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

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

"Random House Webster's Quotationary" has an interesting citation for
Orwell after Sinclair.

[ref] 2001, Random House Webster's Quotationary, Editor Leonard Roy
Frank, Topiv: Art, Quote Page 44, Random House, New York. (Paperback
edition; Verified on paper)[/ref]

[Begin excerpt]
All art is propaganda. . . . On the other hand, not all propaganda is art.

GEORGE ORWELL (1903-1950). "Charles Dickens" (5), 1940,The Collected
Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, vol. 1, ed. Sonia
Orwell and Ian Angus, 1968
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Sun, Nov 16, 2014 at 1:02 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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."
>>> >
>>> >------------------------------------------------------------
>>> >The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>>
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>> 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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