“Art expresses things about life, about people and about oneself that are not revealed in political or scientific thought; its great power consists in its ability to connect human beings, as though by invisible wires, at the most profound and intimate levels. To become whole, human beings require the truth about the world, and themselves, that art offers.” ~David Walsh.
This lecture by the Arts Editor of the World Socialist Web Site, David Walsh is one of seven delivered to the 1998 international symposium Marxism and the Fundamental Problems of the 20th Century by the International Committee of the Fourth International in Sydney, Australia.
The central premise guiding these lectures is that an answer to the burning issues of the day – growing social inequality, deepening economic crisis, the decline in the cultural level of society and the prevailing political paralysis in the workers movement – is bound up with examining and assimilating the great strategic lessons of the twentieth century.
Presented over eight days by leading members of the ICFI, as well as Russian Marxist historian Professor Vadim Rogovin, the lectures were exciting, original and thought-provoking.