0:00:14.035,0:00:15.914
So, I'm going to start,

0:00:15.914,0:00:19.107
I'm actually going to talk about[br]censorship in the arts,

0:00:19.107,0:00:21.643
censorship in Utopia,[br]looking at the experiences

0:00:21.643,0:00:23.841
of the ancient and modern world.

0:00:23.841,0:00:27.352
But I want to begin[br]with one of my favourite poems

0:00:27.352,0:00:31.371
by the American poet Wallace Stevens,[br]and this is

0:00:31.371,0:00:35.712
'The Man with the Blue Guitar' --[br]some of you may know it.

0:00:35.712,0:00:38.533
I won't give you any introduction to it,[br]just see what you think,

0:00:38.533,0:00:41.394
this is a few stanzas.

0:00:41.394,0:00:45.411
The man bent over his guitar,[br]A shearsman of sorts.

0:00:45.411,0:00:47.433
The day was green.

0:00:47.433,0:00:52.920
They said, 'You have a blue guitar,[br]You do not play things as they are.'

0:00:52.920,0:00:58.119
The man replied, 'Things as they are [br]Are changed upon the blue guitar.'

0:00:58.119,0:01:02.206
And they said then, 'But play, you must,[br]A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,

0:01:02.206,0:01:08.213
A tune upon the blue guitar[br]Of things exactly as they are.'

0:01:08.213,0:01:12.937
I cannot bring a world quite round,[br]Although I patch it as I can.

0:01:12.937,0:01:17.310
I sing a hero's head, large eye[br]And bearded bronze, but not a man,

0:01:17.310,0:01:23.108
Although I patch him as I can[br]And reach through him almost to man.

0:01:23.108,0:01:28.867
If to serenade almost to man[br]Is to miss, by that, things as they are,

0:01:28.867,0:01:33.859
Say that it is the serenade [br]Of a man that plays a blue guitar."

0:01:33.859,0:01:39.418
We'll come back to another stanza of that[br]at the end of this talk.

0:01:39.418,0:01:44.080
Now one of the many interesting things[br]about Wallace Stevens's poem

0:01:44.080,0:01:48.985
is that Stevens was fascinated by[br]the philosophy of the Ancient Greek

0:01:48.985,0:01:54.738
philosopher Plato writing[br]about the 370's, 380's BC.

0:01:54.738,0:01:59.558
He's intrigued by Plato's[br]philosophy of ideas,

0:01:59.558,0:02:01.444
which we will come on to you later.

0:02:01.444,0:02:05.510
And it seems to me that these lines are[br]almost certainly a meditation

0:02:05.510,0:02:10.894
on the attack on art and artists[br]made by the character of Socrates

0:02:11.317,0:02:14.093
in Plato's dialogue 'The Republic'.

0:02:14.093,0:02:16.847
As you know, and this is also[br]a point we'll come back to,

0:02:16.847,0:02:21.382
Plato never writes in his own voice,[br]but always through various characters

0:02:21.382,0:02:25.205
in his dramatic dialogues,[br]Socrates often being the main one.

0:02:25.482,0:02:30.225
It's important, we'll find out,[br]that they are not the same person.

0:02:35.066,0:02:41.131
Now, those who live in this green world[br]that Wallace Stevens describes

0:02:43.382,0:02:46.852
are angry with the man[br]who has the temerity

0:02:46.852,0:02:52.285
to break up this monochrome greenness[br]and play a blue guitar.

0:02:52.632,0:02:55.188
The people who are angry[br]in Stevens's poems

0:02:55.188,0:02:58.726
are those who are voicing[br]the attacks on artists

0:02:58.726,0:03:00.481
which Socrates puts forward,

0:03:00.481,0:03:04.471
the man with the blue guitar[br]is, of course, the artist.

0:03:04.471,0:03:06.560
Now, what I propose to do today

0:03:06.560,0:03:10.233
is to very briefly run through,[br]the speed of light,

0:03:10.428,0:03:12.803
some of the main arguments

0:03:12.803,0:03:16.259
made against art and artists[br]in the dialogue 'The Republic',

0:03:16.259,0:03:21.131
in which Socrates sets up[br]an ideally just state, or so he claims.

0:03:21.606,0:03:24.494
And I want to see[br]if any of the charges made

0:03:24.494,0:03:29.603
have anything to tell us today,[br]whether we can learn anything from them,

0:03:29.926,0:03:34.053
even if we want to reject[br]the metaphysical basis

0:03:34.053,0:03:37.241
on which they're grounded,[br]as I imagine many of us will,

0:03:37.241,0:03:41.959
I doubt if many people here are believers[br]in Plato's theory of Forms.

0:03:41.959,0:03:44.637
I once had a student who began an essay,

0:03:44.637,0:03:46.603
'Last night when I saw[br]the Form of the Good',

0:03:46.603,0:03:49.233
which I felt was cheating somewhat.

0:03:49.233,0:03:52.510
But I think we have a lot to learn,

0:03:52.510,0:03:55.885
and I'm going to say that,[br]including myself, even those of us

0:03:55.885,0:04:00.569
who are wary about the notion[br]of censorship in the arts,

0:04:00.569,0:04:06.901
I think we can still find a lot to gain[br]from why Socrates is so nervous

0:04:07.449,0:04:10.952
about the arts and why he thinks[br]they are so dangerous.

0:04:10.952,0:04:12.948
Now incidentally,[br]for the sake of brevity,

0:04:12.948,0:04:17.469
I'm just going to call the character[br]of Socrates in 'The Republic' Socrates,

0:04:17.469,0:04:21.247
but by that I don't mean[br]the historical figure of Socrates,

0:04:21.642,0:04:24.788
I'm just using that as shorthand.

0:04:25.470,0:04:29.012
So, in Books II and III of this dialogue[br]called 'The Republic',

0:04:29.260,0:04:33.860
in which Socrates outlines[br]the basic foundations for an ideal state,

0:04:34.429,0:04:36.482
also called The Republic,

0:04:36.482,0:04:42.085
his first attack comes in the context[br]of a discussion of the education

0:04:43.506,0:04:46.766
of the young guardians,[br]by which he means

0:04:46.766,0:04:49.111
both the future rulers of this state

0:04:49.111,0:04:52.167
and also the future military force[br]in this state,

0:04:52.167,0:04:55.223
the two guardian classes.

0:04:55.698,0:04:59.874
And in Books II and III Socrates[br]advocates extreme censorship

0:04:59.874,0:05:05.130
of Homer and Greek tragedians such as[br]Sophocles and Aeschylus.

0:05:05.805,0:05:10.824
Firstly, he thinks that they,[br]the poets, then the dramatists,

0:05:11.635,0:05:15.009
misrepresent the nature of the divine,

0:05:15.009,0:05:18.178
interesting attack,[br]given recent controversies

0:05:18.178,0:05:20.404
about Danish cartoons and the like.

0:05:20.404,0:05:24.782
And he says that these artists repeat[br]the old myths and legends

0:05:24.782,0:05:29.529
about Zeus and Aphrodite and Dionysus,[br]in which, of course, as you know,

0:05:29.529,0:05:32.740
the gods behave absolutely appallingly.

0:05:32.740,0:05:36.051
They lie, they cheat,[br]they steal, they get drunk,

0:05:36.051,0:05:40.606
they lust after other people's wives,[br]they kill family members,

0:05:40.989,0:05:45.337
and they sleep, of course, with[br]anyone and anything that moves.

0:05:45.337,0:05:49.980
God, says Socrates, is good[br]and is the cause only of good;

0:05:50.367,0:05:53.801
Homer and the others[br]have got god wrong.

0:05:53.801,0:05:57.901
That's his first claim,[br]he wants to excise all those passages

0:05:58.550,0:06:02.349
from Homer and the dramatists[br]which get god wrong.

0:06:03.055,0:06:05.692
Secondly, art needs to be censured,

0:06:05.692,0:06:09.422
because it represents,[br]appeals to and nurtures

0:06:09.422,0:06:14.396
dangerous emotions such as lust and greed[br]and anger and aggression,

0:06:14.396,0:06:18.575
which should be left, says Socrates,[br]to wither and die on the vine,

0:06:18.575,0:06:20.914
not fed and nurtured.

0:06:20.914,0:06:25.542
There's an interesting contrast here[br]with Aristotle, of course,

0:06:25.542,0:06:27.877
writing a generation after Plato,

0:06:27.877,0:06:31.409
with Aristotle's view,[br]who thinks that by watching

0:06:31.409,0:06:35.497
and acting out the darker aspects[br]of the human psyche,

0:06:35.497,0:06:39.187
we can purge ourselves[br]of such murky desires,

0:06:39.187,0:06:42.030
his famous notion of catharsis;

0:06:42.030,0:06:46.738
artistic representation is catharsis[br]or cleansing, purging.

0:06:47.270,0:06:50.919
This is a debate we may want to come[br]back to in the discussion,

0:06:50.919,0:06:53.252
and it's interesting[br]that these two polar views

0:06:53.252,0:06:56.304
appear in the ancient world.

0:06:56.304,0:06:58.130
Of course, it's impossible to prove,

0:06:58.130,0:07:02.799
it's hard enough to ever make a case[br]that a particular act of violence

0:07:02.799,0:07:06.204
is directly caused by, say,[br]a particular film,

0:07:06.204,0:07:10.234
even if the perpetrator of the act[br]of violence is going around dressed

0:07:10.234,0:07:13.193
as the anti-hero of the film.

0:07:13.193,0:07:15.717
Of course, it's even harder,[br]it's impossible

0:07:15.717,0:07:18.942
to know how many crimes[br]have been prevented,

0:07:18.942,0:07:24.918
because somebody, through watching[br]or acting out a certain work of art,

0:07:24.918,0:07:27.612
was able to purge themselves

0:07:27.612,0:07:31.251
of certain very dangerous desires[br]that they had.

0:07:31.251,0:07:35.041
Now, we may feel[br]when we are reading Books II and III

0:07:35.041,0:07:38.917
that the censorship rules[br]are too Draconian, of course we may,

0:07:38.917,0:07:41.969
but we may still also feel, well,[br]Socrates has a point.

0:07:41.969,0:07:45.822
We're talking about the education[br]of very young children

0:07:45.822,0:07:49.372
with plastic, imitative minds;

0:07:50.030,0:07:53.005
he wants to give them[br]good positive role models,

0:07:53.005,0:07:56.839
before their reason has developed[br]and can start to question and assess

0:07:56.839,0:07:58.795
the material they're presented with.

0:07:58.795,0:08:03.236
So, we may feel in principle it's not[br]so terrible to censor the arts,

0:08:03.236,0:08:05.541
even if he takes it too far,

0:08:05.541,0:08:09.620
given the context, given the age group.

0:08:09.620,0:08:13.270
Now, by the time we get[br]to the next attack on art,

0:08:13.270,0:08:16.483
in the final book of 'The Republic',[br]Book X,

0:08:16.483,0:08:20.257
we're into much more disturbing territory,

0:08:20.660,0:08:24.830
because here Socrates advocates[br]not just censoring art,

0:08:25.283,0:08:27.890
but banning, almost all art,

0:08:27.890,0:08:32.751
just getting rid of art from[br]the ideal state in almost its entirety.

0:08:33.125,0:08:37.068
And it's not just children that are being[br]considered here, but adults.

0:08:37.068,0:08:39.061
And, of course, a charge often made

0:08:39.061,0:08:43.464
is that Socrates is treating[br]adults as children.

0:08:43.792,0:08:46.702
Now, the reason for the strengthening[br]of this attack

0:08:46.702,0:08:49.489
is the psychology and metaphysics[br]that's gone on

0:08:49.489,0:08:53.081
in 'The Republic'[br]in the intervening books, in IV to IX.

0:08:53.081,0:08:56.272
And, again, to skip politely through

0:08:56.272,0:08:59.819
some of the most important chapters[br]in philosophy ever written,

0:08:59.819,0:09:02.474
very, very briefly in Book IV,

0:09:02.474,0:09:07.401
we are told that the human psyche[br]is composed of three separate parts:

0:09:08.183,0:09:12.462
The appetitive part which desires food,[br]drink, sex, material goods,

0:09:13.245,0:09:15.373
the money needed to acquire them;

0:09:15.373,0:09:19.502
a spirited part which desires[br]worldly honours and success and victory;

0:09:20.073,0:09:24.302
and a rational part which desires[br]truth and reality.

0:09:25.046,0:09:28.740
Interesting that the rational part has[br]its own desires;

0:09:28.740,0:09:31.436
the distinction is not between[br]reason and the emotions,

0:09:31.436,0:09:35.047
but between rational[br]and non-rational desires,

0:09:35.047,0:09:37.216
and that's important.

0:09:37.216,0:09:40.772
And our virtue, but also our flourishing[br]and our happiness,

0:09:40.772,0:09:45.760
consist in the proper balance between[br]these three parts of our psyche,

0:09:46.442,0:09:50.433
in what Plato calls interior harmony[br]or mental health,

0:09:51.131,0:09:53.107
the phrase that Socrates uses.

0:09:53.107,0:09:55.343
And this will only occur if our reason

0:09:55.343,0:09:59.212
and its desires for truth and reality[br]are in control.

0:09:59.489,0:10:03.008
And then in Books V to VII[br]we learn a lot more

0:10:03.008,0:10:05.581
about the nature[br]of this truth and reality

0:10:05.581,0:10:10.020
that the rational part seeks,[br]namely the so-called Forms of the Good

0:10:10.332,0:10:14.792
and the Beautiful and the Just;[br]abstract, unchanging, eternal entities

0:10:15.542,0:10:18.052
which are both the cause[br]and the explanation

0:10:18.052,0:10:21.045
of all the things on this Earth.

0:10:21.045,0:10:25.013
And everything on this Earth, in this[br]sensible phenomenal world around us,

0:10:25.013,0:10:29.981
are merely copies of the Forms --[br]'Only semi-real', says Socrates.

0:10:30.538,0:10:35.538
Now, this provides the basis[br]for the major attack on art in Book X,

0:10:36.185,0:10:39.882
because works of art are now[br]said to be both untrue,

0:10:40.087,0:10:43.422
in the sense that they are merely[br]copies of copies --

0:10:44.061,0:10:45.909
an idea that we could come back to --

0:10:45.909,0:10:49.796
and also hugely damaging to the harmony[br]and health and happiness

0:10:49.796,0:10:51.601
of the individual psyche,

0:10:51.601,0:10:54.566
in that they represent,[br]appeal to and nurture

0:10:54.566,0:10:58.073
not just dangerous, aggressive emotions

0:10:58.073,0:11:02.203
but non-rational emotions[br]and desires in general.

0:11:02.203,0:11:06.534
And that will upset the balance[br]of the psyche in which reason

0:11:06.840,0:11:10.079
and rational desires should rule.

0:11:11.470,0:11:16.888
So, by now almost all artists are going[br]to be escorted politely, but firmly,

0:11:17.070,0:11:20.192
to the borders of the state[br]and sent on their way.

0:11:20.192,0:11:24.196
We're left, apparently, we can have[br]hymns to the gods

0:11:24.196,0:11:28.132
and paeans to good men,[br]it sounds absolutely dire.

0:11:28.691,0:11:32.824
Now it's true that Socrates[br]isn't comfortable about this.

0:11:33.423,0:11:38.113
He says that it really pains him[br]to remove Homer,

0:11:39.192,0:11:42.000
and what he calls[br]the poetry of pleasure

0:11:42.000,0:11:44.774
that Homer[br]and the other dramatists provide,

0:11:44.774,0:11:48.022
because, says Socrates,[br]he has loved and revered Homer

0:11:48.022,0:11:50.007
since he was a boy.

0:11:50.007,0:11:52.330
And he issues us a challenge.

0:11:52.330,0:11:57.309
He says that if anyone can show that this[br]kind of poetry is not only pleasurable

0:11:57.309,0:12:02.561
but also useful and beneficial,[br]really interesting use of language,

0:12:02.561,0:12:06.112
he would gladly welcome it back.

0:12:06.112,0:12:11.714
Now, when I first came across this attack[br]on the arts, when I was about 19,

0:12:12.394,0:12:15.260
I was very shocked and disturbed[br]for two reasons.

0:12:15.260,0:12:19.051
One, I had a very romanticized vision

0:12:19.764,0:12:24.269
of the artist as an almost holy figure[br]outside the confines

0:12:25.297,0:12:28.651
of normal, moral conventions[br]and expectations.

0:12:28.651,0:12:32.559
I wanted my artists[br]to live like Baudelaire or whatever.

0:12:34.034,0:12:38.279
And in common with this, [br]this romanticized ideal,

0:12:38.279,0:12:42.401
I think, was part[br]of a more general ethical framework

0:12:43.192,0:12:47.631
in which I wanted to defend art[br]on the basis of freedom of expression,

0:12:47.977,0:12:51.120
and I thought that freedom of expression[br]was so important

0:12:51.120,0:12:55.781
because of a basic human right[br]to freedom of expression.

0:12:55.781,0:12:59.666
So my whole language, though[br]I wasn't really aware of it at the time,

0:12:59.666,0:13:04.390
was couched in the notion[br]of an ethics of rights.

0:13:05.590,0:13:11.428
Now, both those visions, and both[br]those arguments in defence of art,

0:13:11.428,0:13:14.281
would not have been available[br]to an Ancient Greek.

0:13:14.281,0:13:17.073
Firstly, at the time Plato's writing,

0:13:17.073,0:13:20.164
there was no conception[br]of fine art as such,

0:13:20.164,0:13:22.929
as distinct from cobbling[br]or weaving or what...,

0:13:22.929,0:13:24.838
well, weaving, of course,[br]we would say can be art,

0:13:24.838,0:13:28.396
but there was no distinction[br]between an art and a craft.

0:13:28.396,0:13:32.061
The same word 'techne' is applied to both.

0:13:32.061,0:13:34.845
In terms of the technology,[br]I hope this fulfils

0:13:34.845,0:13:38.463
the first of the TED acronyms.

0:13:39.242,0:13:42.330
And, as such,[br]the whole notion of a poet,

0:13:42.330,0:13:46.880
the word for poet, poetes,[br]it just means a maker in Ancient Greece.

0:13:46.880,0:13:52.016
And again, a poet is no more[br]or less a maker than a cobbler.

0:13:52.548,0:13:55.948
Secondly, of course, there's no language,[br]as far as we can tell,

0:13:55.948,0:13:58.921
of human rights in Ancient Greece.

0:13:58.921,0:14:01.880
They don't phrase their ethics[br]in that way;

0:14:01.880,0:14:05.555
this is a post-Kantian move, in fact.

0:14:05.560,0:14:09.509
The closest any Ancient Greek gets[br]to a notion of a universal right

0:14:09.509,0:14:12.260
is Aristotle when he says that[br]he thinks humans

0:14:12.260,0:14:15.367
have a more or less[br]sort of universal right

0:14:15.367,0:14:17.568
to hunt animals for food.

0:14:17.568,0:14:20.490
And so in the context[br]of a modern debate on human rights,

0:14:20.490,0:14:23.211
we might say that's rather[br]missing the point.

0:14:23.211,0:14:26.476
The point, you know, we wouldn't[br]want to say that our sole right

0:14:26.476,0:14:29.609
was a right to kill animals for food.

0:14:29.609,0:14:32.052
The language they use,[br]you will have noticed,

0:14:32.052,0:14:34.753
is that of usefulness and benefit.

0:14:34.753,0:14:39.414
Socrates says, poets, he would welcome[br]them back, he wants them to come back,

0:14:39.414,0:14:42.374
if it can be shown that poetry and art

0:14:42.374,0:14:46.156
is beneficial both to the soul[br]of the individual

0:14:46.156,0:14:48.653
and to the community as a whole.

0:14:48.653,0:14:52.375
And it's that that I think is the point[br]I want to pick up on today,

0:14:52.375,0:14:56.189
and ask you[br]whether you think it's worthwhile

0:14:56.752,0:15:00.028
reinvigorating the debate in the arts

0:15:00.028,0:15:06.663
and asking is this particular art form,[br]is this particular example of an art form,

0:15:06.663,0:15:10.091
is it beneficial, is it going to increase[br]my quality of life,

0:15:10.091,0:15:13.386
the quality of life of my community?

0:15:13.386,0:15:15.393
Now, you might feel[br]that's an illegitimate question,

0:15:15.393,0:15:17.942
you might want to be[br]as I used to be

0:15:17.942,0:15:20.338
and think all artists[br]should be like Baudelaire,

0:15:20.338,0:15:23.758
and not worry about such[br]sort of bourgeois,

0:15:23.758,0:15:26.570
middle-aged kind of concerns.

0:15:26.570,0:15:29.826
But my challenge is, I think it is[br]an interesting question;

0:15:29.826,0:15:34.046
we're asking at the moment whether banking[br]ought to be socially useful,

0:15:34.046,0:15:37.584
why can't we ask that[br]of the arts as well?

0:15:37.584,0:15:40.162
And I want to conclude with two points;

0:15:40.162,0:15:45.129
because I think that actually,[br]Plato wants us to have this debate,

0:15:46.011,0:15:49.491
and I think[br]Plato might well eventually himself,

0:15:49.491,0:15:53.319
Plato not Socrates,[br]come down on the side of the artist;

0:15:53.870,0:15:57.791
because I said at the beginning I wanted[br]to distinguish the character of Socrates

0:15:57.791,0:15:59.708
from Plato the artist.

0:15:59.708,0:16:03.358
Plato is a very great artist himself.

0:16:03.358,0:16:06.161
His dramatic dialogues[br]are fabulous to read,

0:16:06.161,0:16:09.304
the characterization, the vivid imagery,

0:16:09.304,0:16:11.595
the scene setting,

0:16:11.595,0:16:14.754
the irony, the wit,[br]the forward shadowing,

0:16:14.754,0:16:19.617
ironically of future events.[br]He uses every artistic trick in the book.

0:16:19.617,0:16:23.969
They're wonderful to read[br]as a literature in their own right.

0:16:23.969,0:16:28.854
And so I think Plato has set us[br]a deliberate irony.

0:16:29.494,0:16:33.272
His work called 'The Republic'[br]would be banned

0:16:33.813,0:16:39.378
from the ideal state set out[br]by the character of Socrates in that work;

0:16:39.711,0:16:43.629
it does not meet the censorship rules[br]that we've been looking at.

0:16:43.944,0:16:48.449
Now, Plato is intelligent enough[br]to be aware of that irony.

0:16:50.691,0:16:57.173
So what I want to suggest here is[br]that Plato is deliberately giving us

0:16:58.548,0:17:01.450
different ideas, provocative ideas,

0:17:01.450,0:17:05.472
on the usefulness or uselessness of art[br]to get a debate going.

0:17:05.472,0:17:10.626
He's not necessarily going to agree with[br]what the character of Socrates says.

0:17:10.626,0:17:15.476
He might be more sympathetic to a view[br]later put forward by John Stuart Mill

0:17:15.476,0:17:19.084
in the 19th century[br]in his famous work on liberty.

0:17:19.084,0:17:22.214
Mill there argues[br]that truth is best served

0:17:22.214,0:17:26.034
through the free and open exchange[br]of ideas and information,

0:17:26.446,0:17:30.080
and that this is a process[br]that needs to be ongoing.

0:17:30.390,0:17:32.568
Mill argues that even a true belief

0:17:32.568,0:17:36.591
is liable to rigidify[br]into dead dogma over time

0:17:37.036,0:17:40.074
if it's not challenged.

0:17:40.457,0:17:44.424
And I think this is exactly[br]what Plato is trying to do.

0:17:45.263,0:17:47.269
We don't have to go down the route

0:17:47.269,0:17:50.361
of extreme censorship[br]or the banning of the arts

0:17:50.361,0:17:55.502
to invigorate the debate on whether[br]a particular work of art is worthwhile.

0:17:55.502,0:18:01.129
I want to conclude with another verse[br]of the Wallace Stevens poem.

0:18:05.203,0:18:09.264
The attackers of art say:

0:18:09.264,0:18:12.038
Do not speak to us[br]of the greatness of poetry,

0:18:12.038,0:18:14.197
Of [the] torches wisping[br]in the underground,

0:18:14.197,0:18:17.460
Of the structure of vaults[br]upon a point of light.

0:18:17.460,0:18:20.289
There are no shadows in our sun,

0:18:20.289,0:18:22.316
Day is desire and night is sleep.

0:18:22.316,0:18:24.609
There are no shadows anywhere.

0:18:24.609,0:18:27.242
The earth, for us, is flat and bare.

0:18:27.242,0:18:29.557
There are no shadows.

0:18:29.557,0:18:32.353
Now, Socrates with his picture[br]of the Form of the Good,

0:18:32.353,0:18:38.464
which he likens to the sun, invites us[br]to consider a round without shadows in it.

0:18:38.917,0:18:42.428
Plato, the artist, however,[br]paints us a picture

0:18:42.725,0:18:44.754
throughout 'The Republic'[br]and all his works

0:18:44.754,0:18:47.610
of a world full of light and shade,

0:18:47.610,0:18:50.314
which is much more sympathetic to art

0:18:50.314,0:18:56.054
providing it can be shown to be useful[br]and improve our quality of life.

0:18:56.769,0:19:00.160
So what I'd like to say to you[br]is that I hope

0:19:00.823,0:19:03.836
that you will all go away[br]and treat yourself to some Plato,

0:19:03.836,0:19:06.119
if you haven't already done that[br]in your lives.

0:19:06.119,0:19:09.692
But as you're doing this,[br]I hope you'll also continue defiantly

0:19:09.692,0:19:12.046
to strum away on a blue guitar.

0:19:12.046,0:19:13.598
Thank you.

0:19:13.598,0:19:15.331
(Applause)