The other day, someone (I forget who) was lamenting some Charlie-Kaufman-esque masturbation about the social import of writers and commented that they are always over-estimating their utility and importance towards society. I'm not sure I agree with that, though I would say that what Shelley should have said, instead, is "The imagination CAN BE the great instrument of moral good." Even when exercised, the result can be quite flatulent and weak. Or, even if it is not weak, it might be entirely amoral in effect. Do we get anything from Humbert Humbert's story other than gasping happily at Nabokov's prose?

Not a fucking thing. And if we'd sent every hard-left writer in American history instead to law school, how much better do you think we might have done?

I'm a fan of great writing as well, but let's get some perspective. The people who enjoy reading literature are freaks -- a ridiculously small percentage of the total population.

I think Vonnegut was closer to the truth about artists' utility:

You know, every artist in the United States worth a shit was against the Vietnam War, which was, you know, cruelly stupid and unnecessary. So every writer, every painter, every poet, every musician was against the Vietnam War. And I have said that it's like a laser beam, you know, where all the beams of light are aimed in one direction and so all art, the total art world, and also a whole lot of other decent people, would form this laser beam, everybody aimed at the Vietnam War to stop it. And the power of this weapon turned out to be that of a custard pie, two feet in diameter, dropped from a stepladder six feet high. It made no fucking difference.

(BTW, I also find it ironic that Le Guin would quote Socrates to defend literature, since his Republic would have banned writers, poets, actors, and just about all creative people.)

But just to show I'm not a total Philistine, here's one of my favorite poems. Even in translation you can sense its haunting rhythm:

Tell me now in what hidden is
Lady Flora the lovely Roman?
Where's Hipparchia, and where is Thais,
Neither of them the fairer woman?
Where is Echo, beheld of no man,
Only heard on river and mere,--
She whose beauty was more than human?...
But where are the snows of yester-year?

"I also find it ironic that Le Guin would quote Socrates to defend literature, since his Republic would have banned writers, poets, actors, and just about all creative people"

Isn't it Plato's Republic?

"Isn't it Plato's Republic?
Yes it is. Socrates, like Christ and Buddha, didn't write anything. They left that to their disciples. Very clever: all merits go to the master; all faults can be attributed to the disciple.

Well, Sully, we may have gone from "Drink deep, or touch not, etc., to "A wonderful bird is the pelican ", or worse yet, to the immortal law school ballad, "The birds in the trees sing high, sing low," etc.

We did that once, Sully. They wrote major portions of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Speaking of Plato's Republic, an excellent version of it read by Patrick Horgan is available, for free and free of advertising (for now), on iTunes.

Slave owners are hard left?

I would much rather have the writer Thomas Paine working at the Declaration and the Constitution than I would the statesman Thomas Jefferson.

"... a public library as the toolshed, the warehouse, concert hall, temple, Capitol of imagination — of moral good."

Except for the UCLA library.

Isn't it Plato's Republic? -- Ivo

Plato wrote it but Socrates is the main character. The one thing that all of Socrates' disciples agree on is that he hated democracy, and was a big fan of Sparta. That's mainly why the Athenians forced him to kill himself.

...not that you'd know it from reading John Ralston Saul.

Take that, Jon!

But to play Devil's advocate here, let me offer this quote from Martin Luther:

"The multitude of books is a great evil; there is no limit to this fever of writing."

I'd rather see libraries as a battleground, and not a temple. After all, much of what is errant can be found in libraries too, can it not?