The literary culture, if you examine it, the high literary culture is that which preserves the government and you know it's really the talk for those who have.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
English culture is highly literary-based.
Sometimes there's a snobbery among literary types that these people don't really get it, but in a lot of ways they get it more than the literati. There's a culture in the background that they understand and know. They get that deeper level.
Literature is a far more ancient and viable thing than any social formation or state. And just as the state interferes in literature, literature has the right to interfere in the affairs of state.
A public role endures for the literary high-command, as sages and seers, speaking out on social and political issues.
Literature offers not just a window into the culture of diverse regions, but also the society, the politics; it's the only place where we can keep track of ideas.
In general, literature is a natural adversary of totalitarianism. Tyrannical governments all view literature in the same way: as their enemy. I lived for a long time in a totalitarian state, and I know firsthand that horror.
Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
Some people think literature is high culture and that it should only have a small readership. I don't think so... I have to compete with popular culture, including TV, magazines, movies and video games.
Literature has to serve as a moral control of politics.
Our culture is more shaped by the arts and humanities than it often is by politics.
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