Erminia wrote:
>It is a question of giving up the illusion that political boldness can make
>effective changes, and facing the defeat consisting in the fact that any
>discourse which moves from the political towards the humanitarian is
>Sadly going to be boycotted , as we well know, now, in these decades
>of ours.
Musil saw the necessity to be political, which occurred when Hitler came
to power, as an irrevocable mutilation of his freedom as a writer.
I have never believed that writing can change anything. Nevertheless I
also have trouble believing also that writing can change nothing. This
most probably is because at a most personal level writing has been a
dynamic for change within me. I can't be that unique.
>The people that expressed negative opinions on your idealist theatre play,
>(which surely displays a form of political boldness, and which probably
>aims
>at believing that it is still possible for the artist to conduct a
>dialogue) are no cruel people, they are just radical sinister and cynical
>observers,
No, they're just cowards who are afraid to look at the world around them.
Hear no evil, see no evil... Neither radical nor especially sinister, if
(I think) deeply damaging. (I really don't know if the play could be
called "idealist"!) It's had plenty of good reviews, that's not the
question... it's the parameters of public discourse, and how quickly they
are closed up, which concerns me.
Of course the artist can have a dialogue, with fellow artists, with an
audience. It's just that a serious dialogue tends to be a small one.
The dominance of the bourgeois literary critic in general public
discourse has long gone, and in Australia I'm not sure it ever existed.
Best
Alison
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