's education.

HR. BUCKLEY : And what is it that has caused them to do less than tha t ? I s i t this obsession with contemporaneity? Is it a refusal to make a c ommitment to the values of Lhings that have happened? Is it a general moral listlessness? Is it the edge that positivism has --

MR . BENNETT : Yes .

MR. BUCKLEY : - - exercised?

MR . BENNETT : I think that . I think that if you look at the humani ­t ies now--and I should say I ' m not alone in this-- Some of the--! talked about leadership . Some of the most outstanding scholars a nd t eac he r s we have have been talking about this la ely , too. Professor Booth at the University of Chicago , who is the outgoing president of MLA , just gav e a speech in which he said there is somet h i ng pathetic about a profession whose only value appears to be t he recondite , a profession that aims to teach or to instruct . Professor Bate a t Harvard wrote an essay and talked about the huma nities plunging into a terrible crisis , again by a kind of foreshortening of view and of purpose . I think there is sor.1e listlessness here ; I think there is a-- Posit~v1sm , I think , still lingers . There ' s the notion that one ought o be very scientific and specialized about one ' s work, thaL--

MR . BUCKLEY : There ' s epistemological despa1r, too , isn ' t there?

MR . BENNETT : Certainly .

MR . BUCKLEY : Nothing is knowable , right?

~1R . BE NETT : That , I think , ties in to some extent with the rela­tivism . But Lhe other thing is , again , the reward structure , and here ' s where I think internal regenerat1on is necessary . Look at the structure . High school teachers--some high school teachers , many high school teachers--! think envy the college teacher for th college teacher ' s prestige and status. The college teacher env1es the professor of the graduate school because of his high achiev~­ment and he has fewer students to teach ; and professors in graduate school in many places envy someone at the institute for advanced study where they don ' t have to teach at all. <ow , how is this teaching going to be done? flow is it going to be carried forward? An ass mption go made somewhere along he line at some places , well , that the essential educational ~ork was being done at an earlier level , so people , I think , felt free , or perhaps blinded theMselves to the notion hat his was not Lhe case , and so what you have tn many places , as I ' ve said on a nuMber of occasions , is professors going in and flogging their freslmen with the1r dis­sertation in a very specializec area instead of giv1ng them th op­oortunity for the first time o read hr1stotle and to read Pla o . So I think there are a n~bcr of things.

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I

MR . BUCKLEY : And in what sense are you uniquely situated to press that analysis? If you did X and a professor of philosophy at Harvard did x--the same thing--what is it that gives your contribu­tion to the discussion more resonance?

MR . BENNETT : Well , I suppose people listen because I'm the treasurer of this national- -

MR . BUCKLEY: I shouldn ' t have said you. I shouldn ' t have said you . (laughter) I should have said somebody to whom you make a grant .

MR . BENNETT: Why would someone listen to that- -

MR. BUCKLEY: Yes .

MR . BENNETT : --to that person , the recipient?

MR. BUCKLEY: Yes . Well , there ' s no pedigree here , is there , that in any sense gives him extra leverage on his colleagues ' opinion?

MR. BENNETT: No , I don ' t think so, not in itself . I noticed in a budget document we prepared once at the Endowment that- -one of the things I saw when I first got there- - we said in this document , "A grant given by the National Endowment is de facto exemplary ." I don ' t think I ' d want to be prepared to defend that . Most of the time what it means is de facto it has been reviewed favorably . That ' s different from- -

MR . BUCKLEY: Ex natura .

MR. BENNETT : Yes , that ' s right . --certainly different from exemplary . But no , I don ' t think it gives any particular leverage that one has received a grant from- -

MR . BUCKLEY: Okay, if it doesn ' t do that, before we turn to the examiner , let me ask you this : Can you just offhand name a grant given under your auspices which probably would not have been given by the private sector , knowing what you know about the private sec­tor? I ' ll make this difficult for you by reminding you of a figure released over the weekend, which is that private-sector philanthropy increased by $10 billion in the calendar year 1982.

MR . BENNETT: I can ' t think of a single kind of grant that we have given that would not or could not be given by some private source or other . I tnink in fact some of the most worthy grants that we give are grants that we give in conjunction with s upport from the private sector . ~hen we give grants for the support of essential resources in the humanities-- for the preservation of books that are rotting on the shelf--we ' re not alone in doing that . There are some founda­tions and many individuals who are interested in this kind of sup­port , too , so I can ' t think generically of a kind of grant t hat we would give . Individually , one could think of some, because of dif­ferences of judgment . The one thing we do that is differ~nt from-­plainly different-- that comes to mind right away from any founda ­tion is that we support a network of sta te committees in the humanities . This is part of our legislation , and it is mandated that 20 percent of our funds -- a minimum of 20 percent of our funds--

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will go to committees of private citizens in each of the 50 states for them to administer a small mini- endowment program of their own .

MR . BUCKLEY : Which is in turn subsidized by state funds?

MR . BENNETT : No , it ' s some state funding , but it is in turn subsidized by another endowment , yes .

MR . BUCKLEY: I see, I see , I see , I see . Well , what if one were to ask you the opposite question? Can you think of ~ grant made by the NEH which no private-sector agency would be l1kely to have given on the grounds that it was too obviously political, say?

MR. BENNETT: I can't think of one since I ' ve been in office.

MR . BUCKLEY: I guess I shouldn ' t pin you down about Joe Duffey . I think he was on this program , and Ron Berman also was . Well , let ' s turn to Mr . Michael Kinsley , who is the editor of Harper ' s , also a graduate of the Harvard Law Schoo~, and a graduate _of Harvard College who studied at Magdalen College 1n Oxford . Mr . Kinsley .

MR. KINSLEY : Well , Mr . Buckley , I'm just wondering what your ans­wer would be to the question you asked Mr . Bennett earlier . Do you think it would be a better world if this $130 million every year came from something like the Ford Foundation or the Rockefeller Brothers Fund than if it came from the government?

MR . BUCKLEY : Well, I don ' t want to underestimate the capacity of the Ford Foundation to do damage . I think it has done damage . I think it ' s done a lot of good ; it ' s done a lot of damage . So that I think a lot of damage can be done by the private sector , but it is a damage that I ' m more comfortable with inasmuch as it is using other people"s money.

MR . KINSLEY: That strikes me as sort of odd . I can understand the position of people who say, "Look , funding this sort of thing is not a social obligation; we have a free market here , " and I can understand the position of people who say, in fact I share the position of people who say , "This kind o f work ~s a social o~liga­tion; it ' s a perfectly legitimate thing for soc1~ty to be do1ng communally through its proxy, the government , " but I really can ' t understand the position of people who feel, "Yes , thi s is a good thing , yes , it ought to be done , but the government shouldn ' t . do it ; you can hope that someone private will come along and do 1t , but if they don ' t do it , well , it ' s just too bad . "

MR . BUCKLEY: Well , l et me give you an example . I think it would be absolutely beautiful to have a Titian hanging over my door . I don ' t think I have much of a case fo r asking you to contribute to it , especially given the deficits of Harper ' s magazine .

MR. KINSLEY : Certainly not . Now, you couldn't get the Titian from the government , right?

MR . BUCKLEY : That ' s right.

MR . KI SLEY : That would be illegitimate . My feeling would be that

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if a foundation was set up , was giving you a Titian , that would be equally wasteful . What ' s the- - Surely the question is-- We all agree that there is no social. obligation of this society--

MR . BUCKLEY: Right .

MR . KINSLEY : - - to supply you a Titian .

!4R . BUCKLEY : Right.

MR. KINSLEY : Presumably you think there- - Well , let me ask fOU . Are there a $130 million worth of things you would like to see-­social obligations--you would like to see carried out in the field of the humanities?

MR . BUCKLEY : I think much , much more than 130 . Just a moment ago we heard from Mr . Bennett that less ~han one half of one percent of the money that ' s spent on the humanities is actually authorized through Congress , so we see that the private sector is rather munifi­cently there . I think that the distinction lies in the sense of inhibition one ought to feel about recognizing the duty of society to reify one ' s own desires or velleities.

MR . KINSLEY : Well , they ' re reified through the democratic system . If it ' s only your desire , it won ' t happen.

MR. BUCKLEY : Well , it can happen through the democratic system . That doesn ' t mean it should happen . The democratic system can authorize an expedition to the moon to find out if it ' s made up of green cheese, and it can be perfectly legal and constitutional , but it ' s undesirable , right?

MR . KINSLBY : so is the extra-- Basically the existence-- Well, you might disagree with this , but let us posit that the existence of Mr . Bennett ' s $130 million doesn ' t prevent a single penny of private money from being spent .

MR . BUCKLEY : Yes , it does , because it ' s taken from finite resources: tax funds , which--! must remember to write a letter to the New Republic and tell them this--are finite .

MR . KINSLEY: All right , let ' s put it this way: If the government , through Mr . Bennett , were not spending $130 million , say $122 mil ­lion less would be spent on the humanities every year , or some figure like that . Would that be a bad thing? In other words , should this thing exist at all?

MR . BUCKLEY: Well , I think it ' s very hard for you to come up with corollaries here because we don ' t really know what it is that moves people . I don ' t know what it was that moved people in America to give $10 billion more last year than the year before . It ' s a tremen­dous sum of money, and especially during a recession. ow lvhcther the needs that Mr . Bennett seeks to appease would be appeased by the workings of the private sector is one of the things we ' re here to discuss , so I'm delighted that you brought the subject up.

' MR . KINSLEY: Well , let me ask lr. Bennett then, since I don ' t seem to he getting anywhere here . The controversies that swirl around

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your endowment , the human ities endowment and the arts end~wment , . generally take the form of a debate between a group that ~ts enem~es call the poli ticizers , which generally was-:- - 1-l.r . Duffey: your predecessor they call themselves democrat~zers ; they th~nk the money should be spread around far and wide ; experimentation should be the rule of the game . On the other hand , there are the people , including yourself , who the critics call elitists , whom ~em-selves talk about quality , standards and so forth and ba~~7ally feel that the money should be spent on established , trad~t~onal high- quality things . But this debate has not really touched on the question : Why should the governmen~ be spen~ing this money.at.all? Now , you supported President Reagan s reduct~on from $150 m~ll~on to about $100 . Why shouldn ' t it be reduced to zero?

MR . BUCKLEY : You didn ' t support it , you defended it , right?

MR. BENNETT : Sorry .

MR . BUCKLEY : You didn ' t support it , you defended it .

1-l.R . BENNETT : I did both .

MR . BUCKLEY : You did?

MR . BENNETT : Yes , and I made the request and I was comfortable defending that request .

MR . KINSLEY : Ninety- six million , in your opinion , is exactly the right amount that the government should--

MR . BENNETT : No , no , when I first--

MR . KINSLEY : - -be spending on the humanities?

MR . BUCKLEY : Indexed , Michael .

MR . BENNETT: When I first got the job , and people said $96 mil~ion , $130 million , I didn ' t know because-- I didn:t know.what the b~g figure meant because I didn ' t know what the l~ttle f~gures meant .

MR . KINSLEY: But 150 is too much and zero is too little?

MR . BENNETT : Yes , I think so . Again , the first question I was asked when I was up on the Hill was , "Now , Mr . Bennett , you of course assume that the existence of a national endowment for ~e humanities is an essential function of government?" And I sa~d , "No it is not obviously it is not an essential function of gov~rnment ." can it be a desirable f':lnc~ion of gov7rnment? r_ think it can be if it does its work , ~f ~t follows ~ts leg~sla tion , if it plays fair . Then I think I would be prepared to defend the existence of a modest national endowment for the humanities .

MR. KINSLEY: well , $130 million is modest compared to ~220 billion or whatever we spent on defense , but it ' s not-- . At a.t~me of budget cuts for lots of things like social serv~7es, ~f I may s~e~k as a wishy-washy liberal , why should we b7 spend~ng money ~n th~s. Let me give you an example . I recently d~d some research ~nto

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federal housing policy , and it ' s an extremely wasteful area . It costs us $5 , 000 a family to subsidize people in pretty lousy apartmen ts that aren ' t worth that muc h . On the other hand , $130 million , modest as it is , would- - let me embarrass myself mathe­matically--! think it would supply 26- -

MR . BUCKLEY : Twen t y - six .

MR . KINSLEY : --26 , 000 families with housing . That ' s like a medium­sized town , say 8 0 , 000 people . Why , when the government is cutting back rather ruthlessly on that sort of stuff on the grounds that we have a usterity , on the grounds that we need to revive the economy , should we be funding the humanities?

MR . BENNETT : Well , I think the arguments would be the same that one would make in any time . I think the argument you have just put forward is that the National Endowment for the Humanities should take a reduction and take it gracefully , and that has been my view from the beginning . The reason that I thought 96 was ap­propriate-- more appropriate than 150--was that I thought we struck a very bad posture if we were to say , "Well , let ' s let all these other agencies be cut , but make sure we keep our grants for us ." I thought this was a great opportunity for teachers and scholars to be good citizens and to say , "We would be happy , indeed it ' s most appropriate , that we should take some reduction along with our fellow citizens ." One of the things that surprised me at the National Endowment when I got there was to notice that we give out awards at the rate of about one ·out of four at a $150 million level . To go then to $100 million level-- it doesn ' t translate pro­portionately , of course , exactly--but to say that our rate of award will be one out of five or one out of six doesn ' t cause me any particular pain . The other part of your question, Are there things that are more important than the humanities? Well , of course there are . But I don ' t think we decide a budget for an agency of government based on its importance . I ' ve gotten this argument on defense and t:1e h\.llllanities rrany times , and there are at least two things to say . One , the government has a monopoly on defense , at least we all hope so , I think . They pay for the whole thing . That ' s not the case with the humanities . He pay for half a percent or one percent . The other argument is , sure , there are obviously needs that are much more basic than the humanities , but I think it was ~1acaulay who said that it ' s more important to bake bread than to have pianos , but that doesn ' t mean we should all just be baking bread and shouldn ' t have any pianos . A modest amount set aside for the hum~nities ~o follow the purposes set out in legislation and to do so ~n a rev~ew system that is fair and that is not politicized in the narrow ways that you hpvc described is , it seems to me--can be- ­a desirable a Ld defensible function for government .

!·1R . KINSLEY : \~ell , maybe we can just try it from another angle then . Now , this may apply more to the arts endowment of course than to the humanities endowment , but I believe even you fund occasionally some kinds of perforMing arts , like the Shakespeare plays--don't they get a grant from your endowment?--that ' s on PBS .

IR . BEN ETT : No , no , no . I don ' t think we ' ve supported those.

MR . KI SLEY : Let us discuss the general question--

16

.•

MR . BENNETT : Yes , sure .

MR . KINSLEY : --of government subsidies of culture . I watch these plays on TV and I watch lots of other things that get fund ­ing from the various endowments , and I enjoy them , but then I think surely the average beneficiary , direct or indirect , of the money that yo u pass out is considerably better off than the average tax­payer , l eaving aside the person who doesn ' t get the subsidized housing . So isn ' t government subsidy of culture in essense a transfer from poorer people to wealthier people?

MR . BENNETT : Well , I think that would depend very much , at the NEH , on which program you ' re talking about . If you take our division of education programs and the work that we are doing in the division of education programs , I would hope that the transfer there to the educational institution leads ultimately to a transfer to those students . I don ' t think there are very many people in the history of the National Endowment who have become rich off NEH . Some institutions have certainly gained a substantial amount of support , but I wouldn ' t know how to figure on an individual income tax basis whether what you ' re saying is true.

MR . KINSLEY : Well , surely- - I mean , in an ideal world everyone would read the great classics , but in our world it is people who have already had a head start of various sorts who read them , and surely you must think that , in general , the people who profit from your work most directly--not simply the ones who get the grants , but one step beyond that somewhat less directly--the people who benefit from the general improvement in the humanistic environment are people who really could afford to pay for it themselves more easily than the overburdened taxpayer . I ' m now making a more or less right- wing argument .

MR . BENNETT : Again , I think in some cases . You take our individual scholarship program which gives individual scholars a year sabbatical at $25 , 000 . I suppo~e that ' s higher than average , and yes , we ' re subsidizing them , but we ' re subsidizing them on the hope that there is a return which will work toward the common good . I think one of the things that we have been stressing in talking about the agency and meeting its responsiblities , tying into what we were saying before about education , is that when the federal government , when the people of the United States through the federal government and through the National Endowment for the Humanities , do offer generous awards to scholars and teachers in the humanities , I think there ought to be an expectation that something will be done in return. We recognize it as a special kind of subsidy , as a special kind of award to individuals , and I think that makes it all the easier for us to expect something back then in return .

MR . KINSLEY : Then there ' s the bureaucratic question . ow , you have narrowed the focus , as you say , of- - YoP dUSt be plagued by people asking you , "What does humanities mean? " and you have made a very noble effort- - One of your great the'lles in your lvork has been to narrow the focus --not have it mean anything that anyone might happen to think is nice to- - you know , fiumanis ic studies , education and so on- - but then that raises the bureaucr~tic question of-- President Carter set up Lhis--no one in particular asked him except for the ational Education Associa tion--a huge department of

17 ©Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University.

education which spends hundreds of millions of dollars on various things , and then after they ' re all done , here ' s your organization seemingly doing the same thing.

MR. BENNETT : No , we do very different things . We don ' t have a n y kind of entitlement program or across - the- board program like you find in the Department of Education , and we are , of course , restricted to the humanities. Most of our work is in single- project grants rather than setting some kind of base or ceiling to entitle­ment in some area or other . Our work is restricted to the humanities . It was proposed- - Anybody , I think , who ' s interested- ­! was just very interested to read Mr . Califano ' s chapter in his book on the creation of the Department of Education . One reads there that this was , I think , a more cy n ical enterprise- - the creation of this department-- than the creation of the Na tional Endowment for the Humanities . But we function very differently . It was proposed , during the debate on the creation of that department , that NEH and NEA be merged under the heading of the Department of Education , but that was resisted .

MR. KINSLEY : So you ' d like to see your agency preserved , but that agency , presumably , eliminated?

MR. BENNETT : Well , again, I ' d like to see our agency preserved provided it does what it ' s doing--what it does and what it is sup­posed to be doing . A modest role , a limited role , serving its sound legislative purpose , yes .

MR . KINSLEY : On a slightly different topic , you ' re associated in the public eye with a group of political figures and intellectuals known as the neo- conservatives of ~orman Podhoretz , Irving Kristol , Gertrude Himrnelfarb--who I believe is on your board of advisers- ­and others . One of their major themes in their writings is what they call "the new class" -- the growth of the new class--a group of sort of freelance intellectuals with no ties to the productive sectors of the economy , no connection with the real ~1orld . They see these people as mostly liberal and exerting a very bad influ­ence on public policy , in part because of their politics , in part because they are so removed from the real world and also , they feel , being unjustly subsidized by society- -the hard-working pro­ductive elements of society--while they go about their rather amorphous business . One of the things that has amused me about this is the existence of a lot of conservative and neo- conservative mem­bers of the new class who seem to be doing in some ways the same thing. ow , I don ' t mean to single you out , but you happen to be sitting here: You were at t his national hurr,anities center . Do you feel i 's a problem for people like yourself--for intellectuals in general--that they are sort of removed from- - You had the advantage of the best education this society can provide , the best training in various fields , and here you were just sort of sitting and thinking all day .

iR . BC ETT : o, I ' m not sitting and thinking--

R. KI SLEY : ·ot any more .

MR . BE ETT : --all day . Yes , I had a very good education , most of it on scholarship , I would go to some pains to point out .

18

I don ' t regard myself as a member of the new class. I regard my term in office in government a s fi n ite , short . I imagine I ' ll be gone soon , and I ' ll be back in the private sector .

MR . BUCKLEY : Though it ' s nasty and brutish?

MR. BENNETT : Whether it ' s nasty and brutish I think will depend on things in the next couple of years . Look , I c arne from a private institution, the National Huma nities Center , which received some support from the National Endowmen t for the Humanities , but one of the things that distinguished our institution was the amount of support we received fro m private institutions and that we weaned ourselves from support from the federal government . When we started down there we had about 50 percent of our support from the feds , and the year I left we were down to about 10 or 15 percent of our support from the federal government . So , you know , I don ' t regard myself as a member of this new class .

MR. BUCKLEY: You don ' t regard- -or do you?--you don ' t respect the right of any class to deracinate itself and to take no interest at all in its society , do you?

MR . BENNETT: Do I endorse that?

MR . BUCKLEY : Yes .

IR . BENNETT : No , I don ' t . No , I don ' t.

MR. BUCKLEY : So therefore you would not willingly be conscripted by such a class?

MR. BENNETT: No , I would hope not.

MR. BUCKLEY : The case rests .

MR. KINSLEY : All right . Do I have time for one more quick one?

MR . BUCKLEY : Yes , you do .

MR . KI NSLEY: For both of you. In an ideal world would the government be financing the kinds of things Mr . Bennett is financing right now?

MR . BUCKLEY: Well--

MR. KI SLEY: In an ideal society?

MR . BUCKLEY: In an ideal world there wouldn ' t be the ignorance to cope with .

MR . KINSLEY : Yes . In a society structure, given the limitations we have today , except for democracy--a society structured the way you would like to see it structured : You are dictator--would you be spending money on this stuff?

IR. BUCKLEY : Well , I think you can anticipate my answer , so why don 't we hear , in 30 seconds, from Mr . Bennett? (laughter)

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© Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University.

\

MR . BENNETT : Well , again , one has to interpret the ideal world . Madison said , " Learned insti"tutions ought to be the favored objects of a free people ." Well , I would say they ought to be one of the favored objects of a free people . If I can take " ideal world" to mean that that ' s a world in which truly learned institutions are the favored objects of a free people , then perhaps we wouldn ' t need the kind of prodding and push toward improvement that the National Endowment for the Humanities , when it ' s running right , can represent .

MR . BUCKLEY : Thank you , Mr. Will i am Bennett , the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities; thank you , Mr . Michael Kinsley , of Harper ' s magazine ; thank you , ladies and gentlemen .

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©Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University.

FIRING LI E NATIONAL UNDERWRITERS , 1982-1~83

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