responsible for programming content.nHollywood has reached the same conclusion.nAccording to a recent LosnAngeles Times feature, the sheer profitabilitynof gore films has induced Hollywoodnto ignore “the fierce debate… onnthe matter of the effect on the viewers”nand to proceed with “blood sport.”nResponding to adverse criticism ofngraphic depictions of brutality andnvictimization of women, one moneymakingndirector said: “These films arenonly reflections of horror—they aren’tnreal. They are latex and Karo syrup.”nThe IngersollnPrizes 1984n”111 ihe long reach of histon’, it isnihe culuiral institutions which marknihe cit of enlightenment, not itsngenerals nor its statesmen nor itsnentreprineurs.” So declared Dr. Johnn. 11< )\ ard, president of llie Ingersollnloundation and of The RockfordnInstitute, as he welcomed leadingnscholars, critics, business executives,n:ind patrons of the arts to the secondn.innual ItigcrsolJ Prizes Awards Ban-nLliui. I kid on November I6tli, 1984,nin Ciiicago’s Ritz-Carlton hotel, theniianqiiet honored Anthony DymokenPowell as the recipient of the T. S.nliliot .Award for Creative Writing andnKusscll .mos Kirk as the recipient ofnihe Richard M. Weaver Award fornScholarly Letters.nPastor Richard John Neuhaus,naiiihor. theologian, and director ofnrile Kockford Institute’s Center onnUeligioii & Society in New York,nopenetl the evening with an invocationnin w’hich he prayed that Theningersoll Prizes might be establishednas “a sign and an encouragement—ofn.11Diiservatism that contends fi)r allnt hat is ()l abiding worth; of a liberalismnthat bespeaks genero.sity of spirit andnliopefulness of purpose; of a radicalismnthai refuses to settle for anythingn34inChronicles of CulturenTo its credit, the LA Times has expressednsome skepticism over television’snnew willingness to explore childnpornography, wife-beating, incest,nhomosexuality, and other controversialntopics. In assessing CBS’s much-laudedn”Fallen Angel,” a program dealing withnchild pornography, LA Times observednthat “what it generated” in the subsequentnseason ras “less high-minded.”nThey also questioned the apparentndiscrepancy between ABC’s professednstandard of never glorifying prostitationnand the portrayal in “My Mother’s Secretnless than truth.”nFollowing Pastor Neuhaus’.snprayer, Dr. Howard tbrmally greetednthose in attendance and outlined thennature of the prizes to be awartleil.n”The abiding impact of the prizes,” hensaid, “is, and will continue to be.nshaped by the individuals chosen tonreceive them and by the long inlluencenof their works upon human jx-rceptions,nhuman judgments, antinhuman behavior, lliat this is so sitsnthese prizes wholly apart fi-om oiliernwidely known awards in literaturenand the humanities.” Further explainingnthe distinctive nature of ThenIngersoll Prizes, Dr. Howard observednthat “the notion that true artncannot be an instrument of degrailation,ndiat art of eternal value is elevatingnart, has largely passed fromncultural intercourse in America aminmany other Western nations It isna notion we seek to revive in thenperceptions of literate individualsnand above all in the calculus of literary’nand scholarly criticism.”nPrefacing the presentation of thenawards, Mr. Leopold Tyrmand, vicenpresident of The Rockford Institutenand executive secretary of The IngersollnPrizes, delineated the reasons fornthe selection of the honorees:n”It is clear from the impact of hisnworks on his contemporaries that Dr.nKirk has been accorded one of thosennnLife” of “a healthy, attractive, well-paidnhooker who salvages a relationship withnher daughter.”nWith the Wall Street Journal thenreader finds a disturbing schizophreniandividing the thoughtfulness of theneditorial page and the bottom-linentreatment which their reporters havenaccorded to media, movies, and publishing.nConstant exposure to hookers andnhatchet murderers may have more thannmerely moral consequences. In the longnrun it could undermine the morale ofnemployees.Itmightevenaflfectprofits. Dnrare appoiiitmeiUs with historynwhich men of tlioughi dream aboutnbut are not alw:is granted. Impenetrablenare the ways b which a parlicularnmind inlluences the alVairs of anciili/.ed .soiiely. Dr. Kirk begins Then(lonscmiliiv Mini!, his major work,nwith a quotation from (ioleridge innwhich he observes ilial a pliilosojihynsiirsives in tin- form i if its t)w ii ‘relractions.’nanil that (j///r through themncan it loMcli miiuK .shape cNisti-nces.ninfluence siKielies. hi other words,nphilosophies that atlect human liM’snengender cultural fashions wliicli. innturn, determine their value in thenstock ixchange of ide;i.s, and regulatentheir marketahilit. ITius, the culturalnfashions which a philosophy begetsnbecome its destiny. Coleridge’snobservaiion is as profound as it isndistressing. It .somehow leads us tonthink that liberalism, as we know itnnowadays, must be judged not bynthose noble, 19th-century battles itnfought for the meaning of Westernncivilization, but by its subsequentnfiishuMiablencss among 20th-centuiynidea producers. Therefore, culturalnfashions are not only the consequencesnof a popular philosophy,nthey are also its verdict. And this isnwhere both Dr. Kirk and AnthonynPowell bring light to us: one byndiagnosing the ulcers of vulgarity,ncynicism, despair, and vicioiisnessn