Lecutre # 6: Critic David Walsh

David Walsh, film and art critic, social activist, and writer for the world Socialist website, http://www.wsws.org spoke to a small group of students on Thursday April 16th. The lecture was presented by the International Students for Social Equality. The advertised topic was "The Future of Art in our Crisis of Economy"
Walsh spent the majority of his time focusing on his background, the history of the great dperession, and the socialist agenda. He opened his lecture with a culture commentary, stating that "people accept the culture they encounter as a given". He went on to elaborate on the economic crisis we are in, stating lots of dark figures and numbers; 50 trillion dollars have been destroyed in the last month. Walsh claimed that the democratic activists promoted Obama as a way to forestall civil unrest, but Walsh believes that sometime in the near future, masses of people will gather to actively defend their lives and way of living.
Walsh's answer to the crisis is to make public nearly everything; health care, insurance, banks. You name it, he wants it nationalized.
Walsh finaly segued into the topic of art. He said that "tellin the truth in art is difficult", and no one is prepared for the economic situation. What of the artist? "Did any major bodyt of art point to the coming of the upheaval?" He claimed that no photo seroies, no book, play or film predicted the place where we are today. The one silver lining in his lecture was when walsh stated "The psark of Human Genius has not gone out".