At 12:11 AM +0100 4/7/03, david.bircumshaw wrote:
>I agree with the general tenor of the piece but what I
>question is whether enslavement, or consumerisation, of the Other can be
>presented as an exclusively male on female or for that matter Westerner on
>foreigner process.
I was commenting specifically on Sondheim's piece, which was about an
oriental slave girl.
At 12:11 AM +0100 4/7/03, david.bircumshaw wrote:
>I have no doubt about the prevalence of sexism or racism
>in our societies but do think they are limited to say the stereotype of
>white male right-handed and middle-aged. I for instance inhabit that
>category, for which I have the joy of being jobless, without any family,
>living in social housing and generally lost. Prejudice can come from any
>quarter, women are just as capable as sexual discrimination as males,
>against other women as well as men, so too are black people capable of
>discrimination against others of the same colour, Jamaicans against
>Barbadians is a notorious example.
I don't think this has anything to do with what I'm saying! How does
the existence (or absence) of sexism in white middle class males mean
that blacks, women and so on are not capable of prejudice themselves?
This is so often brought up as if it meant that sexism of the first
kind needn't be discussed at all. And it ONLY happens when feminism
is discussed; people don't say, in discussing racism, oh, but women
are discriminated against too, so race doesn't matter.
At 12:11 AM +0100 4/7/03, david.bircumshaw wrote:
>Said's thesis on Orientalism works as
>long as you restrict consideration to a certain strand in Western society
>but falls to pieces if you start examining historical strands in Arab
>history,
I don't get this at all - Said is _only_ analysing Western
perceptions of the Oriental.
At 12:11 AM +0100 4/7/03, david.bircumshaw wrote:
>The points about representation
>are interesting, a similar argument could be mounted against 'Heart of
>Darkness' for example or 'Sweeney Agonistes', in that they may confirm the
>very things they condemn. I wouldn't agree with that and feel that such a
>viewpoint falls into self-righteousness, I have a very strong distaste for
>any form of censorship, regardless of whether the matter presented may be
>something for which I have a dislike. Whether Sondheim's piece falls into
>cliché is a different matter though, that's a genuinely artistic
>consideration.
This is the nub of the matter; but I think you are misreading me
badly. My question _is_ an aesthetic question, not a form of
censorship or a dragging on non-artistic questions like social
worthiness (why are you parsing it in this way? did anyone say that
such work should not be written or that realities should not be
faced? it was a issue of whether the poem was in fact achieving what
it superficially aimed for, and a suggestion that, for various
reasons, I thought that was questionable). I evaluate art on a
potency which for me is rooted in complexity and uncertainty, maybe
something like a quotient of negative capability; and art which
actually does not activate that sense successfully does not, for me,
work. This matters to me far more than, say, technical virtuosity,
although I believe that the more capable an artist is technically,
the wider her range of expressiveness. But technique is, as Celan
said, something you should take for granted, like hygiene. Poetry
very often is capable of transcending the poet's own blindnesses, by
reaching deeper into consciousness; Derek Walcott, I remember, has an
interesting and uncomfortable discussion of Frost's racism, in which
he precisely argues that. But it has to be very potent and
intelligent poetry to do so. Eliot is capable of it, for instance.
Or Baudelaire. And it's also why I can read Nietzsche without
flinching. But less supple and self questioning works can, by not
maintaining that tension of doubt and complexity, simply fall into
the traps that continually threaten these writers (and which trap
them too, when they are not at their best - Wallace Stevens is maybe
the best example of that). For me, it's a question of the level of
consciousness (and self consciousness) within the writing itself.
Best
A
--
Alison Croggon
Editor
Masthead Online
http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/
Home page
http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
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