Turn back to Chapter II, and read the list of the six great art lies; you may now understand who made them and why. Lie Number One, the Art for Art’s Sake lie, the notion that the end of art is in the art work, is a trade lie of the art specialist, the effort of a sacred caste to maintain its prestige and selling price. Lie Number Two, the lie of Art Snobbery, the notion that art is for the chosen few, and outside the grasp of the masses, is the same. Lie Number Three, the lie of Art Tradition, the notion that new artists must follow old models, is a self-protective device of those in power. Lie Number Four, the lie of Art Dilettantism, the notion that the purpose of art is entertainment and diversion, is a device of the culturally powerful to weaken and degrade those upon whom they prey; just as the creatures of the underworld get their victims drunk before they rob them. Lie Number Five, the lie of the Art Pervert, the notion that art has nothing to do with moral questions, is the same. Lie Number Six, the lie of Vested Interest, is the sum of all the other lies, of all the infinite cruelties of predatory, class-controlled culture. The sarcastic critic will say that I make the artist an extremely knavish and dangerous person. My answer is that he may be, and frequently is, an amiable and guileless child. His knaveries are class knaveries, collective cruelties, conventions and attitudes to life which have been produced as automatic reactions to economic forces; the individual acquires them with no more conscious thought than is involved in the assimilation of his food. Ogi lies and pretends, he cheats, robs and murders, imaginatively speaking, by the same instincts that cause him to blink his eyes in a bright light. CHAPTER X MRS. OGI ORDERS JAZZ Says Mrs. Ogi: “Well, I see you are having your way.” Now this is a sore subject in the cave. Each of the residents is absolutely certain that it is always the other who has his or her way; and each is able to cite chapter and verse, and frequently does so. However, at present Ogi has a guilty conscience, so he speaks softly. “I am almost through with my explanation of industrial evolution.” “Almost!” sniffs Mrs. Ogi. “How much more?” “Well, I have to show how successive classes emerge and acquire power--” “Until at last we see the inevitable triumph of the proletariat and the establishment of the Co-operative Commonwealth! That will be so new to your readers, and so delightfully exciting! And meantime they sit and wonder when the scandals begin.” “Scandals?” says Ogi. “Have I said anything about scandals?” “You tell your readers you’re going to turn the artists’ pockets inside out and show what is in them! If you don’t do it, they’ll say, ‘This show is a frost!’”