Saturday, February 18, 2006

Harold Pinter: On Paying Attention

"Does reality essentially remain outside language, separate, obdurate, alien, not susceptible to description? Is an accurate and vital correspondence between what is and our perception of it impossible? Or is it that we are obliged to use language only in order to obscure and distort reality - to distort what happens-because we fear it? We are encouraged to be cowards. We can't face the dead. But we must face the dead because they die in our name. We must pay attention to what is being done in our name."

Harold Pinter--Oh Superman (1990)

1 comment:

Michael said...

R.S.,

It was controversial Channel 4 (UK) television show that caused un uproar amongst the more conservative members of The Parliament because he attacked U.S. policies in Iraq:

Parliament debate