[Ads-l] "All art is propaganda."

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Here is a precursor to Upton Sinclair's statement in 1918 expressed
tentatively instead of emphatically.

Issue Date: February 1918
Periodical: Arts & Decoration
Article: Notes of the Studies and Galleries,
Star Page 165, Quote Page 165,
Publisher: Dexter W. Hewitt at Adam Budge, Inc.
Database: Google Books Full View

http://books.google.com/books?id=hhbnAAAAMAAJ&q=%22if+all+art%22#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]
Yet we sometimes wonder if all art is not propaganda--political or
spiritual and always egotistic.
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Sat, Nov 15, 2014 at 8:03 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "All art is propaganda."
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> That occurred to me too, but I don't see a ref. in GB or Hathi.
>
> Prob. Marx said something more prolix.
>
> JL
>
> On Sat, Nov 15, 2014 at 6:13 PM, Joel S. Berson <Berson at att.net> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
>> Subject:      Re: "All art is propaganda."
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> At 11/15/2014 04:57 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>
>> >Not in YBQ, but it gets 30,000 raw Googlits.  I recently read it in a
>> movie
>> >review.
>> >
>> >1925 Upton Sinclair _Mammonart_ (Pasadena: pub. by the author) 9: All art
>> >is propaganda. It is universally and inescapably propaganda; sometimes
>> >unconsciously, but often deliberately, propaganda.
>> >
>> >Rather a dilute meaning of "propaganda," wouldn't you say? The relevant
>> OED
>> >def. is
>> >
>> >"The systematic dissemination of information, esp. in a biased or
>> >misleading way, in order to promote a political cause or point of view.
>> >Also: information disseminated in this way; the means or media by which
>> >such ideas are disseminated."
>> >
>> >Sinclair seems to mean rather that all art exerts some influence on
>> >beliefs, willy-nilly.  As dothose who repeat the assertion (usu. without
>> >attribution).
>>
>> Sinclair was a utopian, left-wing, progressive Democrat, Socialist,
>> Wobbly-supporting pinko, wasn't he?  "All art is propaganda" is
>> something I could imagine said by Karl Marx.
>>
>> Joel
>>
>>
>> >Factoid:  Wackipedia calls the book-length essay _Mammonart_ a "novel."
>> >
>> >JL
>> >
>> >
>> >--
>> >"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
>> truth."
>> >
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>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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