Why is it important for artists to have that social conscience and a sense of responsibility?
AG: I don’t know if it’s important or not. It’s obviously not important to some people and it is to others. I didn’t start out with a political agenda. It’s like being a farmer. If you’re out there farming and after a few years somebody from the government shows up and says you’re not allowed to grow that anymore and you start bitchin’ and moanin’ about it, all of the sudden you’ve become a political activist, but it’s not because you were interested in the policy. You just wanted to get back to farming. For me, I was always just one of these kinds of people who just went about my life and when I found it being squeezed or corroded or in some way tampered with by other people’s inability to just live and let live, then you become a politician. RH: Was that the impetus for beginning the Guthrie Center (which is housed in the old church that was at the center of “Alice’s Restaurant”) and the Guthrie Foundation? AG: Well, there was just an opportunity there. I remember when we first found
