The Unsponsored Mind

November 2, 2000

Steve Allen died, Monday of this week. He was an immensely talented man in many areas of theater and television, including pianist, composer and lyricist, author and first star of the TONIGHT show.

“The unsponsored mind” is a phrase coined by this versatile, thoughtful courageous man. When he was on the air many years ago, Mr. Allen protested that sponsors were attempting to limit his freedom to express personal opinions. When Mr. Allen signed a petition urging clemency for a prisoner condemned to death, a sponsor became alarmed and exerted pressure to compel Allen not to become identified with any more “controversial” matters and problems. Amid this insistence not to rock any boats which might have a dampening effect on sales of the sponsor’s products, Mr. Allen protested that it is one thing to sponsor entertainment. It is quite another to expect that the sponsor can control the performer’s mind in the marketing “pitch” in which commercials are produced.

Mr. Allen’s brave position stimulated me to a sermon many years ago. While not reproducing the whole sermon, the opening paragraphs were:

The value of the unsponsored mind is not limited to the commercial, entertainment world. The free mind principle is the root of our religious faith. Everything in our heritage grows branches, blossoms and fruit from that fundamental root.

The unsponsored mind is the most vital of intellectual responsibilities. The unsponsored mind is neither a flippant cynicism which glibly rejects serious matters, nor is it a gullible naivete which lightly floats higher or lower with every changing tide of public opinion.

In Bunyan’s timeless allegory, THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS, when Christian runs to seek eternal life, two neighbors seek to bring him back – one is “Obstinate”, the other “Pliable”. This is an allegory of the unsponsored mind, too.

As Milton wrote, “truth is a running stream, not a locked in pool.” When we fail to reconstruct the truth on the occasion of new discoveries of the mind or fresh combinations of accruing human experiences, then we are captured by old “Obstinate.”

The comparable hazard is that we shall confuse an open mind with a vacant one. Then, as in Bunyan’s allegory, Pliable is robbing us of conviction. Disaster is created by gullible mentalities as well as obstinate ones. The irrationality of the mob, the shallow minds which flutter with the breeze of every doctrine, no matter how palpably false, deters progress and inhibits strong ethical behavior. To the pliable we say with Emerson, “nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.”

Leo Tolstoy once wrote, “the one thing necessary in life as well as in art, is to tell the truth.”

STEVE ALLEN, you will be sorely missed.