Pinter's 'Art, Truth & Politics'

Harold Pinter, who died two days ago at 78, received the Nobel Prize in Literature, in 2005. Too sick to travel to Stockholm to accept the award, he gave his Nobel Lecture on video. The lecture begins with a quotation:

In 1958 I wrote the following:

'There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.'

I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false?

Pinter moves from an analysis of "language in art" as "a highly ambiguous transaction" to an indictment of "political language," which is utterly unambiguous because politicians are not interested in truth but only in maintaining power. And so they turn language into "a vast tapestry of lies," none more so in recent times than the lies of American politicians.

Pinter singles out the United States, citing its support for the Somoza regime in Nicaragua and the subversion of the Sandanista revolution that overthrew it as a prime example, not because he exempts the former Soviet Union's "systematic brutality," "widespread atrocities" and "ruthless suppression of independent thought" within its own borders and throughout Eastern Europe -- "All this has been fully documented and verified," he points out -- but because "U.S. crimes in the same period have only been superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged, let alone recognised as crimes at all."

The invasion of Iraq is just its latest crime. He notes:

The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be forgiven.

Inexplicably, Pinter never mentions the war in Vietnam, a crime against humanity even greater than the war in Iraq.

Comments

[batbird]

[Pinter moves from an analysis of "language in art" as "a highly ambiguous transaction" to an indictment of "political language," which is utterly unambiguous because politicians are not interested in truth but only in maintaining power.]

No.

REPUBLICAN politicians are not interested in truth but only in maintaining power.

[strangerinthenight]

PINTER - The name didn't ring a bell. Grandfather called from Greenwich to tell Dad to return his PINTER TAPES. Grand made me write them down - Politics and Pinter, The Basement and The Collection. The message was followed by " immediately"

So I ask, what's the big deal Grand ? His retort was : Your generation Y, forget it.

Then I saw Huffpo's blogs -- that Harold Pinter !

OH OH - I did forget to tell Dad.

[LMPE]

No distinction between real and false. That's the whole idea behind Stephen Colbert's truthiness.

[lindsaywriter]

I have such vivid memories of reading 'The Birthday Party' when I was
sixteen. An influence on my writing for sure.

Is there an interest in truth in theatre these days? It seems that what
is wanted is comfort. The truth is so uncomfortable. Who is writing
(and this is a genuine question) the truth in their theatre?

[Social Construct]

Sadly, a bane of the nation-state: potato or potahto. The truth and the lies intermingle until subjectivity becomes the only source of divination.

[knowBuddhaU]

Pinter's multipolar view of truth beautifully expresses this truth: we arise at the intersection of uncounted dimensions, all mutually orthogonal to each other. Pinter's work expresses a field-based awareness, a radical inversion of our atomized point of view.

Pinter asks repeatedly, What is truth? It is true that these words appear between these spaces. It is true that they are self-emptying even as you pass your eyes over them, o reader my Reader.

These words have never been spoken, and yet you hear them within you. This is the power of myth; the power to apprehend the truth within ourselves.

The spoken word is powerful in its own right. How powerful then is this, the unspeakable word? Listen closely to these unspoken words. Whose voice is this? What power can silence this? This is why we say, the pen is mightier than the sword. Not steel nor stone nor even nukes can touch this!

Is there only one true truth, only one true point of view? Is the truth "out there," apart from us? No, truth demands a knower to become known. That's where we come in, Pinter reminds us.

Our versions of truth arise from the friction of the divine flow flowing through us divine vessels. Like so many musical instruments, each sounding their own true notes. Propaganda amounts to the theft of our true voice by those who would have us march to their tune.

We owe Pinter a life of faithfully expressing truth.

[Yermammy]

His courage and clarity will be sorely missed.